KY Attorney General Challenges Mandate for Federal Contractors
The Biden Administration’s COVID-19 national vaccine mandates are facing a series of legal challenges and obstacles, including within the Commonwealth.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has filed a lawsuit challenging the mandate for federal contractors. In fiscal year 2021, the federal government awarded $9.3 billion across 32,465 contracts for work done in Kentucky.
The filing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky was joined by Ohio and Tennessee. Read the lawsuit here.
According to Cameron, they “are taking the issue of federal overreach seriously and will protect the livelihoods of countless Kentuckians and Kentucky businesses from overbroad mandates.”
Last week, Attorney General Cameron also joined 20 attorneys general in a letter to President Biden expressing their concerns and requesting that the mandate be stopped. Read the letter here.
Alliance Defending Freedom Challenges Mandate for Private Employers
One of The Family Foundation’s national allies, Alliance Defending Freedom, also filed a challenge to the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate for private employers that was announced this week. The case, The Daily Wire v. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over Kentucky.
The mandate requires all private employers of 100 or more employees to force unvaccinated employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, be subject to weekly testing and masking requirements, or lose their job.
ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Bangert emphasized that the government has no authority to compel businesses to “intrude on their employees’ personal health decisions” or “unilaterally treat unvaccinated employees like workplace hazards or to compel employers to become vaccine commissars….”
The lawsuit takes no position on any COVID-19 vaccine or whether any person should make the personal decision whether to receive it. The Daily Wire has employees who have received a COVID-19 vaccine and those who have not.
The Family Foundation is thankful for the legal challenges filed by Attorney General Cameron and Alliance Defending Freedom; individuals should have the right to make their own personal decisions about the COVID-19 vaccine, consistent with their conscience.
