GA federal court: Biden may not have power to invoke federal contractor vax mandate

In the second federal court ruling on the topic in as many weeks, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia in early December issued an order imposing a nationwide injunction against President Joe Biden’s Executive Order (EO) 14042 and its COVID-19 vaccination mandate for employees of federal government contractors and subcontractors. The injunction follows a similar ruling from a Kentucky federal court on November 30, but its scope was limited to the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. With the new ruling, the contractor order is now blocked nationwide.

Suing parties ‘were likely to succeed’

Judge R. Stan Baker ruled the litigants (seven states, a handful of state governors, various state agencies, and the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc.) were likely to succeed in their challenge to the Biden administration’s ability to use its procurement powers to order certain federal contractors and subcontractors to require their employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Much like the Kentucky court, the Georgia court specifically focused on the president’s powers under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act (FPASA), finding it most likely didn’t authorize the administration “to direct the type of actions by agencies that are contained in EO 14042.”