America's Talking - Episode 29: U.S. Supreme Court blocks Biden's private sector vaccine mandate, upholds health worker mandate

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

U.S. Supreme Court blocks Biden's private sector vaccine mandate, upholds health worker mandate. Sinema stands up to Biden, Dem leadership on axing filibuster. Producer prices rise highest on record, adding to inflation concerns. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to American Focus, powered by thecenter Square.com. I'm Cole McNeely. Coming up, we'll take a quick look at one of the top stories from the center square.com. And later, executive editor of the Center Square, Dan McAulb, and DC reporter Casey Harper, will take a deeper dive into some of the top stories of the week. Coming up right after this on American Focus, powered by thecentresquare.com. Hi, this is Chris Krug, publisher of the Center Square. Our team produces the nationally read and recognized news stories at the Center Square.

The country's fastest growing, non-profit, nonpartisan, state-focused news and information site. We deliver essential information with a taxpayer's sensibility through reporting that's easy to understand and easy to share with your friends and family. We know that you need information that allows you to understand what the governor and your local legislators are doing. Get the news that you need to know at thecentersquare.com. That's thecentersquare.com. Thecenter square.com. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration's vaccine mandate on private sector businesses, though it allowed a separate mandate to stand for certain health care workers.

The private sector ruling came on a 6-3 vote with the court's three liberal judges, all citing with the Biden administration's argument that the mandates are legal, and its majority conservative wings saying that only Congress has the authority to give OSHA of the power to implement such a widespread federal mandate. To read more about these stories and many others, visit thecintersquare.com. for a closer look. It's Dan McAulb and Casey Harper. Thank you, Cole, and welcome back to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAleb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is Casey Harper.

The Center Square is Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. Casey, we're recording this on Friday, January 14th, and man, it hasn't been the greatest week for President Joe Biden. The U.S. Supreme Court shot down his private sector vaccine mandate on Thursday, Some leading Democrats are bucking his pitch to scrap the Senate filibuster. New federal reports continue to show his historical high inflation. His polling numbers continue to tank. Casey, why don't we start with Thursday's Supreme Court decision? What can you tell us about that?

Sure. So, you know, this is the story we've been following really closely at the Soonersquare.com. And as most of our listeners probably know, President Joe Biden last year instituted several federal vaccine mandates. There's one for the military. There's one for health care workers that receive at institutions that receive federal funds. And probably the most controversial one was a requirement that employers with at least 100 employees ensure that their workers are vaccinated or receive regular, I think, weekly testing. And if they didn't do that, they'd face hefty fines and big fines. And enough to put you out of business for sure.

And so two of those mandates have been before the Supreme Court in an expedited fashion, the health care worker mandate and the private, private sector mandate. And so it's been a very closely watched case, you know, oral arguments for last Friday. And on Thursday, they released the decision. It was basically split. So they backed the mandate for health care workers and said that they still needed to be vaccinated. But they overturned Biden's mandate for really, which would have been like, you know. nearly 100 million workers, like 84 million workers across the country, across industries, regardless of, you know, what they did or how much they interacted with people, really.

So that mandate was struck down in a 6-3 ruling. And it was the Supreme Court, a lot of people, a lot of pundits, particularly in the media, talk about the conservative wing and the liberal wing of the Supreme Court. the court's three liberal justices sided with the Biden administration and the private sector mandate. The courts, you could say, five conservative members plus Chief Justice John Roberts, who's been more of a swing vote over the last few years, sided with critics and those who filed lawsuits challenging the mandate. So it was really split along that liberal conservative divide.

But what were some of the conservative judges? What did the majority court say in striking down the private sector mandate? Yeah, I mean, they really agreed with, you know, one of the big arguments is that this was an economy-wide mandate. They didn't take into effect different industries. You know, OSHA has, OSHA is the, you know, workplace regulatory agency that makes sure that, you know, construction workers wear hard hats, that kind of thing. And that's kind of where their authority has been since they were created. It's making sure that workers were hard hats that, you know, you have certain things in the break room. I mean, that was the extent of their authority.

