A Washington D.C. district court judge on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order against the Biden administration, effectively preventing it from letting go or disciplining unvaccinated employees. President Joe Biden infamously established a COVID vaccine mandate on September 9, requiring federal employees and contractors to be vaccinated against COVID.
Fox News reported that District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has ordered the Biden administration to comply with an order not to terminate civilian and active-duty military plaintiffs as they await a ruling after they filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over religious exemptions to the COVID vaccines.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly's minute order instructed the Biden administration that none of the civilian employee plaintiffs could be disciplined while their request for a religious exemption was bneing mulled over. The Biden administration, which had until Friday to respond, said in a filing that it refused to halt the disciplining or termination of any employees as they waited for religious exemption.
In the filing, the Biden administration said that it's complainant's "burden to demonstrate impending irreparable harm" but that they "offer nothing beyond speculation to suggest that their religious exception requests will be denied and that they will be disciplined at all, much less on the first day that such discipline is theoretically possible."
Judge Kollar-Kotelly in the ruling told the Biden administration to agree that "active duty military plaintiffs, whose religious exception requests have been denied, will not be disciplined or separated during the pendency of their appeals." Twenty plaintiffs were named in the lawsuit against President Joe Biden and members of his administration involved in the September 9 executive order that required federal employees to be vaccinated against COVID.
Michael Yoder, who represents the complainants, described the Biden administration as one that demonstrated "an unprecedented, cavalier attitude toward the rule of law and an utter ineptitude at basic constitutional contours," the Christian Headlines reported.
Yoder added that it was "dangerous to American liberty" to establish such sweeping COVID vaccine mandates. He added that the lawsuit intends to "[put] the Biden administration back in its place by limiting government to its enumerated powers."
The decision of the DC judge comes right after 19 states filed lawsuits against the Biden administration for its mandate on federal workers that forces them to get the COVID jab. According to AP News, 18 states filed three separate lawsuits late last week to deter the mandate for federal contractors, arguing that such a requirement violates federal law.
The Republican states, including Texas, which filed a lawsuit of its own, sought a block against the Biden administration's requirement that all federal contractors' employees must be vaccinated against COVID by December 8, saying that it not only violates federal procurement law, but is also an overreach of federal power.
Finally, Florida filed its lawsuit on Thursday, rounding out a total of 19 states challenging President Biden's COVID vaccine order. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton remarked, "The federal government does not have the ability to strip individuals of their choice to get a vaccine or not."
