Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors.
“This sweeping mandate is a part of the President’s unconstitutional efforts to revitalize his flagging vaccination campaign at the cost of individual liberty,” Paxton’s office said in a release.
“President Biden’s vaccine campaign is intended to ‘affect almost every aspect of society’ and his weaponization of the administrative state against federal contractors is an unprecedented overreach,” it adds.
The White House announced late September that millions of federal contractors must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by a Dec. 8 deadline.
The guidance says that contractor employees covered by the rules “must be fully vaccinated no later than Dec. 8” and adds that after that date for future contracts employees must be vaccinated by the first day of performance on a new or extended contract.
The guidance adds that contractor employees “working on a covered contract from their residence also must comply with the vaccination requirement.”
Paxton’s motion argues that Biden’s vaccine mandate will have a “swift, devastating, and irreparable impact” on the state, citing potential future economic loss based on the federal government’s own publicly available data.
The mandate will also will cause “significant, concrete financial harm” to the state in the form of unemployment benefits and increased Medicaid expenses,” it states.
“Across the State of Texas, people are already being confronted with the horrible reality that they may lose their jobs if they are not willing to lose their rights and abandon their convictions.”
It notes that Michael Ford, a 36-year veteran of the nuclear industry and former member of the Texas Radiation Advisory Board and chair of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, has personal knowledge that nearly 100 Pantex employees will be terminated if they do not comply with Biden’s vaccine mandate.
“The President’s blatant disdain for those who choose to not receive a vaccine will not be allowed to seep into the great State of Texas,” Paxton said in a statement. “Here, we protect individual liberties first and foremost, and Texans do not have to sacrifice their beliefs and their health to preserve their livelihoods.”
The Epoch Times has contacted the Biden administration for comment.