And for them to suddenly institute a mandate that affected 84 million people across the entire country, that through court just said that was just so much broader than anything they did in the past. They called it unprecedented. So they really said, OSHA has never before imposed such a major. mandate, nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here. So saying not even Congress has gone this far. So a small agency that has never done anything like this before, it doesn't have the authority to do it now. Right. And so,

and essentially, we're going to read one more passage from its ruling in a quote, quoting here. The question before us is not how to respond to the pandemic, but who holds the power to do so? The answer is clear. Under the law as it stands today, that power rests with the states and Congress, not OSHA, which is an extension of the federal branch of government overseen by President Biden. So if Congress were to pass a law mandating vaccines in private businesses, then maybe the Supreme Court would withhold that. but because it came straight from the executive branch, President Biden and OSHA, that it was not constitutional or not legal, was too broad. Is that right? Right. And you know who predicted this decision was President Joe Biden himself?

Well, of course, the esteemed, my esteemed colleague, Dan McKillard, but President Joe Biden himself last year. and Jen Sacki, White House Press Secretary, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, all of them, you know, I guess really Saki and Pelosi both said that they didn't believe the president had the authority to do this. When more progressive, you know, members of the party were pushing them to do this, they said, oh, the president doesn't have this authority.

But eventually they did it. But it turned out they were right. The president doesn't have the authority to do it. So shout out to expert legal analysts, Sacki and Pelosi. for their call on this one. And of course, this is not a rebuke of the vaccines. This was a rebuke of executive vaccine mandates from President Biden's administration. Now, of course, when President Biden and OSHA first put this mandate into effect, business groups from across the country were up in arms, saying that if it were ruled to be constitutional and that were put into effect,

that it would have all kinds of impacts on businesses. Why don't you just talk a little bit about what the business concerns were? You're absolutely right. And the business community celebrated this ruling. They were in a tough spot of already having to enforce a mandate that could be overturned by the Supreme Court any moment. And especially when they're facing fines. And if they really enforced it thoroughly, they would probably have to, I mean,

lose some employees, presumably those who would refuse to get vaccinated. and amidst a labor shortage. And, you know, very high inflation, which small businesses are very concerned about, which we've written about, and we'll probably get to later in the show. But, you know, one of the representatives for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which is one of the main groups that challenged the ruling, they just called it welcome relief for small businesses. They said that small businesses try to recover after almost two years of significant business disruptions,

you know, read COVID, inflation, labor shortage, et cetera. The last thing they need is a mandate that would cost more business challenges. And essentially what that means is that, yeah, there are a certain percentage of the public that don't trust the vaccines or have religious opposition to the vaccines or through conversations with their own personal physician don't think it's right for them because of maybe some other conditions or some other medications they're on. So they were concerned, business leaders were concerned that some significant percentage of the workforce already with a labor shortage, as you mentioned, would have to leave or would

quit their jobs, creating a further problems for businesses. Right. And it's what's, I think, you know, you could make the argument. It's like, well, this was tailored to only people who worked at large companies. But I think it just didn't really pass a smell test. You can't, you know, the president doesn't have the authority to mandate that everyone has to do something immediately or face fines. And the idea that it's like, no, no, it's not everyone. It's just people who have a job. It's like, that's just not a narrow enough category of people. It's not, you can't justify that category of people having to do something. So I think if Congress passed specific laws about specific types of workers, but it just, it, it was too broad. It was economy-wide. And the Supreme Court just didn't buy it.

Now, the other side of it was the Supreme Court's five, four ruling upholding the vaccine mandate for health care workers who work at facilities that get Medicaid and Medicare taxpayer dollars, essentially. So what's the impact of that? Yeah, I mean, those workers are going to have to be vaccinated. They can still get some religious exemptions. They can still get, you know, exemptions of some kind. But a lot of those workers are going to have to face a tough decision. You know, I've seen a lot speaking out. I personally know some nurses who are wrestling with this decision.

Just one yesterday in light of the decision went and, you know, got a booster. And so this is putting, you know, putting them in a tough position, but I'm sure that some of them will quit, but they have to get vaccinated now or find a new line of work. And the concern there is, and essentially Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh broke with the conservative wing, sided with the liberals in this five four decision. And essentially what they said is while they struck down the private sector mandate, Because these health care facilities get federal taxpayer dollars, it's more fair play. It's more inbound. But the health care industry is also facing worker shortages. Could this possibly, could this exacerbate that problem?

