Federal Judge Rejects AG ‘Nunchucks’ Bid For An Injunction Against Vaccine Mandate For Federal Workers

Trump Death Cult Governor Doug Ducey has been a miserable failure in dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic. His gross criminal negligence has led to this: Arizona is only state where COVID-19 the leading cause of death during pandemic:

Arizona is the only state nationwide in which COVID-19 has been the leading cause of death during the pandemic, according to a new report Wednesday from the Arizona Public Health Association.

Advertisement

Nationally, COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death, with cancer and heart disease in the first two spots.

There are five states in which COVID-19 is the second leading cause of death, or in which there was a tie for second: Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Texas, says the report, which examined data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in 40 states. In four states, it was lower than the third leading cause: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont.

Other states that might have competed with Arizona for the top COVID spot on the list have higher rates of heart disease brought on by other statewide health issues, such as obesity or lax smoking policies, said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, an advocacy group.

Governor Doug Ducey and AZ DHS Director Dr. Cara Christ

In Arizona, “we have horrible decisions made around COVID-19 coupled with long-term tobacco control,” said Humble, referring to the Smoke-Free Arizona Act in 2006.

Humble is a vocal critic of the pandemic mitigation strategies led by Gov. Doug Ducey and the state health department.

His criticisms, which he outlined in an October guest opinion column in the Arizona Daily Star, include wanting Ducey to give cities and counties the authority to enact and enforce mask measures; to stop “micromanaging” universities’ and community colleges’ COVID protocols; and to “have a reasonable student code of conduct that requires unvaccinated students to get tested weekly.”

Humble, a former director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, also wants Ducey to allow greater autonomy to local school boards.

Humble, a public health practitioner, teamed with Allan N. Williams, a retired researcher with the Minnesota Department of Health and an assistant professor with the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, on Wednesday’s report.

Their research included using CDC databases to obtain the number of deaths and the crude death rates for the two leading causes of death in 2019, which were heart disease and cancer for each state and the country overall.

The COVID-19 death rates through Oct. 29 were then compared to heart disease and cancer rates from 2019.

UPDATE:

UPDATE to AG Mark Brnovich Goes The Full George Wallace, Yelling ‘States Rights!’ Over Covid-19 Vaccinations (excerpt):

All of a sudden our partisan hack attorney general Mark Brnovich decided to go the full George Wallace, standing in the school house door (with his nunchuks in hand) yelling “states rights!” Dude, it didn’t work for George Wallace, it’s not going to work for you.

We have been over this. I have explained at length that President Biden’s vaccination plan is not only constitutional, but is not even out of the ordinary. The law is clearly on his side. Historical Parallel Between Southern ‘Massive Resistance’ to Brown v. Board, And Trump Death Cult ‘Massive Resistance’ To Covid-19 Vaccinations.

Nevertheless, our partisan hack attorney general, who is running for another office, is compelled to engage in performance politics for the GQP crazy base of anti-science, anti-mask, and anti-xax Trump death cultists.

In a surprising decision from a partisan Republican judge, our partisan hack attorney general “Nunchucks” was denied a nationwide injunction he sought to raise his stature in his Senate bid. Judge refuses to quash vaccine mandate:

A federal judge on November 10 rejected a bid by Attorney General Mark Brnovich to issue an immediate nationwide injunction blocking President Biden from requiring federal workers and contractors to be vaccinated against Covid.

Judge Michael Liburdi said he was not buying arguments that it’s illegal for the president to impose such a mandate when he is not requiring the same of people entering the country illegally. The judge said there’s no legal comparison.

That shit may work on Fox News, but not in a court of law.

Liburdi, in denying the request by Brnovich for a preliminary injunction after more than three hours of legal arguments, also suggested he was not convinced by claims that Biden’s directives actually force anyone to do anything or that, as the attorney general contends, anyone’s rights of “bodily integrity” were being violated.

