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   From: except_you_faggots@cnn.com   
      
   Challenges mount after lower court clears way for employer mandate   
      
   Legal attacks on President Joe Biden’s employer vaccine mandate   
   reached the Supreme Court Friday night after a federal appeals court   
   cleared the way for its enforcement earlier in the day.   
      
   The justices were flooded with emergency appeals from red states and   
   conservative legal groups within hours of the lower court’s   
   decision. The mandate requires 80 million workers to get vaccinated   
   or wear masks and pay for weekly tests.   
      
   The White House is warning employers to prepare for compliance with   
   the mandate despite its uncertain legal prospects, sagging   
   popularity, and relaxed enforcement guidance from the Occupational   
   Safety and Health Administration. The pressure campaign is augmented   
   by blue state authorities who are enforcing mask and vaccine   
   mandates of their own in response to the latest COVID variant.   
      
   "Especially as the U.S. faces the highly transmissible Omicron   
   variant, it’s critical we move forward with vaccination requirements   
   and protections for workers with the urgency needed in this moment,"   
   White House spokesman Kevin Munoz said of the Sixth Circuit’s   
   decision.   
      
   Vaccine disputes will dominate the High Court’s work going into the   
   new year. The employer mandate appeals arrived at the Supreme Court   
   Friday alongside a separate dispute involving the Biden   
   administration’s vaccine rules for health care workers. Those rules,   
   which cover 17 million workers, require any provider that takes   
   money from Medicare or Medicaid to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4.   
   Those rules are currently on hold in 24 states as a result of   
   decisions from two different federal appeals courts.   
      
   Judge Jane Stranch delivered Friday’s 2-1 decision upholding the   
   employer mandate. Stranch said the federal law that chartered OSHA   
   gave the agency broad authority to fight "viruses." And she framed   
   the administration’s rule as a flexible one that lets employers   
   "choose the policy implementing those requirements that is best   
   suited to their workplace."   
      
   "The virus rages on, mutating into different variants, and posing   
   new risks. Recognizing that the ‘old normal’ is not going to return,   
   employers and employees have sought new models for a workplace that   
   will protect the safety and health of employees," Stranch wrote.   
      
   Judge Joan Larsen dissented from Stranch’s decision.   
      
   OSHA announced a grace period for employers in a statement following   
   Friday’s decision. Employers have until Jan. 10 to comply with the   
   rule. Testing requirements won’t be enforced before Feb. 9.   
      
   At least half a dozen appeals reached the Supreme Court on Friday   
   night. Challengers include a coalition of red states led by Ohio,   
   religious schools and homeschooling associations, and business   
   groups like the Job Creators Network. Business groups say compliance   
   costs the rule imposes are especially burdensome as they grapple   
   with the double whammy of inflation and staffing shortages.   
      
   "This mandate will make it even harder for small business owners to   
   find and keep employees," Job Creators Network president Alfredo   
   Ortiz said. "The 6th Circuit irresponsibly upheld an illegal rule   
   and expects employers to somehow comply with a complicated   
   regulation in a period of two weeks, including the holidays."   
      
   Many of the appeals draw heavily from a dissent Chief Judge Jeffrey   
   Sutton handed down on Wednesday, which argues the mandate is an   
   unjustified federal overreach. Sutton’s opinion will likely be   
   influential at the High Court, and it provides a useful roadmap for   
   justices inclined to strike the mandate down.   
      
   It’s not clear how the justices will proceed. Using ordinary   
   emergency procedures, they could resolve the dispute in a matter of   
   days relying on legal briefs alone, and might give a short   
   explanation for the ultimate result.   
      
   But the Court’s emergency procedures have come under sustained   
   criticism of late, primarily from leftwing sources, and they appear   
   to have rankled some members of the Court. As such, the justices   
   might schedule an oral argument and issue a lengthier decision,   
   which would likely take several weeks. The justices followed that   
   route earlier this year in emergency cases involving Texas’s novel   
   abortion law.   
      
   Several plaintiffs groups expressed openness to the second route,   
   including the red state coalition and the Alliance Defending   
   Freedom, a conservative cause lawyering group representing religious   
   institutions fighting the mandate.   
      
      
   https://freebeacon.com/courts/legal-attacks-on-bidens-vaccine-   
   mandate-reach-supreme-court/   
      
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