Sixth Circuit urged to overturn block on federal contractor vaccine mandate

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The mandate at issue required all federal contractors to get vaccinated against Covid-19 before Jan 4. 2022, but was blocked by U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove in November of last year.

Van Tatenhove, a George W. Bush appointee, found that the Biden administration had likely overreached its authority when it handed down the mandate, but only applied the injunction to federal contractors in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, the three states that sued to challenge the mandate.

“On the record currently before the Court, there is a serious concern that Defendants have stepped into an area traditionally reserved to the States, and this provides an additional reason to temporarily enjoin the vaccine mandate,” Van Tatenhove wrote in his 29-page opinion.

That ruling was appealed by the federal government, sending the case to be heard before a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit on Thursday in a roughly 30-minute hearing.

Almost all questioning from the judges centered on the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, also known as the Procurement Act. Specifically, the judges questioned if the mandate was in line with provisions of the act that allow the president to promote polices and directives for federal contracting.

Justice Department attorney Joshua Revesz argued on behalf of the federal government and claimed that the contractor vaccine mandate was well within the powers of the Procurement Act and such a position was supported by historical evidence from past presidents.

“It just doesn’t strike me as plausible that all those presidents you know, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, were all reading the statute the wrong way,” Revesz said.