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Editor's Note: In honor of Veterans Day, we'll be taking a brief hiatus. We'll be back in full swing Friday morning!
With Thanksgiving approaching, we expect that many of you will be seeing family or friends who may not share your politics. We know how contentious political disagreements can be - and how hard it can be to speak up and ask a question - so we’ve put together a brief form where you can ask questions directly of our bipartisan team! During Thanksgiving week, we’ll do our best to come up with thoughtful answers.
“A U.S. federal appeals court issued a stay Saturday freezing the Biden administration's efforts to require workers at U.S. companies with at least 100 employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 or be tested weekly, citing ‘grave statutory and constitutional’ issues with the rule.” Reuters
Here’s our previous coverage of the federal vaccine mandate. The Flip Side
The right is critical of the rule, arguing that it will harm the economy and is not necessary to protect public health.
“The mandate comes amid a historically tight labor market and could impel some workers to quit. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey last week, 37% of unvaccinated workers said they would leave if their employer required them to get a vaccine or be tested weekly. A quarter of all adults said they knew someone who has left a job because of a vaccine mandate… even if only 1% to 3% of workers leave because of the mandate, as OSHA projects, employers will struggle to replace them…
“OSHA says employer benefits like lower worker absenteeism will offset their costs. Perhaps, but then why not let employers set their own policies rather than impose a one-size-fits-all rule that doesn’t account for different business considerations?”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“New findings in the prestigious science journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases blow a hole in the argument that workers need to get vaccinated to protect those around them…
“The Lancet’s groundbreaking findings show that fully vaccinated people who came down with COVID infected household members at the same rate (about 25 percent) as unvaccinated people did (about 23 percent). The vaxxed had just as much viral load in their upper respiratory tract, making them just as contagious. ‘Our findings show that vaccination alone is not enough to prevent people from being infected with the Delta variant and spreading it,’ concludes study co-author Ajit Lalvani…
“Don’t get me wrong: Americans should choose to get vaccinated. The key word is ‘choose.’ Though shots are no guarantee against getting infected and spreading it to others, they provide significant protection — 90 percent or more — from hospitalization and death. I’m triple jabbed. Choosing not to get vaccinated is choosing to risk your own life. The health risk to others is minimal… the science undercuts Democrats’ claim that unvaccinated people are a workplace hazard.”
Betsy McCaughey, New York Post
“The vaccine mandate announced by the Biden administration in September will now not go into effect until January, a ridiculous delay for what is supposed to be an ‘emergency’ rule. That has legal consequences. An Emergency Temporary Standard is an exception to the usual formal rulemaking procedures. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says that it is requesting comments, but it is still evading the full, legal requirements for a permanent rule…
One thing we saw repeatedly during the Trump and Obama years is that Chief Justice John Roberts really does not like it when executive or administrative powers are invoked without the executive branch doing its homework. On occasion, as in Shelby County v. Holder, Roberts has done the same thing to Congress. The Biden administration could have a very hard time explaining to the chief justice why it is entitled to assert emergency powers that exist to address ‘immediate’ threats, then do nothing with them for four months.
Dan McLaughlin, National Review
The left supports the rule, arguing that it is necessary to protect public health and within OSHA’s authority.
The left supports the rule, arguing that it is necessary to protect public health and within OSHA’s authority.
“Covid-19 case numbers, which had been steadily falling in the U.S. since the delta variant crested in September, have again plateaued. The decline from more than 200,000 daily cases has been welcome, but why have the numbers now stalled in the 70,000s? Perhaps it’s the colder weather driving people indoors, in closer contact with others, sometimes unmasked. But here’s another crucial factor: Less than 60% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated. More people need to get their shots as soon as possible…
“Opponents call mandates an imposition on liberty or, in the words of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, an ‘assault on private business.’ It’s true they’re an imposition. Highway speed limits and smoking restrictions are also impositions. The point is, they’re amply justified. Public health requires that people refrain from needlessly endangering others.”
Editorial Board, Bloomberg
“It’s true that OSHA standards are usually for traditional workplace hazards such as injuries or toxic chemicals. But OSHA has regulated infectious diseases several times, including standards for blood-borne pathogens to combat HIV and hepatitis. The fact that the coronavirus is circulating in the community does not make it less of a workplace hazard. Indoor workspaces pose a special risk because many workers remain crowded indoors for eight hours…
“[Opponents] challenged the decision to issue an emergency standard, which meant OSHA didn’t have to go through the usual notice-and-comment period. The courts have blocked most of OSHA’s previous emergency standards. But the highly contagious delta variant isn’t a false or exaggerated emergency; it is a clear and present danger…
“More than 1,000 people are dying everyday from covid-19, including many infected in the workplace. OSHA conservatively estimated its new rule would prevent more than 6,500 deaths and 250,000 hospitalizations. A long notice-and-comment period would have cost thousands of lives. If the pandemic isn’t an emergency, it’s hard to say what would be.”
Lawrence O. Gostin and Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Washington Post
“A court decision cutting deep into OSHA’s authority could undermine hundreds of rules protecting workers… As the Supreme Court held in Mistretta v. United States (1989), a law delegating regulatory authority to a federal agency is valid so long as it lays ‘down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to [exercise the delegated authority] is directed to conform.’…
“Mistretta held that this ‘intelligible principle’ standard generally requires courts to defer to Congress’s decision to delegate authority. ‘In our increasingly complex society, replete with ever changing and more technical problems,’ the Court explained, ‘Congress simply cannot do its job absent an ability to delegate power under broad general directives.’ But this call for flexibility and judicial deference is now very much out of favor among conservative judges.”
Ian Millhiser, Vox
