Should the Government Impose a National Vaccination Mandate?
I wish they would. Vaxxed citizens should also have rights, primarily the right to not fear death from these morons.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/should-the-government-impose-a-national-vaccination-mandate
Our Columnists
Should the Government Impose a National Vaccination Mandate?
Despite claims to the contrary, there are many routes to legally requiring COVID inoculation.
By Jeannie Suk Gersen
August 26, 2021
snip//
No city or state has yet issued a straight-up requirement that all private citizens be vaccinated against COVID-19, along the lines of the Massachusetts smallpox-vaccination law upheld in Jacobson, but some have edged toward it. The closest so far is New York City’s requirement of proof of having received at least one dose for access to certain activities, including indoor dining, gyms, and performances. Various states have also ordered certain subsets of their populations, including health-care and nursing-home workers, school teachers, and state employees, to be vaccinated or face regular testing. The F.D.A.’s full approval of the vaccine this week makes it more likely that cities and states will impose general mandates on residents. If they do, they can feel confident that such requirements will be upheld by the courts, so long as they include medical and religious exemptions.
If, as seems probable, we see an increasingly dense and complicated patchwork of mandates emerge over the coming months, some might wonder about the possibility of a federal vaccination requirement. Beyond mandating inoculation of federal employees, the Biden Administration has pressured non-federal institutions to require vaccination, using the carrot of federal funding (or the stick of its potential withdrawal). As a condition of continuing to receive federal funding, the Administration has directed all nursing homes to require their staff to be vaccinated. Last week, Biden rebuked states that blocked schools from adopting mask requirements, and the Education Department suggested that infringing on school districts’ authority to adopt policies for safely returning to schools could result in withdrawal of federal funding. It is possible that the Administration could use a similar threat to prevent states from blocking school districts’ vaccine requirements.
The White House has made clear that directly imposing a national requirement on the general populace isn’t on the table, in part because many would question the government’s authority to do so in our constitutional system of limited federal powers. And, in fact, the government has never issued a national vaccination mandate—perhaps because, in the past, leaving that role to states and localities has sufficiently contained epidemics. If any federal statute currently provides authorization for a national COVID-vaccination mandate, however, it would be the Public Health Service Act, which gives several agencies the authority “to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases” from foreign countries or between states. The government can use this law to pursue quarantine policies, and the statute, broadly construed, may also allow the government to mandate vaccinations to prevent interstate spread of COVID-19.
Alternatively, Congress could rely on the Spending Clause to pass new laws that condition the transfer of federal funds to a state upon its establishing a vaccination mandate. Congress could also use the Commerce Clause to institute a national requirement as a regulation of interstate commerce. But those sweepingly ambitious federal routes are guaranteed to become mired in tremendous political pushback that could ultimately increase public resistance to vaccination, not to mention constitutional challenges claiming federal overreach. Short of those methods, the federal government still has myriad ways that it may yet push states, institutions, and citizens to do more than they otherwise would, with an arsenal of inducements, pressures, conditions, and threats. Depending on how things progress with the coronavirus variants, a national vaccination mandate may remain possible as a last resort.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Do you really believe that those restrictions would pass congress & be supported by Pres. Biden?
No more filing a federal tax return........ means no more EITC or Child Care Tax Credit payments making people homeless and hungry(including children)
Take away health insurance, medicaid, food stamps, section 8 housing benefits from poor people
Take away SS checks and Medicare from the elderly
Take away SSDI and Medicare from the disabled
Take away VA benefits from veterans.
Remove K-12 and college students from getting an education