Could this rule? And that's been one of the big critiques of these mandates is that, you know, we're firing nurses in the middle of a health care pandemic, an emergency pandemic. And especially since there's even some places that are letting nurses work when they, they have symptoms or even tested positive for COVID. Because, you know, there was a time in the pandemic when maybe it was believed that there were people that if you got vaccinated, you know, there was a, remember that brief window where it was said that if you got vaccinated, you would not get COVID or you had almost no very, very little chance of getting COVID.

And then it turned out that while you can't get COVID, the vaccine, but it'll help me. Right. Right. It's just not true that the vaccine does not prevent transmission of COVID. it prevents, you know, it lowers your risk of severe hospitalization or death. But so it's just not so cut and dry as it was before. And because of that, you know, so many nurses are getting sick, even vaccinated ones, that they're having to change these rules, update them.

But they kind of drew this line in the sand with vaccination and they've decided to not back down. In some ways, it's a bit arbitrary, but because, you know, a vaccinated nurse and unvaccinated, both can get sick. And if they treat you, they both can give you the virus. So the vaccination is really more for the person who takes its benefit than the people around them because a vaccinate nurse can still carry COVID and give it to you when they administer any kind of blood test or treatment. Right. So I'm fully vaccinated over the holidays. My entire family contracted COVID. Thankfully, none of our systems were severe enough that we needed medical treatment. We just stayed at home, quarantined at home, got through the, They were more cold-like symptoms.

Now, certainly we do know that COVID-19 impacts the elderly, for instance, more than a younger residence and those with other comorbidities, those with other health conditions. We were fortunate, but we're vaccinated. We all got COVID. We survived it. But just one more thing on the impact on the health care industry nationwide. Because of Omicron, which is easily more transmittable, not as severe. terms of the symptoms, but more and more people are getting it, including the vaccinated, as you mentioned. But some states are having to ease their licensing policies just to get more nurses

and get more medical staff to staff hospitals and whatnot. They've called states have called up national guards. States have ease licensing measures so that students, nursing students, who aren't yet fully certified, can help out in the crisis. So we'll have to see how this is going to play out in the coming weeks and the coming months, but we need to take a look at what this decision is going to mean for the health care industry overall. Well, I guess your response proves that you're not elderly, Dan, because you did just fine. So we have scientific proof now. Well, can you tell my daughter that? Oh, yeah. She doesn't, she doesn't believe me. She calls me old all the time. Oh, man. Sorry. All right. Well, let's move on. Actually, I was ready to move on,

so let's do that. Oh, great. Also this week, President Biden gave a speech in Georgia, where he said he was endorsing that the U.S. Senate, at least temporarily, and the filibuster, which requires a super majority of votes to get legislated and passed. And he did this in endorsing the Democrats legislation that would essentially federalize all elections across the state and end some of these states voting measures that were passed after the 2020 election dealing with election integrity. Now, Republicans, were harsh, harshly critical of his speech this week. And even some Democrats came out and said, no, we're not going to end the filibuster.

So to tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, and the filibuster is extremely important. It prevents the Senate from being kind of going back and forth. It makes it one of the things that makes the Senate kind of a more respective legislative body. You might say it in the House. It's seen as more temperate, more moderate. it's more thoughtful. You know, there's more negotiations.

You don't have to have just a simple majority as in the house. But, and it's purposely designed that way so that, you know, by the founding fathers so that you would have to have a real agreement. And there wouldn't be tyranny of the majority that 51% could enforce anything they wanted on the other 49%. But as you said, you know, Biden called for this very strongly on Tuesday. He called for getting rid of it. He's very aggressive rhetoric. He accused his opposition of racism for opposing the voting laws. He just basically said throw it out the window and ran this thing through your immoral person.

