X

Judge blocks COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal workers

The ruling is the latest setback to the Biden administration's efforts to boost vaccination rates.

Carrie Mihalcik Former Managing Editor / News
Carrie was a managing editor at CNET focused on breaking and trending news. She'd been reporting and editing for more than a decade, including at the National Journal and Current TV.
Expertise Breaking News, Technology Credentials
  • Carrie has lived on both coasts and can definitively say that Chesapeake Bay blue crabs are the best.
Corinne Reichert Senior Editor
Corinne Reichert (she/her) grew up in Sydney, Australia and moved to California in 2019. She holds degrees in law and communications, and currently writes news, analysis and features for CNET across the topics of electric vehicles, broadband networks, mobile devices, big tech, artificial intelligence, home technology and entertainment. In her spare time, she watches soccer games and F1 races, and goes to Disneyland as often as possible.
Expertise News, mobile, broadband, 5G, home tech, streaming services, entertainment, AI, policy, business, politics Credentials
  • I've been covering technology and mobile for 12 years, first as a telecommunications reporter and assistant editor at ZDNet in Australia, then as CNET's West Coast head of breaking news, and now in the Thought Leadership team.
Carrie Mihalcik
Corinne Reichert
2 min read
covid-19-vaccines-regular-endless-booster-shots-syringes-winter-2021-cnet-106

COVID-19 vaccines are safe and highly effective at preventing hospitalization and severe illness.

Sarah Tew/CNET

A federal judge in Texas has blocked US President Joe Biden's mandate requiring federal workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The Friday decision is the latest blow to the Biden administration's efforts to boost vaccination rates. 

The decision comes after the US Supreme Court last week blocked the administration's COVID-19 vaccine-or-test mandate for businesses with 100 or more workers, which confined the mandate only to federal workers.

In a 20-page opinion and order, Judge Jeffrey Brown said Friday that Biden's executive order requiring federal workers to get vaccinated exceeds the president's authority. 

"It is ... about whether the president can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment," Brown wrote. "That, under the current state of the law as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far." 

Read more: COVID-19 booster shots: Will I need a fourth vaccine dose?

Biden issued executive orders in September requiring the federal government's executive branch and contractors of the federal government to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The deadline to get vaccinated was Nov. 22.

On Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that 98% of federal workers are already vaccinated, according to CNBC. "We are confident in our legal authority here," Psaki added. 

The original mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees was issued by the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and would have covered about 84 million employees, according to the Supreme Court's opinion last week. 

Before it could come into effect, Louisiana, Texas, Utah, South Carolina and Mississippi joined with businesses as well as religious and advocacy organizations to file for a permanent injunction against the mandate, and it was temporarily blocked by a federal appeals panel in Louisiana in November before being reinstated after a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati in December.

The Supreme Court's vote last week to block the employee mandate was 6 to 3, while they voted to uphold the health care worker mandate 5 to 4. 

The decision comes as COVID-19 cases are rapidly on the rise across the US due to the emergence of the highly infectious omicron variant. The US currently has a 28-day case total of around 17.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University's COVID tracking numbers from Friday.

The Biden administration has already filed to appeal the decision. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for additional comment.