(LifeSiteNews) — A federal court on Monday delivered yet another blow to President Joe Biden’s coercive COVID jab agenda, ruling that the Biden administration cannot force federal contractors to get the coronavirus shot as a condition of employment.
A panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its 2-1 ruling on December 19 in a 43-page decision upholding a lower court’s decision. The move came in response to a lawsuit filed by Indiana, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and upholds an earlier injunction placed against the mandate by the lower district court.
The Fifth Circuit Court said the Biden administration’s mandate exceeded the president’s power and was “unlawful,” adding that public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic don’t justify the abrogation of the U.S. Constitution.
Court upholds injunction against Biden COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors in three states https://t.co/dRFekPPWkF
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 21, 2022
Biden had implemented the sweeping mandate in question via a September 2021 executive order, citing his authority under the 1949 Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, also known as the “Procurement Act.”
The mandate has been blocked multiple times in court before Monday’s decision after the administration was forced to loosen it late last year over supply chain concerns. Reuters noted the mandate and its rollback impacts roughly 20% of U.S. employees, since thousands of companies contract with the federal government.
Arguing it’s at the very least “questionable” whether the federal contractor jab mandate falls “within the longstanding practice and construction” of the U.S. president’s authority under the Procurement Act, the Fifth Circuit on Monday decided that it “cannot permit such a mandate to remain in place absent a clear statement by Congress that it wishes to endow the presidency with such power.”
RELATED: Court again blocks COVID vaccine mandate for federal workers
The court noted that a jab mandate differs widely from other requirements that could be implemented under the Procurement Act in that, citing a 2021 Sixth Circuit dissent in a separate COVID jab mandate case in observing that a mandated injection “cannot be undone at the end of the workday.”
According to the ruling, allowing Biden’s jab mandate to continue would mean that the president would have an overly broad “[s]cope” within which to interpret his powers to dictate workplace safety, leading to “outlandish” but arguably possible excesses like a federal ban on tobacco use for federal contractors or other intrusive requirements.
“The President would have little difficulty, under the close nexus test, finding a close relationship between economy and efficiency and a requirement that all federal contractors certify that their employees take daily vitamins, live in smoke-free homes, exercise three times a week, or even, at the extremity, take birth control in order to reduce absenteeism relating to childbirth and care,” the judges wrote.
The court acknowledged the federal government’s contention that its mandate was necessary “at least in part that we are facing a ‘once-in-a-century’ pandemic,” but pointed out that “[t]he Constitution is not abrogated in a pandemic.”
“The pandemic, challenging as it has been for the President, the legislature, the courts, and especially the populace, does not justify such an enormous and transformative expansion of presidential authority,” the ruling read.
The judges concluded that the Biden administration’s moves to use the law to “force obligations on individual employees” was both “unprecedented” and “unlawful.”
ICYMI: Yesterday, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of AG Landry – affirming the preliminary injunction against Joe Biden’s #COVID shot mandate for federal contractors. #MedicalFreedom pic.twitter.com/vyWIF8CVdW
— AG Jeff Landry (@AGJeffLandry) December 20, 2022
The Fifth Circuit’s Monday decision comes amid a raft of similar setbacks for the Biden administration’s jab mandates. Sarah Parshall-Perry, senior legal fellow with the Heritage Institute, told the Daily Wire’s “Morning Wire” report on Wednesday that the healthcare worker jab mandate stands alone as the only federal COVID shot mandate “of any real significance” to survive the blistering array of legal challenges.
The U.S. Supreme Court had the healthcare worker mandate earlier this year while simultaneously tossing Biden’s other effort to force employees of large U.S. companies to get the jab or lose their jobs.
Many Americans remain deeply concerned about the COVID-19 shots’ safety and efficacy compared with the low risk to most otherwise healthy people presented by the virus itself. Moreover, many Americans also harbor serious ethical reservations about the use of cells from aborted babies in the research and development of the drugs.