And it's just really interesting to see in contrast to that, these kind of thoughtful moderate speeches from those like Kirsten Cinema, who has been, you know, she's been regularly opposing Biden, but not to the level of Joe Manchin, West Virginia. The senator from West Virginia, who's been... Two Democrats. Cinema from Arizona, right? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the two Democrats. Manchin really led the charge in opposing build back better and had a very big hand in sinking that legislation. Cinema was in the background, kind of quietly having conversations about it, you know, expressing reservations. I think she didn't want to vote for it, but she also didn't want to be on Fox News as a, you know, quote-unquote hero or whatever. So she just laid a low and quietly killed it. But on this one, she came around. right out. She said, you know, that there's no need for her to restate her support for the 60-vote threshold to pass legislation. And then she said that it, you know, it protects our country

from wild reversals of federal policy. This week's harried discussions about Senate rules, that's a, you know, a lion thrown in Biden, are but a poor substitute for what I believe could, could have been a thoughtful public debate at any time over the past year. So what she's saying there is basically, you know, you Biden and you guys try to pass this aggressive agenda that was unpopular. You did everything you could to twist arms. And now that it's not working, you're trying to quickly change the Senate rolls and pass, you know, push it through before we get into the midterm elections. She's saying that's, you know, that is a haphazard, harried way of doing this. If you really wanted to make a, what would be one of the most significant,

congressional role changes in a very long time. You should have been talking about this all year, had a real debate, but now it comes across as you're doing this to get your way. So she said, what is the legislative, go ahead, go ahead. I was just saying after several legislative losses that Biden has suffered throughout the year, you mentioned Bill Beck better. That was one of his top legislative priorities.

Couldn't get it done. Hasn't been able to get this federalization of elections legislation. passed. So he just abruptly comes and say, well, since I can't get a pass through negotiations, let's just end 200 years of precedent in the Senate, get rid of this filibuster. So I don't need bipartisan support. And I can ram it through with just Democrats. But now a couple, as you imagine, a couple of these Democrats said, no, slow down here. What are you talking about? Right. Right. Do you remember that when you were a kid playing out in your neighborhood, there was always that one kid who no matter what happened,

the rules were changed for his situation. If you were playing some game with invisible guns, whenever he shot him, he's like, no, no, I had armor. I had body armor on. It's like, oh, now body armor is a rule. I didn't know that was a rule. Or, you know, whatever you're playing some game of tag.

It's like, no, you didn't touch me. You thought you did what you did. Biden's coming across a little bit like that kid at the playground. He's changing the roles to meet his whims. And even his other buddies in the playground, cinema, mansion, are not. not impressed. And they do believe in the filibuster because let's just, you know, let's have a little bit of, you know, let's not be short-sighted. It's very possible that this same time next year,

there's 51 Republican senators and a majority in the House. And then two years from that, there's a Republican president. And so many things that Trump couldn't pass or couldn't get through or previous Republican presidents couldn't get through, they would have all the precedent and all the, really the vengeful motivation to just ram through a series of conservative, you know, measures that would never, you know, may even be unpopular nationwide, but because Democrats have set this precedent of ramming things through, not even the filibuster changing the rules, it really opens this Pandora's box that nobody, nobody wants open.

And so I just want to touch briefly on this voting legislation that Biden and the Democrats support that would essentially undo what some red states, some Republican-led states have passed since the 2020 election to improve election security in their states. One of them is ID requirements for absentee ballots. Republican-led states have shorted up their election laws to make so that some sort of verification process is in place, including IDs for those who vote absentee. President Biden and Democrats have said that's voter suppression. You're trying to make it more difficult for minorities to vote in elections. Yet at the same time, at the same time, and Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell brought this up in a heart.

rebuke of President Biden's speech this week. At the same time, Democratic-run cities, such as Washington, D.C., and this is one of the examples Mitch McConnell brought up during his rebuke of President Biden speech. They're requiring for you to be out in public and to go to public places, you have to show your vaccine card, essentially your vaccine passport, proof that you've been vaccinated, as well as a photo ID showing that the vaccine card actually belongs to you. So Democratic-run cities, and this is true in Washington, D.C., this is true in New York, this is true in Los Angeles. It's okay to have an ID requirement for vaccines, but it's not okay to have an ID requirement for voting in an election. That just seems contradictory to me.

Yeah, well, I think the Democrats' motives are kind of a little too obvious here for all the rhetoric about racism and voter suppression. I mean, the America does have a pretty grotesque history that they're pulling from. But the Democrats have very partisan motives for supporting this, too. And so, and I think most people know that, that Democrats know that the less voter security, the voter fraud and more voting always tends to go their way. And so maybe, you know, maybe less than restrictions is a good thing. But them trying to act kind of holier than now that they're doing this, for the good of the country.

