US appeals court will rehear challenge to Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine executive order News
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US appeals court will rehear challenge to Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine executive order

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Monday issued an order stating that the court will rehear Feds for Medical Freedom v. Biden, a challenge to President Joe Biden’s 2019 executive order which required federal employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or face termination.

In late May and early June, the America First Legal Foundation, America’s Frontline Doctors, Airline Employees For Freedom Health and a group of additional vaccine plaintiffs filed four amicus briefs in favor of rehearing en banc. Plaintiffs in Rodden v. Fauci also filed a class action complaint composed of federal employees who caught COVID-19, developed COVID-19 antibodies, “yet remain subject to the federal employee vaccine mandate.”

The Rodden plaintiffs argue that Biden and the “agencies he directs have no power to direct personal medical decisions of federal employees,” and therefore this executive order is as an unlawful government mandate. Further, the group states that the panel’s refusal regarding review of executive employment decisions is unlawful and thus protects “the exercise of unlawful governmental power.”

In January 2022, a Texas judge blocked Biden’s executive order. Other state judges have blocked the enforcement of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, as well. In December 2021, a Georgia judge blocked the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for government contractors after the Texas Governor ordered a statewide ban on all COVID-19 vaccine mandates in October 2021.

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