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Is Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Legal? Constitutional Expert Explains

President Joe Biden's proposed vaccine mandates could affect as many as 100 million Americans. Is this constitutional? We ask Heritage Foundation legal scholar John Malcolm. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

After President Joe Biden finished his speech last Thursday evening announcing new COVID-19 vaccine mandates, a reporter called out, “Is this constitutional?” Biden, leaving the room, did not stop to answer. 

The president’s new vaccine mandate directs the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the Labor Department, to require all organizations with 100 employees or more either to test their employees weekly for COVID-19 or ensure they are vaccinated. Biden also signed an executive order requiring that all federal employees and contract workers be vaccinated. 

One of the most important questions to ask is whether OSHA “has the statutory authority … to issue a rule of this type,” Heritage Foundation legal scholar John Malcolm says. 

Biden’s requirements likely will affect between 80 and 100 million Americans, some of whom now face the choice of taking a COVID-19 vaccine or losing their job. 

Malcolm, who is a senior legal fellow at Heritage and directs its Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain the constitutionality of vaccine mandates and the likelihood that litigation over a new OSHA rule will rise to the Supreme Court. (The Heritage Foundation is the parent organization of The Daily Signal.)

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