On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate narrowly approved a bill to reject the Biden government’s requirement that private businesses with hundreds or more employees vaccinate their workers against the fatal COVID-19 or submit to weekly testing. Two Democratic leaders joined the Republican measure to back the initiative. Moreover, the Senate sends the legislation to the Democratic-led House of Representatives with 52-48 votes, facing strong headwinds. On the other hand, United States President Joe Biden threatened to veto the resolution.
The latest legislation would veto federal government vaccine mandatory rules. Furthermore, the move was not subject to Senate rules that require sixty of its hundred members to agree on most bills, meaning it could approve with only a fifty-one-vote simple majority. Two Senate Democrats – Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – joined fifty Republicans in voting for the legislation. So, the initiative emphasizes the intense political opposition facing government efforts to tackle coronavirus at a time when health officials are trying to combat the highly infectious Omicron variant.
Senate votes to overturn Biden’s vaccine mandate for private businesses with 100 or more employees in 52-48 vote.
Two Democrats, Senators Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, joined their 50 GOP colleagues in voting to repeal the requirement. pic.twitter.com/wJhJ9yPy2h
— Preston Phillips 🇺🇸 (@PrestonTVNews) December 9, 2021
Additionally, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said it would work with businesses on compliance but would fine them to over thirteen thousand dollars for every violation of mandates, though the litigation suspended the enforcement and execution of the mandates. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, said that American nationals who refused to receive vaccination shots are the biggest hurdle to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, Schumer indicated that some of the vaccines’ mandate resistance is just due to politics.
Mandate Puts Strain on already Struggling Businesses
Last month, Senate Republicans filed their challenge to the federal government’s vaccine mandate under the Congressional Review Act. The Act is a legislative tool that allows Congress to reverse an executive branch rule. Braun and some other Senate Republican leaders argued that Biden’s mandate is an overstep of authority by the federal administration and puts more stress on already struggling businesses across the country, while they also insist that vaccines are a personal choice.
Congress met a deadline last week to back the government, and some Senate Republican leaders threatened to push a government closure unless they received a vote on an amendment that would ban the federal funding use for the president’s coronavirus vaccine mandates. However, the legislation finally failed in a 50-48 vote. Joe Manchin, the Democratic Senator from West Virginia, announced that he had signed on as a co-sponsor to the Republican resolution to veto the vaccine requirement for businesses and will strongly back it.
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Last week, Manchin said that the government should incentivize, not penalize, private business workers whose responsibility is to protect their workers from coronavirus. However, he was not the only Democratic leader to express his support for reversing the federal mandate. Tester also said opposing the vaccine mandate that he repeatedly heard concerns from community leaders and small businesses of Montana about the adverse effect the private business mandate will have on their results and the economy of the country.
Anti-Science, Anti-Vaccine Vote
Previously, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, told Fox News that the Democratic-led Senate would vote on the resolution this week to oppose the federal vaccine mandate. However, he also signaled a positive sign of approving the legislation from the Senate. In addition, Schumer criticized the Republicans-led resolution to challenge the coronavirus vaccine mandate, and he called it an anti-vaccine, anti-science vote. On Capitol Hill, he said that if GOP plans go into effect, deadly coronavirus will linger longer, and the chance of new variants of the virus will increase. And it makes no sense.
However, several businesses have willingly put in place safety measures in the coronavirus pandemic to safeguard their workers and customers and are going ahead with federal vaccine mandates no matter the courts endorse or strike down the regulations of the Biden government. In Georgia, a United States judge also blocked a federal mandate intended at federal contractors on Tuesday. Schumer said that the world is in the middle of a public health crisis.
The U.S. has the highest daily average of new COVID-19 cases globally. It infected around 49.5 million American nationals and killed over seven hundred ninety-four thousand Americans, the highest death toll of any nation. Republicans touted the bipartisan support of the move as a clear message of public concern about the possible impact of the Coronavirus vaccine mandates on business, workers, and the economy. McConnell branded the federal vaccine mandate as an illegal and silly government effort to interfere with the lives of private citizens.
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