Tennessee’s Attorney General (AG) Herbert Slatery opposed the proposed vaccine ordinance of President Joe Biden. In a letter he wrote to the Joe Biden administration, Slatery questioned the legal status of the government policy.
Earlier in September 2021, Biden made vaccination ordinances for federal employees and as a new requirement that every company with over 100 employees mandate weekly testing or vaccination for those workers. As per reports, the latter requirement would apply to over 80 million employees. About 74% of US citizens who qualify for the coronavirus vaccine, aged 12 years and above, have got one dosage at the least.
In the said letter, Slatery claimed that Biden’s ordinance does not adhere to 1970’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act and that it might be against the Constitution. Slatery also stated that the ordinance is likely to undermine the US government’s federalist structure. Alongside other arguments, he claimed that coronavirus disease is no ‘grave danger’ for all workplaces and hence would not satisfy the threshold required for this kind of action by OSHA. For your information, the US President has given the Occupational Safety and Health Administration the task of enforcing the ordinance.
As per the letter, the Office of the Attorney General is analyzing the aforesaid act as well as will look at the language of OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard after the ETS becomes available. This way, the Office of the Attorney General will try to discover whether it is a proper standard as per the act mentioned above.
As for Slatery, the state has balanced the public health requirement with the entitlements of citizens as part of its diligent response to this pandemic. The response meant that it has had more cases of COVID-19 per capita than other states since the pandemic started, though it ranked 24th regarding deaths concerning coronavirus per capita.
Slatery concluded the letter stating that every person eligible for coronavirus vaccination should be vaccinated after a discussion with their doctor. Slatery also wrote that over 50% of Tennessee’s citizens have got one shot of the vaccination at the least. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, Slatery recommended leaving public health-related decisions to communities, businesses, free citizens and states.
Many other attorney generals of Tennessee sound more confrontational in the letter they wrote to the Biden administration. They threatened legal proceedings with regard to the ordinance, which they described as counterproductive and disastrous.
Prominent media people such as Dave Ramsey and Ben Shapiro have indicated that their companies in Middle Tennessee would defy the ordinance.
