Above: Covid-19 vaccine mandate protest at the Lincoln Memorial, January 2022. A decision on the underlying issue of the limits of a President’s powers over federal workers could have wide effect. Image: Nicole Glass Photography/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe Justice Department again has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to end a suit over the Biden administration’s now-lifted Coronavirus vaccination mandate for federal employees, while the high court has signaled that it could decide on the issue soon.
The Justice Department’s latest request came in response to a motion by the group bringing the suit, Feds for Medical Freedom, to allow a federal district judge to consider the merits of their claim that the mandate exceeded a President’s authority over the federal workforce. That motion in turn was in response to the administration’s motion to dismiss the case as moot.
A decision on the underlying issue of the limits of a President’s powers over federal workers could have wide effect. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the mandate just as agencies were to begin enforcing it, on grounds that the challenge was likely to succeed. At issue now is whether the judge should be allowed to conduct a full examination.
The focus of the suit has been on the procedural question of whether the challenge had to first be brought through the MSPB process; the full Fifth Circuit federal appeals court ruled in the spring that the case could be taken directly into federal court.
The issue before the high court is also is one of legal procedure involving standards for declaring a case moot. The Justice Department most recently again asserted that there is no “live controversy” for a court to decide and that “the same policy cannot be reasonably expected to recur.”
In response to the group’s argument that the administration delayed lifting the mandate until getting a decision from the appeals court, the Justice Department argued that Biden acted “for reasons independent of litigation, in the good-faith exercise of his constitutional and statutory powers.”
The high court meanwhile has scheduled the case for a “conference” September 26, a meeting at which the justices decide which cases they will hear.
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