Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Republicans Follow Through With Pledge To Challenge Mandate In Court
AP: States Sue To Block Vaccine Mandate For Federal Contractors
Kentucky’s attorney general pushed back Thursday against President Joe Biden’s coronavirus vaccination mandate for private employers, filing a lawsuit claiming the requirement amounts to government overreach. The suit, filed in federal court in Kentucky, takes aim at the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors, Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron said. Ohio and Tennessee joined in filing the suit, which claims the vaccination requirement is unlawful and unconstitutional. (11/4)
AP: GOP State Officials Push Back On Employer Vaccine Mandate
Republican state officials reacted with swift rebukes Thursday to President Joe Biden’s newly detailed mandate for private employers to require workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, threatening a wave of lawsuits and other actions to thwart a requirement they see as a stark example of government overreach. At least two conservative groups moved quickly to file lawsuits against the workplace safety mandate, and a growing roster of GOP governors and attorneys general said more lawsuits were on the way as soon as Friday. Some Republican-led states had already passed laws or executive orders intended to protect employers that may not want to comply. (DeMillo and Mulvihill, 11/5)
Politico: 'We Have Had Enough': DeSantis Will Sue Biden Over Workplace Vaccine Mandates
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday vowed to deliver a legal attack against new workplace vaccine mandates from the Biden administration that are scheduled to kick in right after the end of the holiday season. The GOP governor said Florida will join Alabama, Georgia and private employers on Friday in a preemptive legal challenge against a new vaccination-or-test requirement for businesses with more than 100 workers. The state will also quickly file a separate legal challenge against a vaccine mandate for health care workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid. (Fineout, 11/4)
AP: Gov McMaster Calls Federal Vaccine Mandate Illegal Overreach
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Thursday issued an executive order keeping his cabinet agencies from enforcing a federal mandate requiring companies with more than 100 employees to either have their workers vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 weekly. Under the new order, all state agencies will be required to report to McMaster if the federal government asks whether their employees are vaccinated, the Republican governor said at a Thursday news conference. (11/4)
AP: Democratic Kansas Governor Questions Biden Vaccine Mandates
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly argued Thursday that mandates like those from the federal government for vaccinating workers against COVID-19 “tend not to work,” as the Democrat’s made her first public statements on the rules heading into a difficult reelection campaign in her Republican-leaning state. Kelly is top target among governors next year for Republicans nationally because Donald Trump twice carried Kansas by wide margins and President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates have roused conservative voters. (Hollingsworth and Hanna, 11/4)
ABC News: Senate Republicans Target Biden Vaccine Mandate Fauci Supports
With the nation's top public health officials as their audience, Senate Republicans on Thursday aired complaints about a new wide-reaching vaccine mandate for large businesses being implemented by the Biden administration. "I'm just telling you it's a hard sell to tell people who have had COVID that they're now under a mandate -- a mandate by the federal government -- to be vaccinated. I think you've got an extremely tough sell," Sen. Richard Burr, the top Republican on the Senate Health Committee, told the heads of the Biden White House COVID response team, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky and chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a hearing. (Haslett, 11/4)
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AP: Alabama Lawmakers Approve Job Protections For Unvaccinated
In an effort to fight COVID-19 vaccination requirements on workers, Alabama lawmakers on Thursday approved legislation to prevent companies from firing workers who claim a religious or medical exemption. Republicans said they were responding to an outcry from unvaccinated constituents afraid of losing their jobs because of the Biden administration’s vaccination mandate on federal contractors. Democrats argued the bill would put both federal contractors and public health in jeopardy for the sake of scoring political points. (Chandler, 11/5)
