The Republican National Committee is planning to sue the Biden administration over President Biden’s new vaccine mandates for millions of workers in the public and private sectors, calling his actions “unconstitutional” and an “authoritarian decree.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced the planned legal action Thursday night, just hours after Biden’s speech, which mandated that two-thirds of all US workers get COVID-19 shots.
“Joe Biden told Americans when he was elected that he would not impose vaccine mandates. He lied. Now small businesses, workers, and families across the country will pay the price,” McDaniel said in a statement. “Like many Americans, I am pro-vaccine and anti-mandate.”
“Many small businesses and workers do not have the money or legal resources to fight Biden’s unconstitutional actions and authoritarian decrees, but when his decree goes into effect, the RNC will sue the administration to protect Americans and their liberties.”
In a separate statement, McDaniel slammed the president’s agenda for being “all about power, all about control, and meant to divide us.”
On Thursday, Biden announced a six-step plan to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, allowing the Labor Department to force businesses with at least 100 workers to require staff to get vaccinated or be tested weekly.
Federal workers won’t have a testing option and must consent to injections with few exceptions.
The order comes with fines of up to $14,000 per violation, with Biden claiming vaccination falls outside matters of “freedom or personal choice.”
“This is not about freedom, or personal choice,” Biden said. “It’s about protecting yourself and those around you — the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love… We cannot allow these actions to stand in the way of protecting the large majority of Americans who have done their part, who want to get back to life as normal.”
Other steps of his plan include increasing testing, mandating masks, and improving care for those already diagnosed with COVID-19.
While some states have pushed back against mask mandates in school, Biden promised the Education Department will pay the salaries of teachers or cover the funding lost by school districts who impose mask mandates despite state bans.
When it comes to travel, the Transportation Security Administration will double fines for passengers who refuse to wear masks.
Republicans slammed the president following his speech, claiming the federal government doesn’t have the power to issue such a mandate.
“This is not a power that is delegated to the federal government,” South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem told Fox News’ “Hannity” Thursday night. “This is a power for states to decide. In South Dakota, we’re going to be free and we’re going to make sure that we don’t overstep our authority. So we will take action. My legal team is already working, and we will defend and protect our people from this unlawful mandate.”
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts called the president’s words “absolutely outrageous.”
“The president’s forgotten we live in America,” Ricketts told Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.” “He thinks we live in the Soviet Union. And the hypocrisy of this is just unbelievable. We have weekly phone calls with the governors and the White House staff. The president has never once been on any of those, and yet he’s got the gall to tell us that we’re not fighting the pandemic? … I can tell you, Nebraska will push back, fight back with any tool we can find against this huge, stunning overreach of federal power.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the new rule “an assault on private businesses” and vowed that the state was “already working to halt this power grab.”
It is unclear how the governors can fight back against the order, as Biden warned that if Republican governors who have opposed vaccine and mask mandates “won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my powers as president to get them out of the way.”
According to CDC data, 75.3 percent of US adults have had at least one coronavirus vaccine shot. Vaccination rates do vary among states and the national infection rate is as high as it was in late January, when few Americans were vaccinated.