The Supreme Court has just blocked Biden’s vaccine mandate for large businesses, however they have allowed it for federally funded health care facilities:
BREAKING: The Supreme Court BLOCKS the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine-or-test requirement for large workplaces. The court ALLOWS a vaccine mandate for workers at federally funded health care facilities to take effect nationwide.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) January 13, 2022
The opinion on the workplace vax-or-test policy is here: https://t.co/ClbNPk9ecq.
The opinion on the health care vaccine mandate is here: https://t.co/O4UiNXU4cz.— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) January 13, 2022
Breyer, Sotomayor, & Kagan dissent from the decision to block the vax-or-test rule for workplaces of 100 or more employees.
Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, & Barrett dissent from the decision to allow the health care vaccine mandate to take effect nationwide.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) January 13, 2022
This is a breaking news story and we’ll have more on this shortly…
UPDATE: Here’s a little more from the NY Times:
The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers, dealing a blow to a key element of the White House’s plan to address the pandemic as cases resulting from the Omicron variant are on the rise.
But the court allowed a more modest mandate requiring health care workers at facilities receiving federal money to be vaccinated.
The vote in the employer mandate case was 6 to 3, with liberal justices in dissent. The vote in the health care case was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joining the liberal justices to form a majority.
The employer mandate would have required workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or to wear masks and be tested weekly, though employers were not required to pay for the testing. There were exceptions for workers with religious objections and those who do not come into close contact with other people at their jobs, like those who work from home or exclusively outdoors.
As far as I can tell, the federal employee mandate was not part of these rulings. Still looking to find more on this…