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Senate Attempting to STOP Vaccine Mandate through Congressional Review Act
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In early November, the Biden administration’s rules for the nationwide vaccine mandate were announced. In summary, the rules, issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA):
- Apply to businesses with 100 or more employees.
- Businesses have until Jan. 4 to make sure their workers have received the shots necessary to be fully vaccinated.
- All unvaccinated workers must begin wearing masks by Dec. 5 and provide a negative Covid test on a weekly basis after the January deadline, according to the requirements.
- Companies are not required to pay for or provide the tests unless they are otherwise required to by state or local laws or in labor union contracts.
The cost to businesses, from this vaccine mandate, will be astronomical. Forcing employees to get the “jab” or pay for their own test will most certainly force many men and women to quit. Almost every store and business across the nation is experiencing a labor shortage, and this will only add to it.
Thankfully, several lower courts have blocked the mandate, but more must be done. The vaccine mandate highlights an important problem affecting the checks and balances the nation’s Founders implemented: the Executive effectively legislating through the use of executive orders.
Executive orders carry the force of law, like a bill passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and then signed by the President. In application, executive orders act as a directive for an agency or agencies to accomplish a certain presidential priority by creating a federal rule. In his first one-hundred days in office, President Biden issued fifty-two executive orders, mostly aimed at reversing orders originating from the Trump Administration. Since then, Biden has issued many more executive orders, like the vaccine mandate.
Unlike an executive order, a law that originates in Congress usually enjoys bipartisan input and the support of both political parties. Therefore, Congressional laws, unlike those issued by the President, are representative of more than just the majority that elected the President.
Consequently, Congress must check the federal rule-making process. There are several ways to do this, like through committee hearings with the President’s cabinet secretaries and through the budgetary process, or expanding or decreasing an agency’s budget. While these tools are used, there is another approach, the Congressional Review Act (CRA), that can actually stop a rule from implementation.
In effect, the CRA reviews major rules that Congress decides to act upon through the introduction of a joint resolution. If the joint resolution passes both the House and Senate and is signed into law, Congress effectively prevents the federal agency from implementing the rule and from issuing a related rule in the future.
Senator Mike Braun (R-IN) has introduced a CRA resolution to stop Biden’s vaccine mandate from taking effect. Presently, the chances of this passing are somewhat probable. A CRA resolution is both privileged, meaning it must be voted on, and it only requires a simple majority to pass in the Senate.
As Breitbart reported, “Given that Senate Democrats have a one-member majority and Democrats have roughly a three-member majority in the House, this would put significant pressure on moderates in both chambers of Congress to back Braun’s resolution.”
If by some luck the resolution does pass both the House and Senate and then heads to the President’s desk only to be vetoed, the veto override vote is also privileged. Thus, there will also be a vote to override the President’s veto.
Senator Braun is right to use the CRA as a means to stop the vaccine mandate. This mandate is anti-American and strips Americans of freedom of choice. The Senate is set to vote on the resolution Wednesday, December 8. Eagle Forum will score in favor of the vote and we will be watching this process unfold and keep you up to date with any important changes.
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