By AlaskaWatchman.com

In a major blow to President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate scheme, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against his business mandate, which was issued in November by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). All three of the Democrat-appointed justices dissented. This mandate aims to force approximately 84 million American workers to submit to the Covid jabs or face weekly testing in order to keep their jobs. For now, the ruling is suspended until the issue is litigated in the lower courts.

On the other hand, the high court ruled 5-4 that Biden’s vax mandate for healthcare workers could remain in place while it works its way through the courts. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s liberal block to uphold the mandate, for now. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) mandate applies to most employees in healthcare settings that receive federal Medicaid and Medicare funding. Alaska and other states had asked the Supreme Court to block this mandate while the case is litigated. The court declined.

Alaska and a coalition of other states had also sued the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which attempted to impose the nationwide mandate on private businesses with more than 100 employees. The high court ruled that the legal challenge by Alaska and other states is likely to succeed.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy praised the court’s decision to block the OSHA mandate and expressed hope that it will eventually strike down the medical mandate as well.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to block the OSHA vaccine mandate is a huge victory for individual, business and states’ rights,” Dunleavy stated on Jan. 13. “OSHA was exceeding its authority and the Supreme Court made the right call in the end. We hope that they view the other unconstitutional mandates in the same light.”

Dunleavy added that the state will continue to make available vaccines, therapeutics and information for Alaskans to “chart their own health decisions.”

Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor joined nine other states in November in suing the Biden Administration over the healthcare mandate. The same month, Alaska and 10 other states filed suit to stop the OSHA private employer mandate.

Taylor and the State of Alaska are also seeking to block federally mandated vaccine requirements for federal contractors and for Head Start employees.

“In its decision today, the court referred to OSHA mandate as a ‘significant encroachment’ on life and health of millions of Americans, and we continue to believe this intrusion into personal liberties shouldn’t be dictated by the federal government,” Taylor stated. “It’s unfortunate the court placed healthcare workers in a different category than other Americans, and the decision not to uphold an injunction and protect the individual freedoms of healthcare workers in Alaska could have a lasting and damaging impact on staffing and patient care at medical facilities across the state.”

Taylor noted that both cases are continuing through the lower court levels, where the goal is to “demonstrate in court that the federal government does not have the authority to impose these overarching mandates.”

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SCOTUS blocks vax mandate for private employers, lets medical mandate stand

Joel Davidson
Joel is Editor-in-Chief of the Alaska Watchman. Joel is an award winning journalist and has been reporting for over 24 years, He is a proud father of 8 children, and lives in Palmer, Alaska.


7 Comments

  • Yetitrax says:

    That is a little good news.
    Now we need to get the issue of early treatment options addressed in this state.
    Those medications must be made available to anyone who wants them, and penalties made for anyone who denies a person the right to choose. The Vax only narrative has completely fallen apart.

  • Ed Martin Jr says:

    Good Luck Dumbleavey! CJ Roberts is a Globalist appointee of the Bush cartel . As for Bret K that’s not shaping up good for his record either ! This may end up being the only good news on this PLANDEMIC!

  • Natural Alaskan says:

    Dunleavy wants to let Alaskans “chart their own course?” As in get the jab or lose your job. Here’s news for you, Dunleavy, even though you spent millions of taxpayers money to import scabs to replace fired healthcare workers, you will never replace all of us who spent 8-13 years in school for our professions. Those temporary replacements cost twice as much. Alaska already has the most expensive healthcare in the nation, and Dunleavy, along with the legislature, are only making it worse. So you see, it’s not just about the healthcare workers. If you really cared about Alaskans, you would do what some states are doing, and require employers to grant exemptions, which are allowed even by the mandates.

  • hoftroy says:

    On the nurse mandate and the doctor mandate, Roberts and Kavanaugh did not have a backbone and joined with the liberals to allow the nurse mandate,” Governor Ron DeSantis noted that some hospitals, such as in California, are so short-staffed that they’re now allowing vaccinated , COVID-POSITIVE employees to go back to work. So they have COVID-positive people back on, meanwhile the unvaccinated, likely immune through prior infection, healthy nurses, that are on the sidelines fired,”
    “How insane are these policies?” In Florida, we protected the nurses, so we have people that are working. But in other states, they fired nurses who were not vaccinated.”

  • jh says:

    What About a Federal Mandate that you lose weight because you are too FAT?

  • jh says:

    We need to keep fighting until the radical leftist democratic party, the house of cards come tumbling down.

  • jh says:

    I heard Roseanne Barr had an explosion after a taco Tuesday when the tsunami hit last week.
    Negligence?
    We need to contact the radical leftist Democrats for damage control. Is segregation needed?