Senate Votes To Reject Vaccine Mandate, Faces Tougher Test In House

In what is likely to be just a symbolic victory for Republicans, the United States Senate voted Wednesday to repeal President Biden's vaccine mandate for private businesses.

Thursday, December 9th 2021, 5:28 pm



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In what is likely to be just a symbolic victory for Republicans, the United States Senate voted Wednesday to repeal President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for private businesses.

Two Democrats -- Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia -- joined all 50 GOP Senators in approving the resolution, which came to the floor through the increasingly popular Congressional Review Act.

The measure now goes to the House where it will be more difficult for Republicans to force a vote.

In September, Biden announced his intention to require that certain private sector workers get the shot or submit to weekly testing as a condition of continued employment due to frustration with the reluctance of millions of Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The Department of Labor issued the emergency rule in November.

The mandate, applying to businesses with 100 or more employees, was stayed days later by a panel of federal judges who questioned whether the president may have exceeded his authority and called for further judicial review.

"The courts have already stepped in and said the president doesn’t have the authority to do this, and this, tonight is [about] whether this body agrees that the president should have unilateral power to declare whatever he wants for any private sector business in the country or if the president doesn’t have the authority to do that," said Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford during floor debate on the resolution.

Lankford, along with all members of the Oklahoma delegation, has been vaccinated and he repeated Wednesday night his belief that the vaccines are safe and effective, but he said it's un-American to force people to get vaccinated.

"The American people have responded loud and clear: they believe we live in the land of the free, and while millions and millions have been vaccinated," Lankford said. "They all turned around and say it was also my choice to be able to do that."

Under the Congressional Review Act, created in 1996 as a specific tool for Congress to overturn rules issued by federal agencies, 30 senators must petition for the resolution to be released from committee and brought to the floor, where it cannot be filibustered. The CRA "tool" was used successfully just once between 1996 and 2016, but 19 times since then.

The protocols are more stringent in the House, however, where half of the members would have to sign on to a petition to discharge the measure from committee. That could be a high bar to get over, and even if it happened, the White House has indicated Biden would veto it.

Indeed, the administration continues to insist the Labor Department has every right to issue what is technically an Emergency Temporary Standard, in order to protect worker safety, and recently said the mandates – even without being enforced yet – are working.

“It’s clear that these requirements, driven by the president’s leadership, are getting more people vaccinated, accelerating our path out of the pandemic, saving more lives,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki last month.

But critics, like Lankford, said this is pure government overreach, and must be stopped.

“That’s what we’re talking about tonight,” Lankford said to his Senate colleagues. “Putting a nail in the coffin with a vote in the United States Senate to say, 'no, we will not allow this.'”

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