A U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (Galveston Division) has halted Executive Order 14043 “because the President’s authority is not that broad” opined United States District Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown in Feds for Medical Freedom v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
As entered into public record on January 21, Judge Brown said: “Executive Order 14043 amounts to a presidential mandate that all federal employees consent to vaccination against COVID-19 or lose their jobs.”
“[This decision] sends the message that President Biden is not able to rule by decree,” Liberty Counsel Litigation Attorney Richard Mast said in an interview with The Dallas Express.
“We are a government of laws and we are a representative Republic, and it is Congress that makes laws and the executive branch that enforces them. Regardless of certain aspects of executive power, the federal government and the President, specifically, (have) no authority to impose a mandate on what citizens must take into their own bodies or for medical procedures. It’s been an abuse of power, and we look forward to that abuse being stopped very soon,” said the attorney.
Feds 4 Medical Freedom (F4MF) sued the Biden administration on December 21, 2021, on behalf of more than 700 border patrol agents, pilots, diplomats, firefighters, contractors, and other Americans who would be affected by the order.
F4MF’s complaint was filed last year after the guidelines were issued, which required more than 3.5 million federal workers to undergo vaccination without the option of regular testing in lieu of inoculation unless they secured approved medical or religious exemptions.
The mandate, released September 9, 2021, read, “The health and safety of the Federal workforce, and the health and safety of members of the public with whom they interact, are foundational to the efficiency of the civil service. I have determined that ensuring the health and safety of the Federal workforce and the efficiency of the civil service requires immediate action to protect the Federal workforce and individuals interacting with the Federal workforce. It is essential that Federal employees take all available steps to protect themselves and avoid spreading COVID-19 to their co-workers and members of the public. The CDC has found that the best way to do so is to be vaccinated.”
Mast told The Dallas Express, “We’re seeing a steady march of judges striking down these unconstitutional mandates and this is yet another one in that column. Every judge that goes that way is incentive for the next judge who is considering whatever mandate he or she may be considering to rule in favor of freedom and against these unconstitutional mandates.”
“It’s a good precedent. It provides relief to federal employees wherever they are situated. They could be in Texas, Hawaii, and all across the country. It’s another brick in the wall in terms of beating back vaccine passports. If it’s unconstitutional to force people to get a vaccine to keep their jobs, then it’s also unconstitutional for the federal government to initiate some sort of passport system based upon vaccine status,” he continued.
According to the order, the Biden administration considers vaccination to be the best method to protect the workers whom it affects. It reads, “[Vaccines] protect people from getting infected and severely ill, and they significantly reduce the likelihood of hospitalization and death… [In] light of the public health guidance regarding the most effective and necessary defenses against COVID-19, I have determined that to promote the health and safety of the Federal workforce and the efficiency of the civil service, it is necessary to require COVID-19 vaccination for all Federal employees, subject to such exceptions as required by law.”
Judge Brown wrote that the Biden mandate would pose a substantial threat of irreparable harm over the “liberty interests of employees who must choose between violating a mandate of doubtful validity or consenting to an unwanted medical procedure that cannot be undone.”
“Anything that encroaches on any of the liberties in which America was founded must be halted,” said Mary D. Lowe, chair of the Tarrant Chapter of Moms for Liberty, a grassroots organization of mothers who advocate for parental rights. “While there are many ways to justify it and rationalize it, the stripping of the right to make choices for yourself relative to medical care is a loss of a Liberty. We have to push back on anything that chips away at the freedoms of Americans.”