Biden’s COVID Measures Tank With Voters As Senate Joins Courts In Rejecting Vaccine Mandates

Casey Harper, The Center Square

President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates have been rejected time and again in the federal court system, leaving limited chances for their survival. Two Democrats joined all 50 Republicans and the U.S. Senate in joining the courtrooms Wednesday night to reject the mandate from the private sector.

At the same time, polling shows Americans are steadily losing confidence in Biden’s handling of the pandemic as well as his presidency overall.

Biden in September enacted three vaccination mandates which have been rescinded by the judicial branches. Biden made the announcement via executive actions for mandates to most health care workers; a second was for federal contractors and a third was for employees in private companies employing at least 100 people.

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The judges stopped all three of them, calling them an example of serious executive overreach.

“We’ve seen two consistent patterns in the past few months: the Biden Administration announcing extraordinarily aggressive new mandates intruding into the private decisions of businesses and citizens, and courts striking them down as illegal,” said Daniel Suhr, managing attorney at the Liberty Justice Center, which has represented clients challenging Biden’s vaccine mandates. “While we expect ultimately one or more of these cases will reach the United States Supreme Court for final resolution, the unanimity of the lower courts and the Supreme Court’s prior decision on the CDC’s eviction moratorium this summer show why these mandates must fall.

“There’s a reason the President’s new package of COVID measures last week did not include any new mandates,” he added.

A federal judge in Georgia this week issued an injunction halting Biden’s mandate on federal contractors. U.S. District Judge Stan Baker in Savannah, Georgia, ruled that President Joe Biden’s federal contractor mandate overstepped the president’s authority.

“The Court acknowledges the tragic toll that the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought throughout the nation and the globe,” Baker wrote. “However, even in times of crisis this Court must preserve the rule of law and ensure that all branches of government act within the bounds of their constitutionally granted authorities.”

Critics of the mandate called it federal overreach and a “gross abuse of power.”

“I’ve heard from federal contractors and their employees across the state who were worried they’d be forced to get a vaccine they don’t want. Just because a company happens to contract with the federal government does not mean its workers lose their rights,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said. “The vaccine mandates are a gross abuse of power – and now three of them are blocked in Montana. I’ll continue to fight President Biden’s unlawful mandates and protect Montanans’ rights.”

Biden’s mandate on most health care workers was blocked in court as well.

“There is no question that mandating a vaccine to 10.3 million health care workers is something that should be done by Congress, not a government agency,” U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty in Louisiana wrote. “It is not clear that even an act of Congress mandating a vaccine would be constitutional.”

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Biden also established a mandate for private companies employing more than 99 people to make sure their employees get the vaccine. Employers who fail to comply with the mandate could face severe penalties.

The Fifth U.S. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, New Orleans, rejected that mandate. Wednesday’s U.S. Senate vote was 52 to 48.

“The Mandate threatens to substantially burden the liberty interests of reluctant individual recipients put to a choice between their job(s) and their jab(s),” the panel wrote.

Although the Senate is likely to vote to repeal corporate vaccine mandates, the House of Representatives in the United States will not. However, the opposition to these measures has been growing steadily.

Biden’s administration stated that it would continue to support the mandates and urged businesses to comply with the mandates even though they no longer have legal obligation to. This case could reach the Supreme Court.

“Our message to businesses right now is to move forward with measures that will make their workplaces safer and protect their workforces from COVID-19,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “That was our message after the first stay issued by the Fifth Circuit. That remains our message and nothing has changed.”

Meanwhile, Biden’s poll numbers on COVID-19 have steadily declined. FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of the data shows that when Biden took office, 69% of Americans approved of his response to the coronavirus.

Biden, for example, pledged that the virus would be defeated on his campaign trail. He made the fight against it one of the central principles of his White House bid.

Biden was now below 60% in favor of the issue by mid-July. Biden started issuing mandates more frequently, which led to his approval falling even further. The latest compilation of polling data from FiveThirtyEight shows only 47.4% of Americans approve of Biden’s response to the virus, with 44.5% disapproving.

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Simultaneously, Biden’s job approval numbers have taken a dive. According to the Wall Street Journal, only 41% approve of Biden while 57% are disapproval.

Some of this poll data, though, does not take into account the recent Omicron variant and Biden’s response. Recent Rasmussen surveys, which were taken following the Omicron variation’s emergence, show that Biden has only 42% approval of his handling of virus. 55% are disapproving.

“Most voters now disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying he broke the promise he made during the campaign last year to ‘shut down the virus,’” Rasmussen said.

This article was Syndicated by permission of The Center Square.