Photo: The Canadian Press
President Joe Biden’s order to vaccinate federal employees against COVID-19 was blocked Thursday by a federal appeals court.
The Fifth US Court of Appeals in New Orleans has rejected arguments that Biden, as the state’s CEO, has the same authority as the CEO of a private company to order employees to be vaccinated.
The decision, by the full appeals court, 16 full-time judges at the time of the case, reversed an earlier ruling by the three-judge Fifth Circuit panel that upheld the vaccination requirement. Justice Andrew Oldham, appointed by then-President Donald Trump, wrote the opinion in favor of a 10-member majority.
Opponents of the policy said it was an encroachment on the lives of federal workers that was not permitted by the Constitution or federal laws.
Biden issued an executive order in September 2021 requiring vaccinations for all executive staff, with exceptions for medical and religious reasons. This requirement began the following November, and the White House said in January that 98% of federal workers had been vaccinated. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of Texas by then-President Donald Trump, issued a nationwide injunction against that requirement in January 2022.
The case was then transferred to the Fifth Circuit.
A panel of three Fifth Circuit judges refused to block the law outright.
But a 2-1 decision on the merits of the case by a different panel confirmed Biden’s position. Justices Carl Stewart and James Dennis, appointed by President Bill Clinton, held the majority. Judge Risa Barksdale, appointed by President George H.W
A majority of the full court voted to overturn this decision and re-examine the case. The sixteen active justices in the case were heard on September 13, and were joined by Barksdale, now a senior justice with lighter duties than the full-time members of the court.
