Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is filing a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its requirement that federal contractors get vaccinated.
DeSantis announced Florida’s second lawsuit against the Biden administration on Thursday, fulfilling a pledge earlier this month to sue over the mandate when the governor said it would “effectively take away … the jobs of people who have been working hard throughout this entire pandemic” and “have a negative impact on the economy.”
“The state of Florida has filed another lawsuit against the Biden administration,” DeSantis said Thursday. “This lawsuit challenges the Biden administration’s order imposing a vaccine mandate on federal contractors, that will start on Dec. 8.”
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“Just because you’re a business with federal contracts, it’s not right for the federal government to come in and rewrite those contracts and then try to shoehorn this in,” he continued. “If you don’t comply, you either have to fire people or just cancel the contract outright.”
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said the lawsuit amounts to “fulfilling that promise” to “push back on unlawful actions” from the White House.
The lawsuit, reviewed by the Washington Examiner, was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa and seeks a preliminary injunction against the mandate and relief by declaring the Biden administration’s actions unlawful. The suit names President Joe Biden, NASA, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Defense as defendants, challenging the departments’ requirements for employees in the executive branch to be vaccinated.
“Because the government’s unlawful vaccine requirement seeks to interfere with Florida’s employment policies and threaten Florida with economic harm and the loss of federal contracts, the State seeks relief from this Court,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit notes the Biden vaccine mandate is “relying on a statute” that allows the president to “prescribe policies and directives that the President considers necessary to carry out the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act (FPASA) of 1949 (FPASA)” to “compel millions of Americans who work for government contractors to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.”
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The lawsuit argues the particular statute does not authorize “such a radical intrusion on the personal autonomy of American workers.” Even if the mandate did allow for such an intrusion, the lawsuit contends it would still be unlawful because “the manner in which they were enacted violates fundamental principles of administrative and procurement law.”
DeSantis, who claimed Thursday’s lawsuit would stop people from losing their jobs and keep the economy functioning, previously sued the Biden administration over its immigration policy. The Florida Republican said Biden’s “reckless policy” of releasing illegal immigrants into the United States “places Floridians and our law enforcement officers in greater danger.”
