Virginia’s Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares announced last week that they will challenge President Joe Biden’s unconstitutional vaccine mandate in court once sworn into office later this month.
“Instead of supporting state and local governments’ efforts to protect the lives and livelihoods of their citizens, the Biden administration has resorted to unlawful vaccine mandates that force hardworking Virginians to walk away from their paychecks,” they said in a joint statement. “President Biden’s [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] CMS mandate, ignores the hospital systems’ long-established policies designed to keep staff and patients safe and threatens the tenure of essential medical personnel at a time when staffing shortages threaten the healt hand safety of Virginians”
The two go on to note that while they “believe that the vaccine is a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19,” they “strongly believe that the Federal government cannot impose its will and restrict the freedoms of Americans and that Virginia is at its best when people are allowed to make the best decisions for their families or businesses.”
“After the January 15th inauguration, the Commonwealth of Virginia will quickly move to protect Virginians’ freedoms and challenge President Biden’s unlawful CMS, [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] OSHA, and Head Start vaccine mandates. Removing some of the staffing barriers to our hospitals will provide much needed relief for our overworked medical professionals,” they added.
Once filed, the lawsuit would add Virginia to the list of more than two dozen states that have taken legal action against the Biden administration over the proposed mandate, which attempts to force a vaccine-or-test requirement on private employers with 100 or more employees. The coercive directive has since been challenged in federal court, with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals placing a temporary stay on the order late last year.
While the proposed legal action offers freedom-loving Virginians a glimpse of hope in the fight against COVID fascism, there still remain concerns over local COVID mandates throughout the state. Late last year, Youngkin raised eyebrows after indicating he wouldn’t take action to prevent localities from mandating COVID injections or masks.
“Localities are going to have to make decisions the way the law works and that is going to be up to individual decisions but, again, from the governor’s office, you won’t see mandates from me,” he said during a November interview.
When pressed on where Youngkin would draw the line on vaccine mandates, Press Secretary Macaulay Porter referred The Federalist to a Nov. 2021 interview, where the gov.-elect claimed that he would use “every authority” he has as governor to combat what he believes “are not correct mandates and therefore [he’s] gonna rescind them.”
“I have three big principles. One, there should be no state government mandates,” he said. “Two, in fact people should not get fired from their job for not getting the vaccine. And finally, when it comes to children, parents know what’s right for their kids when it comes to their education and their health, and therefore, I will rescind Executive Order 18 for state employees. They will not be mandated to wear masks or get vaccines.”
Throughout the interview, Youngkin also pledged to “appoint a new health commissioner” and “rescind the public health order that requires kids in K-12 education to wear a mask in order to attend both public and private schools.”
Youngkin, Miyares, and fellow Republican Lieutenant Gov.-elect Winsome Sears will be sworn into office on Jan. 15.
