South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster issued an executive order on Thursday prohibiting state agencies in his cabinet from requiring the COVID-19 vaccine.
According to a press release, the prohibition applies to the 19 state agencies that comprise the governor’s cabinet.
McMaster said in the executive order that though the state must continue to take “narrowly tailored actions” in handling COVID-19, the state must “simultaneously guard against unwarranted, unprecedented, and unlawful efforts by the federal government to expand federal authority and intrude upon the sovereign interests of the state and the recognized rights and liberties of South Carolinians.”
In September, President Joe Biden announced he directed the Department of Labor to develop a rule that companies with more than 100 employees must require the COVID-19 vaccination.
The administration also announced that its rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires 17 million health care workers at facilities that receive federal funding to be vaccinated.
The deadline for getting vaccinated for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus in the public and private sector was by Dec. 8, but that was moved to Jan. 4, 2022.
According to McMaster’s order, all agencies in South Carolina state government must notify the office of the governor and the office of the attorney general upon receiving any communications or directives from the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors, “and prepare for a legal challenge to the recently announced federal OSHA vaccination requirement on employers with 100 or more employees, which would include state agencies,” the press release stated.
McMaster told reporters Thursday his administration has been “stunned by the overreach of the Biden Administration.”
“Stunned is the word,” he said. “I have never seen a president go out-of-bounds of the law as much as this one.”
McMaster said on Twitter that the vaccine mandates are “blatantly unconstitutional,” and coerce South Carolinians to “choose between a vaccine and their jobs.”