Workers actually have an option: get vaccinated, or get tested weekly. They are not being “forced” to be vaccinated against their will. (As an aside, this “bodily integrity” argument from anti-vaxxers really pisses me off. These are mostly the same people who will deny a woman her right to choose to be pregnant or not – her “bodily integrity” – and force her to carry an unwanted pregnancy against her will).

Instead, the judge phrased the issue as a condition of employment for federal workers. And Liburdi said they remain free to either get vaccinated or seek work elsewhere.

Ditto, he said, over the requirement that new federal contracts include clauses requiring the employees of these entities also be vaccinated. Liburdi said all that means is that the companies either comply or lose their contracts.

“You seem to want me to declare this unconstitutional,” he told Assistant Attorney General James Rogers, who was arguing the case for his boss. “I don’t think I’m going to do that.”

In fact, Liburdi questioned whether the state even has legal standing to challenge Biden’s directives – or whether he himself has the authority to issue the kind of injunction Brnovich wants to block nationally what the president is doing.

See, Justice Department: Legal and factual errors invalidate Arizona’s challenge to mandate:

In new legal filings, Justice attorney Joseph DeMott says there is no legal authority for Mark Brnovich to sue over what is clearly within President Biden’s power to deal with the pandemic. In fact, he said the president is legally immune from some of Brnovich’s claims, as are the people to whom he delegated that power.

DeMott said there are other problems with the lawsuit.

He said states do not have legal standing to sue the federal government on behalf of their residents, as Brnovich is trying to do here.

To the extent state agencies subject to the orders have contracts with the federal government, DeMoss said their claims are issues of contract that cannot be brought in federal court.

But Liburdi’s action is not the last word. Liburdi gave Brnovich some additional time to alter his complaint to address legal deficiencies and try again in a couple of weeks.

I’m sorry? Republican AGs get a do-over for their legal incompetence. When did this become a thing in federal court?

Potentially more significant, the judge made it clear that, as he considers a final ruling, he also has questions about claims by the Department of Justice that the president, simply by declaring he is acting in the name of government economy and efficiency, has broad powers over federal employees and contractors.

Central to the fight are two separate federal orders.

One requires federal workers to be fully vaccinated [or be tested weekly]. Joseph DeMott, an attorney for the federal government, said that mandate, originally set for December 8, has been moved back to January 18.

Separate is an order that any new federal contracts signed after November 15 with other entities include a requirement that all the workers be vaccinated [or be tested weekly].

Brnovich is relying heavily on a claim that the president’s orders run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Rogers told Liburdi that data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that more than 1.7 million people entering the country illegally were detained at the southern border in the 12 months ending September 30. By contrast, he said there are 2.1 million federal employees.

“There are very similar buckets of people, number of people, affected by the policy,” Rogers said.
“That just shows that there’s no rational basis for them to favor one over the other.”

And he said it’s not like these migrants are only in this country temporarily.

“They typically stay for years, often forever,” Rogers said.

Liburdi, however, said that is ignoring how equal protection laws work.

What would be an equal protection case, he said, is a school district looking for a science teacher imposing screening requirements on people of Middle Eastern descent that do not apply to other applicants.

But in this case, Liburdi said, if an undocumented person somehow became a federal employee, he or she would, in fact, be subject to the vaccine requirement, just like all other federal workers.
“So doesn’t that defeat your argument?” he asked.

“No, it does not,” Rogers responded.

Liburdi was no more convinced by Rogers pointing out that while the U.S. reopened its borders and is requiring proof of vaccination for foreign travelers that Biden has imposed no similar mandate for those arriving “illegally” (you mean those legally seeking asylum?)

“That’s a political issue,” the judge said. “That’s something that needs to be brought up with the congressional delegation.”

What did get Liburdi’s attention were arguments from Demott that Congress gave the president “broad authority to manage the operations of the federal government.”

“The federal government has determined it will operate more efficiently if its workers, with certain exceptions, are vaccinated against COVID-19,” he told the judge. And all that, DeMott said, falls within the power of the president to promote efficiency in the civil service.

Liburdi said that amounts to arguing that “the president could do whatever the president wants as long as there’s some sort of an explanation for it.” And the judge wanted to know how far the Department of Justice believes that power extends.

