Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its vaccine mandate for federal contractors.
Paxton asked that a federal court declare that Biden’s vaccine mandate was illegal, and issue a preliminary and permanent injunctive relief barring a mandate from being enforced, according to The Hill.
The lawsuit contends that the Biden administration is “using subterfuge to accomplish what they cannot achieve directly—universal compliance with their vaccine mandates, regardless of individual preferences, health care needs, or religious beliefs.”
The filing also claimed that “defendants effectively claim for themselves a general police power to control American life, infringing on state sovereignty and usurping the powers reserved to the states under the Constitution.”
Texas joins 18 other states who also filed lawsuits on the same day attempting to prevent Joe Biden’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors from being enacted.
The 18 states, between three different lawsuits, requested that a federal judge deny Biden’s requirement that all federal contractor employees be vaccinated. The states argue that the mandate violates federal procurement law and is an overreach of federal power.
Texas Attorney General Paxton has been busy fighting the Biden administration this fall.
In October, Paxton was joined by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt in filing a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Biden administration’s directive to cease construction of a southern border wall began during the Trump administration.
Paxton said, “The fact that Congress appropriated large sums of money and directed that money to be spent on the wall…our lawsuit is about forcing that expenditure to be spent the way Congress intended. The reason we care so much about this is that it is having tremendously negative effects on our state.”
Paxton concluded by uttering the now-ubiquitous slogan: “Let’s Go, Brandon!” And added: “We’ll see you in court.”
Also, during October, Paxton showed up at an employee-led Southwest Airlines protest in Dallas. The Southwest employees were protesting outside Southwest’s headquarters seeking to convince the company that they should not enforce an employee vaccine mandate.
The airline reversed course the next day.
At the protest, Paxton said, “While they’re ignoring the border, people are crossing the border with no vaccines, they’re spreading them all over the country with Covid, and yet—they’re willing to push employers like Southwest Airlines to fire their employees.”
Given Paxton’s resistance to the Biden administration’s “federal overreach,” he shouldn’t be expecting an invitation to the White House Christmas party this year.
