Judging Freedom - Kavanaugh asks Biden Admin to Respond to Vaccine Mandate Appeal

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Judge Napolitano details the latest news on Biden's vaccine mandate front.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, Judge Napolitano here with Judging Freedom with another pop-up. Here's what's on my mind today because of what's happening in the legal world. But first, this is Judging Freedom. This is one of my, where I talk about just one subject matter and one case. If you subscribe to Judging Freedom, if you tell your friends about it, if you forward these clips, if you like them a lot, and if you do that and subscribe to getting notifications, you'll always know when these pop ups are going to come. So this morning before the sun came up, Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the United States

Supreme Court ordered the Biden administration to respond to the dozens of appeals that have been filed against a decision rendered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, upholding the president's order requiring all employers of 100 or more employees to certify to the federal government that those employees have either been vaccinated against COVID or that they're tested once a week. Here's the background. This is not a statute enacted by the Congress. This is the president making a law on his own. Now, you may say, well, Judge Napolitano, we all know the president can't make a law. You're right. Under our system, Congress writes the laws, the president enforces the laws, and judges interpret the laws. But in this case, the president has written what he says is a law. And he directed the Department of Labor, which directed one of its many bureaucracies called the occupation

occupational health and safety administration commonly known by its um acronym osha to issue these regulations and to prescribe punishments for them so when the government orders you to do something and you don't comply and they punish you that means you're breaking the law except this is not a law because joe bryden wrote at the congress what did it say it said private employers of 100 or more persons you have to have your people vaccinated you have to have them if they won't get vaccinated tested and we're going to come on to your private property to make sure that you have done this now Now, why 100 or more persons when more Americans are employed

in businesses that employ 99 or fewer persons? Who knows? But that's what the administration decided to do. That edict was challenged before a federal judge in Texas. Why Texas? Because that's where the first challenge was filed. That federal judge enjoined, prevented the Biden administration from enforcing this

so-called mandate. That was appealed by the Department of Justice to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which sits in New Orleans and covers Texas. And the Fifth Circuit upheld it unanimously. At the same time that the Fifth Circuit was ruling, many other challenges were filed throughout the United States. And rather than having numerous trials on the same issue, the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, exercised the authority that the statutes give to him to consolidate all these appeals in one place. So he consolidated all of these cases, not in the Fifth Circuit, which had already ruled, but in the Sixth Circuit, which is basically the Midwest, Michigan, Ohio, that part of the country. And the Sixth Circuit two days ago ruled two to one in favor of the Biden administration.

So now you have the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans and the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati ruling in opposite ways. What's the resolution? The Supreme Court will decide. So after the Sixth Circuit ruled two days ago, many of the Republican state attorneys general and other people, mainly health care providers, filed an appeal to the Supreme Court. And the reason for the emergency appeal is because when the Sixth Circuit said to the Biden administration, you can go forward with this, the president's people said, well, we're going to go forward with it on January 4, but we're not going to enforce it until February. You're not going to enforce it until February.

They've been saying for months, this is an emergency. It's an emergency. So by not enforcing it until February and by having it only include employees who work for an employer that employs more than 100 people, which is less than half the employees in the country, fewer than half, the Biden administration has undermined its argument that this is an emergency. Nevertheless, emergency appeals from the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati are filed to Justice Kavanaugh. The appeal was filed. Justice Kavanaugh did not rule on it. He quite properly said to the Department of Justice, reply to this appeal and do so by December 30th. That tells me that the Supreme Court, one way or another, is going to rule on this before January 4th. Will this ruin their New Year's weekend? They're accustomed to this, and that's what they get paid for. And the minute they rule, you'll see me right here doing my best to explain it. I hope I'm happy with the ruling, and I hope you are.

Judge Napolitano on judging freedom. Have a good day.