By Naomi Lim
October 9, 2021 - 7:00 AM
President Joe Biden is leaving businesses guessing as his administration delays rolling out a federal government rule implementing his COVID-19 vaccine or weekly testing ultimatum.
Biden announced last month he was mandating the vaccine for most of the federal government's workforce and people employed by businesses with more than 100 staff. But four weeks later, those who may be affected are still waiting for guidance from the Labor Department's little-known Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
BIDEN WOBBLES ON THE FILIBUSTER, AGAIN
Jenny Beth Martin, honorary chairwoman of the conservative Tea Party Patriots Action, slammed Biden for being "lawless" by announcing the vaccine mandate.
The federal government’s own lawyers "have spent weeks struggling to construct a legal justification that would stand up in court against the lawsuits that are sure to be filed," she told the Washington Examiner. "The federal government has no constitutional authority to order private businesses to impose vaccination mandates on their employees, any more than the federal government has the constitutional authority to order private businesses to impose dress codes or diets on their employees.”
Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of Job Creators Network, is pro-vaccine but questioned whether Biden was "having second thoughts" regarding the mandate's heavy-handedness as COVID-19 cases, hospitalization, and deaths ease.
"The public is against it, and the small business community in particular is becoming more vocal about how the mandate will exacerbate the worst labor shortage in history," he said. "The Biden administration is already on the ropes after repeated failures over the past few months, and they might be looking for an exit strategy on the vaccine mandate, as they should."
Biden touted the vaccine mandate during an Illinois road trip this week promoting his six-point COVID-19 response plan as more than 75% of eligible people have received at least one shot. His rule, when introduced, will cover 100 million people or about two-thirds of the country's workforce.
Biden acknowledged mandates were not his "first instinct" but that he had "tried everything in my power to get people vaccinated."
"We have to beat this thing," he said. "So, while I didn’t race to do it right away, that’s why I’ve had to move toward requirements that everyone get vaccinated."
Vaccine mandates are more popular with Democrats than Republicans as people inoculated against COVID-19 become increasingly frustrated with those who are not immunized. But the appetite for mandates dissipates disproportionately among minority communities who tend to politically lean left, a development that has been seized by Republicans.
House Republican campaign spokesman Mike Berg shared Morning Consult polling with reporters last month capturing how Biden's net approval rating among black voters had eroded by 12 percentage points between Sept. 9 when he announced his vaccine mandate and Sept. 20 when the survey wrapped up. The movement was propelled by a 17-point drop among unvaccinated black voters, and black Democrats helped him clinch the 2020 presidential nomination.
Critics, including a coterie of Republican state attorneys, are poised to sue Biden as soon as the vaccine mandate rule is published. But even without guidance, the mere announcement may have achieved the desired effect, at least in part.
"Starting in July, when I announced the first vaccination requirement for the federal government, about 95 million eligible Americans were unvaccinated," Biden said this week. "We’ve reduced that number to 67 [million] eligible Americans who aren’t vaccinated."
White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to specify when the vaccine mandate rule would be publicized.
"The next step here is, of course, they need to release ... the regulations publicly," she told reporters Friday. "As we said at the time, we expect it to be several weeks. That remains the case. I don't have an update on the exact timeline."
John Pitney, a former Republican operative turned Claremont McKenna College politics professor, believed Biden would prefer to disseminate the vaccine mandate rule quickly.
"But even with an emergency temporary standard, [it] can be hard to develop language that satisfies both the scientists and the lawyers," he said.
Michael Signer, a former Democratic mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, defended the vaccine mandate delay too. He contended Biden was handling the rule the right way rather than "through tweets" like former President Donald Trump.
"Critics are gonna critic, especially when it comes to COVID," the attorney and author said. "This rule will affect millions of people and be subject to lawsuits by the same parties who are also saying it's taking too long. The administration seems to be taking the time to do this right."
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