As Supreme Court decisions go, this was surely the easiest call the justices will have this term. Jarrett was on Hannity’s program just hours after Biden announced his vaccine mandate for businesses on September 9th. During the interview, Jarrett predicted what occurred at the Supreme Court on Thursday.
Jarrett said in September that this was an obvious “unconstitutional abuse of power that would be rejected by the Supreme Court.” Why? Because under the 10th Amendment, states have police power to make decisions about public health concerns, not the federal government.
For more than a hundred years, states have ordered vaccine mandates. And the Supreme Court upheld those mandates twice —1905 and 1922. At the time, the high court said these are properly state powers, not federal powers. So, the justices Thursday were simply following both the Constitution and longstanding Supreme Court precedent.
Biden knew that his business mandate was lawless. For months, he said he had no authority to impose it. His press secretary and others in the administration said the same thing. Dr. Anthony Fauci, his science adviser, said it. So, Biden decided he’d try an “end-run” or “workaround” by making OSHA issue the order. But that was obviously lawless too. OSHA governs exposure to “substances or agents” that are toxic. Viruses are neither under the law.
And Thursday, the Supreme Court made an important point. The COVID virus is not strictly an occupational hazard. It’s a hazard everywhere. It’s universal and not unique to the workplace. So, Biden and OSHA were exceeding their authority.
Upholding the smaller federal healthcare worker mandate was also an easy decision. Because it involved Medicaid & Medicare facilities and federal dollars, the federal government was acting as an employer. Therefore, under the law, it has the right to impose inoculations. Moreover, there was virtually no opposition to the order by the affected health care facilities. They were already imposing vaccine requirements on their own.
