Rep. Roy's statement on SCOTUS vaccine mandate orders

WASHINGTON — Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21) issued the following statement Thursday afternoon following the Supreme Court's orders on two of the Biden administration's federal vaccine mandates:

Today, the Supreme Court blocked President Biden's blatantly unconstitutional OSHA vaccine mandate for workers across the country.This was the correct decision. The OSHA mandate was a clear overreach by a President desperate to move forward on his failing political agenda – no matter how many lives and livelihoods might have been destroyed. As Justice Gorsuch wrote, "…Congress has chosen not to afford OSHA—or any federal agency—the authority to issue a vaccine mandate. Indeed, a majority of the Senate even voted to disapprove OSHA's regulation. It seems, too, that the agency pursued its regulatory initiative only as a legislative ‘workaround.'" The American people have had more than enough of the tyrannical and unlawful policies forced on them in the supposed name of public health.

I am, however, disappointed to see the Court — particularly Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh — simultaneously uphold President Biden's mandate forcing certain healthcare workers to be vaccinated. Our healthcare workers were upheld as heroes during the early pandemic; now they face the threat of losing their livelihoods over a bureaucratic edict that does nothing to slow the spread of this virus. Biden does not have the power to do this. As Justice Thomas wrote, "if Congress had wanted to grant CMS authority to impose a nationwide vaccine mandate, and consequently alter the state-federal balance, it would have said so clearly. It did not." Whether or not government funding is involved – it is simply morally wrong to take away the livelihoods of Americans for choosing to control and own their own medical decisions.

I hope that the CMS decision has shown many of my fellow Republicans the folly of punting the question of these mandates to the court, and I encourage more of them to join me in fighting to defund any and all federal government COVID-19 mandates going forward.

###