Nebraska joins coalition in filing suit to halt vaccine mandate for federal contractors

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson jointly led with Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt a ten-state coalition in filing a lawsuit against the Biden Administration for imposing a vaccine mandate on federal contractors and federally contracted employees. The lawsuit takes issue with the Biden Administration’s attempt to mandate vaccinations for one-fifth of the U.S. workforce through Executive Order 14042.

In September, President Biden directed OSHA to write a rule requiring employers with at least 100 workers to force employees to get vaccinated or produce weekly test results showing they are virus free.

“For the first year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic, both the Trump and Biden Administrations rightly acknowledged that the federal government lacks the authority to broadly mandate vaccines on the American people,” said Attorney General Peterson. “But all that changed on September 9, 2021, when the Biden Administration did an about-face and announced that it would impose a wide-ranging set of vaccine mandates, including one for employees of federal contractors. This far-reaching order is unconstitutional because it is the states, not the federal government, that are responsible for addressing such matters of public health.”

“The ramifications of the federal contractor vaccine mandate are significant,” Attorney General Peterson explained. “It will impact countless employees, exacerbate existing workforce shortages, and create economic instability. Most importantly, it puts individual employees who happened to work for federal contractors out of a job if they simply make the personal choice not to be vaccinated. Hopefully, the court will resolve this legal matter quickly and provide clarity to employees who are understandably concerned about their ability to provide for their families.”

Joining Nebraska and Missouri in the lawsuit are attorneys general from Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.