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Op-Ed: OSHA’s ‘Emergency’ vaccine mandate
exceeds its power and is dangerously totalitarian
[The Center Square] James Taylor | The
Heartland Institute
The Biden administration’s
attempt to force Americans to be injected with a COVID-19 vaccine as a
condition of holding a job is unethical, unlawful and exemplifies the
totalitarian destruction of our constitutional democracy the political
left claimed Donald Trump would engage in if given the chance. |
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 Central to our constitutional democracy is the notion that
federal powers are diversified and separated among three roughly coequal
branches. Congress alone has the right to make laws, while the president heads
the executive branch that enforces the laws Congress passes.
In our constitutional democracy, laws forcing people to get injected with
COVID-19 vaccines must – if they can be lawfully implemented at all – be passed
by state legislatures, not imposed by a dictatorial president or state
governors.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when medical
scientists did not know who was particularly vulnerable to the virus, how deadly
it was, how rapidly it would spread, and by what means it would spread,
governors in various states asserted emergency powers to impose business
closures, citizen lockdowns, and mask mandates. The asserted justification was
that COVID-19 descended on us too quickly for federal or state legislatures to
act in time to stave off a deadly catastrophe.
The argument that governors, leading the executive branch at the state level,
possessed emergency power to impose COVID-19 restrictions is controversial. Even
if we grant the notion that the early days of the pandemic justified governors
imposing restrictions in absence of legislative authority to do so, such power
exists only to the extent and for as long as a sudden emergency renders
legislative action impossible or unfeasible.
Fast-forward to today, more than 20 months since the pandemic reached American
shores. The Biden administration is frustrated that the American people do not
support mandatory COVID-19 vaccines. Believing that requiring mandatory vaccines
is more important than abiding by our constitutional diversification of power,
the Biden administration has dug deep into its bag of tricks for a means to make
an end run around our constitutional democracy. Knowing that most people need to
work in order to eat and make a living, the Biden administration came up with
the idea of using the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to
force people to get injected with the vaccine as an “emergency” condition of
holding a job.
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COVID-19 has been in the United States for more
than a year and a half. There is no “emergency” that justifies
action by OSHA or anybody other than the legislative branch of
government. The states have had more than a year and a half to pass
laws requiring vaccines if they believe such laws are proper and
necessary. Congress has also chosen not to impose such requirements,
most likely because they are more than aware that it would be a
gross violation of the Tenth Amendment.
Even if a COVID-19 “emergency” existed by which the states did not
have sufficient time or opportunity to act, personal medical
decisions and medical treatment are far beyond the reach of OSHA.
Congress created OSHA in 1970 to improve physical workplace
conditions and reduce workplace accidents. Congress did not create
OSHA to enact national vaccine mandates.
Much like calling pre-kindergarten daycare “infrastructure” and
saying that roads are “racist,” the Biden administration seeks to
defy the common-sense definition of words – as well as our
constitutional democracy – to argue that an obscure federal
executive agency like OSHA has the right to defy Congressional
authority and force millions of Americans to be injected against
their will with a vaccine or go jobless and hungry. That is not the
type of dictatorial power our Founding Fathers placed in the federal
executive branch.
Ironically, Democrats and the political left spent four years
accusing Donald Trump of ignoring the Constitution, emasculating the
legislative branch, and imposing totalitarian fascism through the
executive branch. Obviously, none of that ever happened. On the
other hand, it is the far left and its cronies in the Biden
administration who are assaulting our constitutional democracy and
seeking to rule the nation through presidential dictate.
James Taylor (JTaylor@heartland.org) is president of The Heartland
Institute.
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