Texas suing Biden administration over business vaccine mandate

The Republican attorney general of Texas is suing the Biden administration over its vaccine mandate for businesses.

Attorney General Ken Paxton made the announcement Friday morning.

"The Biden Administration’s new vaccine mandate on private businesses is a breathtaking abuse of federal power," Paxton said in a statement. "OSHA has only limited power and specific responsibilities. This latest move goes way outside those bounds. This ‘standard’ is flatly unconstitutional. Bottom line: Biden’s new mandate is bad policy and bad law, and I’m asking the Court to strike it down." 

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Gov. Greg Abbott has said the mandate will force Texans to choose between keeping their jobs and following their conscious.

Other Republicans said the plan to require employees at private businesses to either show proof of a COVID-19 vaccine or weekly negative COVID-19 test is unconstitutional.

The United States Labor Department said it is on solid legal footing.

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Texas isn’t alone on challenging the vaccine mandate for employees.

At least 26 states are now challenging the requirement officially laid out. They argue the authority to compel vaccinations rests with the states and not the federal government.

The new mandate goes into effect on Jan. 4. 

It applies to all business with 100 or more workers and will rely on the Labor Department’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration for enforcement.

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Paxton had already filed suit against a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors.

The White House argued Friday it’s incorrect to call the new OSHA rule a vaccine mandate. 

"As has been explicit for months, it is a standard for a safe workplace to either comply with weekly testing or to be vaccinated," White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

The administration believes the legal basis is there for the new OSHA requirement.

"The Department of Labor has a responsibility to keep workers safe and the legal authority to do so," Jean-Pierre said. To quote last night’s call on this, the new emergency temporary standard is well within OSHA’s requirements to protect workers from health and safety hazards including infectious disease."

Gov. Abbott has an order banning vaccine mandates.

But a top legal official for the Department of Labor said the new requirements pre-empt state law.