Bentkey Services, LLC, the company that owns the conservative website The Daily Wire, filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s employer vaccine mandate in federal court on Thursday.
The two-page filing itself contains no legal analysis, facts or arguments. It is a petition filed directly with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit asking for review of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) final rule enforcing the mandate on businesses who employ 100 or more workers.
According to a press release, the The Daily Wire’s attorneys also plan to file a motion accompanying their petition that will additionally seek an emergency stay of the mandate–which was formally issued by OSHA on Thursday.
As Law&Crime previously reported, such businesses must enforce vaccine compliance among their workforce or maintain a regime where employees submit to weekly COVID-19 testing. Additionally, the OSHA mandate–which is one of three mandates promulgated by the administration–further mandate that such large businesses must provide paid time off for their employees to receive the free vaccinations–and for any necessary post-vaccine recuperation.
While the filing is perforce light on specifics, figures associated with the outlet rubbished the mandate as an untoward use of state power.
“The Daily Wire will not comply with President Biden’s tyrannical vaccine mandate, and we are suing the Biden Administration to put a stop to their gross overreach,” Daily Wire Co-Founder and Co-CEO Jeremy Boreing said in a statement. “President Biden, the federal government, social media, and the establishment media have conspired to rob Americans of their freedoms in the name of public health. They have broken faith with the American people through conflicting messaging, false information, and by suppressing data and perspectives with which they disagree.”
Legal experts have largely said Biden’s efforts to enforce the mandate are likely constitutional–though some cautioned that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court of the United States may think differently.
According to the press release, the mandate, which was issued under Temporary Emergency Standards provided for in OSHA’s originating act, lacks constitutional or statutory authority. The press release further claims that the mandate “failed to meet the requirements for issuing a rule taking effect immediately without the normal process of considering public comments,” an attack on the TPS authority cited by the federal worker safety agency to enforce the mandate.
“The federal government lacks the legal authority to compel private employers to play the role of vaccine or COVID police, lack the police power to force private employees to undergo medical treatment, and may not ignore constitutional limits on its ability to regulate every aspect of our lives,” alleged California-based attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon, who was a Trump campaign legal adviser. “The Biden administration’s attempt to impose this unprecedented and unlawful federal medical mandate on the U.S. workforce without considering the public’s views is arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by the evidence, and would produce a willfully ignorant rule.”
The Daily Wire, also founded by conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro, says that the lawsuit “takes no position on any COVID-19 vaccine” or whether people should receive it.
“The Daily Wire has employees who have received a COVID-19 vaccine and those who have not,” the press release said.
The press release previewed legal arguments to come:
Forced to invade employees’ medical choices or histories and their religious beliefs in connection with a condition of employment, The Daily Wire risks being trapped between its obligations under the mandate and the prohibitions against discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the burdens of laws regulating the possession of private information. The mandate is unconstitutional because the Constitution does not grant Congress—much less OSHA—the general police powers needed to mandate vaccination and virus testing as a condition of private employment, or to deputize employers to enforce that mandate on its behalf.
“The Biden administration’s decision to mandate vaccines through an OSHA rule is unlawful and compels businesses like The Daily Wire to intrude on their employees’ personal health decisions,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Ryan Bangert added. “The government has no authority to unilaterally declare that employees are workplace hazards or to compel employers to become vaccine commissars, and we are asking the 6th Circuit to put a stop to it immediately.”
The full filing is available below:
[image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
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