Malliotakis Joins Colleagues in Filing Amicus Brief with SCOTUS in Opposition of Biden's Vaccine Mandate

Statement

Last week, Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11) joined over 130 House Republicans and over 40 Senators in filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in the upcoming case considering the Biden Administration's top-down Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring private employers with over 100 employees to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine or weekly testing. The brief argues that Congress did not give OSHA the authority to impose a vaccine mandate and urges SCOTUS to stay the mandate.

In the brief, the Members wrote: "Congressional members have an interest in the powers they delegate to agencies not being abused--the legislative authority vested in the federal government belongs to Congress, not the Executive branch. In this case, the promulgation by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) of a sweeping, nationwide vaccine mandate on businesses intrudes into an area of legislative concern far beyond the authority of the agency. And it does so with a Mandate enacted through OSHA's seldom-used "emergency temporary standard' (ETS) provision that allows for bypass of notice and comment rulemaking under certain circumstances. That OSHA exceeded its authority in enacting the ETS Mandate is not a "particularly hard' question."

Malliotakis, who is vaccinated and has sponsored several COVID-19 vaccine pop-up clinics in Staten Island and southern Brooklyn, has been an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates. While she encourages Americans to get vaccinated, she argues that stripping people from their livelihoods is the wrong approach and a government overreach that will impact the economy and lead to more staffing shortages in industries across the nation. Malliotakis recently wrote to the President urging the administration to turn its focus toward increasing the supply and distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments and therapeutic medicines to treat COVID-19 infections. In the two weeks following Malliotakis' push, New York received twice the amountof monoclonal antibody doses.

The Members continued: "Moreover, congressional members--as representatives of the people of their States and districts--have an interest in the citizens they represent being able to craft local solutions to problems facing their States and districts. Federalism concerns should be addressed before requiring federally-imposed solutions. And this is especially true when the question at issue involves an area typically reserved to the States (such as vaccine mandates). At the least, Congress should be forced to make clear any delegations of authority into areas of State control."

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