I’m sorry? Is this judge new to the law? This is known as rational basis review, the normal standard of review that courts apply when considering constitutional questions, including due process or equal protection questions under the Fifth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment. If there is a rational basis for the action – and there is – the court is to give deference to the action.

He asked whether the president, using that authority to make the government more efficient, can ban workers from drinking sugary sodas or eating at McDonald’s or Burger King simply by declaring that it leads to diabetes, increased need for health care and absenteeism.

“Could he issue an order prohibiting any employee of a federal contractor or subcontractor to drink Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, have a Big Mac while employed?” Liburdi continued.

“What if there was an outbreak of sexually transmitted diseases and that caused death, absenteeism, increased health care costs,” the judge asked DeMott. “Could the president sign an order prohibiting employees from, well, you know?”

This is the kind of ridiculous shit one learns from watching Fox News all the time: “oooh, the president is a tyrant acting like a dictator taking away my freedoms.” Judge Liburdi is an embarrassment to the legal profession for even entertaining these ridiculous hypotheticals. He deserves harsh criticism.

DeMott said those hypothetical situations “would present much, much more difficult situations” than what is at issue here. [The polite way of saying “I can’t believe you even asked me something so ridiculous.”]  And at least part of it, the attorney said, is based on the record so far.

“We’ve had 18 months of a pandemic that has caused huge disruptions to public and private employers,” DeMott said. “The federal government is no exception.”

But Liburdi said that doesn’t answer the questions of the breadth of the president’s order. He noted that what Biden enacted even affects someone working from home doing payroll for a company with a federal contract.

To reiterate his earlier reported comment: Liburdi said all that means is that the companies either comply or lose their contracts. Listen to your own words, Judge.

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal actions Brnovich, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, has filed against the Biden administration, mostly related to his criticism of the president’s immigration and border policies. Several already have been dismissed, though the U.S. Supreme Court did agree to let him argue next year that he should be able to defend a Trump-era policy, scrapped by Biden, that denies permanent legal status – also known as green cards – to migrants who do not meet certain financial conditions.





Advertisement

Discover more from Blog for Arizona

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

1 thought on “Federal Judge Rejects AG ‘Nunchucks’ Bid For An Injunction Against Vaccine Mandate For Federal Workers”

  1. Elsewhere, “A judge says Texas’ ban on mask mandates violates the rights of students with disabilities.”, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/us/judge-rules-mandates-up-to-texas-schools.html

    A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates in Texas schools violates the rights of students with disabilities, clearing the path for districts in the state to issue their own rules for face coverings, a decision that could affect more than five million students.

    The ruling comes after months of politicized disputes over measures at the state level opposing mask-wearing policies that had been intended to prevent the spread of Covid.

    The lawsuit, which sought to overturn the mandate, was filed on behalf of several families of students with disabilities and the organization Disability Rights Texas. They stated that the defendants — the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton; the commissioner of the Texas Education Agency, Mike Morath; and the Texas Education Agency — had put students with disabilities at risk through their complete erasure of mask mandates.

    Judge Lee Yeakel, who made the ruling in the suit filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, determined that the order from the governor violated the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act because it put children with disabilities at risk.

    The ruling also prohibits Mr. Paxton from enforcing the order by Mr. Abbott, who has repeatedly opposed Covid-related mandates.

    “The spread of Covid-19 poses an even greater risk for children with special health needs,” Judge Yeakel said. “Children with certain underlying conditions who contract Covid-19 are more likely to experience severe acute biological effects and to require admission to a hospital and the hospital’s intensive-care unit.”

    The [Republican] State Supreme Court has repeatedly allowed the governor’s ban to remain in effect, but the impact of Wednesday’s federal court ruling could ripple across the country in similar cases in other states.

    [T]he Justice Department signaled support for the lawsuit against the state in September, saying in a formal statement that “even if their local school districts offered them the option of virtual learning,” the ban still violated the rights of students with disabilities.

Comments are closed.