Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday that Florida is suing the Biden administration for imposing a vaccine mandate on federal contractors.
“We also cannot have the federal government coming in exceeding their power,” DeSantis said at a press conference. “Some of the stuff that they’re doing with it … rewriting contracts and they’re transforming normal contracting into basically public health policy, and that’s not anything Congress has ever authorized and so that’s a huge problem.”
President Joe Biden first issued an order requiring federal contractors to get the jab by Dec. 8, but DeSantis said the federal government is getting all too comfortable with issuing “heavy-handed mandates” that hurt Americans and disrupt the economy.
“We do have a responsibility to stand up for our authority here to govern ourselves, and also make sure that this constitutional system of ours isn’t out of whack,” he said.
DeSantis said the lawsuit, which is led by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, seeks a preliminary injunction “so that this mandate isn’t allowed to be imposed at the expense of the jobs of Floridians.”
“The main course of business will be: Make sure people are able to keep their jobs. We are not going to deny people the ability to earn a living based on their decisions about an injection,” DeSantis said. “These people have been working the whole doggone time, and then now all of a sudden they’re going to get kicked to the curb? Give me a break.”
BREAKING: @GovRonDeSantis announces that the State of Florida is filing a lawsuit against the Biden Administration to challenge their unconstitutional federal contractor vaccine mandate. pic.twitter.com/7CE0LYBCA4
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) October 28, 2021
The lawsuit follows a decision by DeSantis last week to call Florida lawmakers to a special legislative session in November to draft legislation aimed at protecting Floridians from vaccine mandates from private businesses. The governor said he hopes by calling the legislature back a few months earlier than its scheduled January 2022 session, Floridians will gain some protections from growing vaccine requirements for their jobs.
“At the end of the day, you shouldn’t be discriminated against based on your health decisions,” the Republican said. “We want to provide protection for people, we want to make it clear that, in Florida, your right to earn a living is not contingent upon whatever choices you’re making in terms of these injections.”
