President Joe Biden extended an eviction moratorium already deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, so it would come as little surprise that President Norms would ignore the law going forward with his imperiled presidency. But Biden’s latest blow in his campaign against the coronavirus isn’t just a legal mess destined for endless court challenges; it’s a logistical nightmare with little likelihood of doing anything other than further tightening the labor market and inflaming the sentiments of the vaccine-hesitant.
As a part of his umpteenth plan to stop the pandemic, the White House announced a series of vaccine requirements. Two of these, one for contractors with the federal government and another for healthcare workers at facilities funded by Medicare and Medicaid, seem kosher enough, legally speaking. But Biden’s signature mandate is directed at the 80 million workers at private businesses with 100 or more employees.
“The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is developing a rule that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work,” the administration announced. “OSHA will issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to implement this requirement.”
That sound you hear is labor lawyers across the country licking their lips over the prospect of profits.
Legally speaking, the rule is dubious at best. While the administrative state offers an unseemly amount of authority to the Labor Department in the name of workplace safety, legal challenges will likely range from the 14th Amendment to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Even in the case those challenges fail, the odds of a district court judge issuing a nationwide injunction are decent enough to render the rule a gamble. All of this remains to be seen in the exact text of the rule
But even more baffling is how Biden believes this can be enforced. Two and a half seconds ago, Democrats and the media went apoplectic at the prospect of Texas deputizing citizens to enforce their fetal heartbeat abortion ban, and now what? Employers are supposed to narc on each other to the federal government should a company fail to comply? And none of that is to mention that the economic implications will be given our already artificially tight labor market.
From Democrats casting doubt on the vaccine during the Trump administration to the disastrous Johnson & Johnson pause, the White House and the public health bureaucracy have failed to sell the vaccine successfully. With no political capital left to spare, Biden has resorted to brute force.