It just, it comes across a little fake when we all know. It's an open secret that these laws are going to help Democrats get more elected. And I think that's why some of the grandstanding just comes across wrong because there's this obvious kind of selfish political motive behind everything that's going on. And McConnell's called out some of that. It's funny, Tom Cotton, Senator from Arkansas, gave a speech from the House floor where he gave this very long speech, just ripping apart. filibuster talking about how it made the Senate the rubber stamp of dictatorship and all

his things. And then towards the end of the speech, he said something to the effect of everything I've just said is a direct quote from my esteemed colleague, Senator Chuck Schumer. And basically he gives this verbatimum, he just reads one of Chuck Schumer's previous speeches about how horrible it would be to overturn the filibuster. Right. Yeah. So it was in defense of the filibuster. Just want to, want to, clarify that Chuck Schumer's speech was that Senator Cotton. Oh, yeah, sorry, I misspoke. Yes, yeah.

Right. Yeah, Schumer was defending the filibuster attacking anyone in the past, too, who suggested overturning it. Right. And that hypocrisy has just been thrown right back in their face. We could spend all day on some of this stuff, Casey, but let's move on. Just quickly, two new monthly inflation reports from the federal government

came out today, essentially saying inflation is at near, historic highs. President Biden has been saying, you know, inflation is going to improve as we get into 2022 costs are going to start coming down. Tell us about these reports. Sure. And I will try to go a little quicker. I know we want to talk a little bit about poll numbers.

So the Department of Labor, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they released two of the major markers for inflation this week. There's the consumer price index, which, as the name suggests, focuses more on consumer goods and services, things you. buy at the grocery store. And then there's the producer price, which focus more on kind of wholesale, like equipment that producers would use lubricate for machines, like that kind of stuff. And so the producer price index this week showed the highest increase on record, which is 9.7% in 2021. That's the highest since they've been calculating it and started calculating it in 2010.

and the consumer price index has increased the most in about 40 years. And so both markers are just off the charts. You know, prices are extremely much higher. Gas prices are through the roof. And this really took off when Biden took office. And so there's some arguments that could be made about how this has been coming for before Biden and things. It's not totally all by his fault. But politically, it is hitting him right in the jaw because,

he took office and prices took off and now he's trying to clean it up right and of course that means you know prices on just about everything are significantly higher filling your gas tank grocery shopping things like that and it doesn't appear like there's an end in sight for this and that could have ramifications heading into the midterm elections this year time for one last story i'm casey continuing on the theme of biden's rough week. New polling came out showing where his approval ratings at. What can you tell us about this? Yeah, if you're supporter of the president, it's not as Dan said, it's been a tough week for him. But inflation, Supreme Court smack you down his ruling, his own party turning against him on his

filibuster charges. As I said, inflation through the roof. And the Kinnopee Act released new polling that showed that surveyed Americans gave Biden a job approval rating of 33%. That's 53% negative job approval rating, 33% positive. And this is the low, these are, I think you'd agree with me then. These are the lowest numbers that I've seen for the president. 34% only, only 34% approval on the economy with 57 disapproving. And COVID was an issue where Biden had higher numbers. You know, people, Biden's had low numbers in the economy for a while, but people were still happy with COVID. But now his COVID response is only a 39% approval and 55% disapproval. Foreign policy has similar number. So across the board, Biden is getting a lot of backlash and just a number

show people aren't happy. And for presidents, you know, approaching the end of his first term in office, that's, that's pretty significant. That's awful, awful low. Generally speaking, over time, a president's approval ratings drop. But to see it so drop so starkly in, you know, one year, I don't know, we'll see. We'll see what happens. as I mentioned, midterm election year, all the entire U.S. House, all representative seats are up, about a third of the Senate seats are up. So it's going to be a brutal year when it comes to election airing and politicking. And I'm sure Biden's approval rating, inflation, the COVID-19 response are all going to be factors

in how Americans view how Democrats who control, the presidency and Congress, how they view their job performance. Casey, that is all the time we have. Thank you for your insight of the news in Washington, D.C. This has been American Focus Podcast. We'll talk to you next week.