In a win for proponents of individual liberty and medical choice, Gov. Bill Lee, R-Tenn., has signed a bill into law that will prohibit the use of vaccine passports in the state.
HB 9077 and SB 9014 passed the legislature in October, further cementing the Volunteer State as a veritable conservative stronghold and directly defying Joe Biden’s attempt to implement a nationwide vaccine mandate.
The new bill ensuring that no vaccine mandates will be legally enforced in government agencies, schools, or private businesses will take effect immediately. It will also ensure that no one can be barred entry into any building based on vaccination status.
According to a report from the Epoch Times, businesses that contract with the federal government may, in contrast, be able to enforce a vaccine mandate if they are at risk of losing federal funding. Additionally, public schools in Tennessee still have the capacity to enforce a mask mandate for up to 14 days if there is a sudden uptick of Covid-19 cases in any county in the state.
Tennessee’s powerful legislative move to combat tyrannical vaccine mandates comes shortly after a Federal Court of Appeals moved to uphold its temporary ban on Biden’s federal mandate in the private sector on Nov. 12. The court’s decision slammed Biden’s mandate.
Here is an important excerpt from their decision:
“On the dubious assumption that the Mandate does pass constitutional
muster—which we need not decide today—it is nonetheless fatally flawed
on its own terms. Indeed, the Mandate’s strained prescriptions combine to
make it the rare government pronouncement that is both overinclusive
(applying to employers and employees in virtually all industries and
workplaces in America, with little attempt to account for the obvious
differences between the risks facing, say, a security guard on a lonely night
shift, and a meatpacker working shoulder to shoulder in a cramped
warehouse) and underinclusive (purporting to save employees with 99 or
more coworkers from a “grave danger” in the workplace, while making no
attempt to shield employees with 98 or fewer coworkers from the very same threat).
The Mandate’s stated impetus—a purported “emergency” that the
entire globe has now endured for nearly two years, and which OSHA itself
spent nearly two months responding to—is unavailing as well. And its
promulgation grossly exceeds OSHA’s statutory authority.”
This ruling is impactful because it establishes a legal precedent that is likely to be repeated as more states challenge Biden’s vaccine mandates. Biden’s unconstitutional and illegal medical edicts will likely be tied up in the courts for years as red states push back against it. The Federal Court of Appeals is a reaffirming nod to Tennessee that they are on the right side of the law in their decision to ban vaccine passports.