Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is scheduled to appear alongside the state’s attorney general and agriculture commissioner Wednesday to discuss how President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors violates the law and harms the state.
This, according to a press release that members of Kemp’s staff emailed Tuesday. The press release called Biden’s mandate “unlawful” and suggested that state officials would file a lawsuit to fight it.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and Georgia Department of Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black are scheduled to join Kemp at 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, November 3, at the state capitol, the press release said.
The press release provided no other details.
Exactly 21 state attorneys general — not including Carr — have formally called on Biden to withdraw his administration’s COVID 19 vaccine mandate on federal contractors.
The state attorneys general requested Biden act in a letter they sent to the White House last week.
“Like other mandates being imposed by the federal government, this mandate stands on shaky legal ground, cannot be reconciled with other messaging provided by the government, and forces contractors unable to make sense of its many inconsistencies to require that their entire workforce be vaccinated on an unworkable timeline or face potential blacklisting by the federal government or loss of future federal contracts,” the state attorneys general wrote.
“We strongly urge you to instruct agencies to cease implementing the mandate or, at a minimum, to provide clarity to agencies and federal contractors across the country and delay the mandate’s compliance date.”
Biden, in September and by executive order, directed federal departments and agencies to include a clause in contracts requiring all contractors and subcontractors to adopt COVID Safety protocols.
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery, one of the 21 attorneys general, said the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force issued guidance imposing a vaccination mandate more expansive than Biden’s executive order. Slatery said that that agency’s guidance “is internally inconsistent and is at odds with actions taken elsewhere by the federal government.”
“The Federal Contractor Mandate is simply not workable,” Slatery said last week.
“It is inconsistent with other federal COVID-19 guidelines, fails to account for industry-specific factors, and imposes unduly broad obligations unrelated to protecting people working on federal contracts.”
Slatery also said that those contractors have faced a series of conflicting directives.
In addition to Tennessee, the letter was sent by the attorneys general for Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
