On Friday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt the Biden Administration another blow in its quest to control people’s personal healthcare decisions.
The court is currently considering whether the Biden Administration can shoehorn a vaccine-or-test requirement on private businesses with over 100 employees into the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s scope of authority.
The battle began on Nov. 5 with OSHA’s publication of an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that required all private businesses that employ over 100 people to establish a COVID-19 vaccine-or-test policy, and to require all dirty unvax employees to wear masks of shame in the workplace.
Related: Short-Term Spending Deal in Peril as GOP Senators Demand an End to Vaccine Mandates
It turned out that being forced to choose between injecting yourself with a controversial novel vaccine or losing your livelihood, as well as the entire process of opening up your private personal business to intrusive stooges, was really unpopular. Lawsuits flew and decisions were handed down, almost entirely unfavorable to the administration. The government pressed its case and when the dust settled, the Sixth Circuit had been selected by lottery to rule on a large, consolidated case that will decide the fate of the OSHA mandate.
Which makes the White House none too pleased. As I wrote previously about the court,
The Sixth Circuit is seated in Cincinnati and serves four states square in the American heartland (Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, and Kentucky). Justices nominated by Republican presidents outnumber Democrat nominees 10–6.
Predictably, the mandate mongers filed a motion on Nov. 23, asking the court to transfer the case to another, presumably friendlier court (because one thing leftists love to do is judge shop), and to lift a stay the Fifth Circuit had placed on the ETS.
On Nov. 3, the court issued a ruling on the motion:
The Court hereby DENIES the motions to transfer the matter to the Fifth Circuit (Dkt. 95)
and the D.C. Circuit (Dkt. 213).
and
Given the Governments pending motion, the motions to stay the agency’s ruling and related motions … are hereby DENIED AS MOOT.
Oof. Looks like Team Mandate will have to wait for the Sixth Circuit’s decision, which, if it isn’t to their liking, they will undoubtedly appeal. Court watchers expect the case to proceed to the Supreme Court before it’s finally settled.
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