SCOTUS blocks Biden’s workplace vaccine rule

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The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked enforcement of President Joe Biden’s requirement that workers at larger businesses get vaccinated against Covid-19 or submit to weekly testing, a major blow to the administration’s strategy for fighting the coronavirus’ spread.

But the justices ruled that a separate federal policy insisting that many health care workers be vaccinated could move forward.

The decision to halt the most widely applicable mandate — the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s emergency standard for businesses and other organizations with more than 100 employees — split the court, 6-3, along the usual ideological lines.
The high court’s action allowing the health care worker rule to proceed garnered a narrow five-justice majority formed by the court’s three Democratic appointees as well as two Republican-appointed jurists, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The court’s action on the business mandate punts that issue back to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But it signals that if the case returns to the high court, a majority of the justices will likely side with businesses and Republican-led states that sued to squelch the requirement, which would affect an estimated 84 million workers as the Omicron variant is driving up cases and straining health care systems.

Still, given the fast-moving nature of the pandemic, the Supreme Court’s interim actions take on added weight.

The court’s conservative members wrote in an unsigned opinion that OSHA — part of the Labor Department — had overstepped its authority in issuing the regulation.