Americans Will Have to Wait a Little Longer for the Supreme Court's Ruling on Vaccine Mandates

Katie Pavlich | January 13, 2022 11:00 AM

UPDATE: The Supreme Court issued rulings on Biden's vaccine mandates Thursday afternoon. Read about them here.

***Original Post***

The Supreme Court did not issue a ruling on the constitutionality of President Joe Biden's vaccine mandates for private companies and medical workers Thursday morning. While it wasn't a guarantee the Justices would issue a ruling today, it was likely given the pressing nature of Biden's mandates impacting the futures of more than 100 million Americans.

SCOTUS releases just one opinion today: an 8-1 decision on an arcane question of pension payments for "dual-status military technicians." The court rules in favor of the government's statutory interpretation and against the technicians. Barrett has the opinion; Gorsuch dissents.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) January 13, 2022

During oral arguments about the cases, which took place last week, conservative Justices seemed skeptical of Biden's mandates. A number of lower courts previously ruled the mandates were unconstitutional given Congress never approved them.

"During several hours of oral arguments, the court’s conservative majority posed sharp questions about whether a federal workplace law that Congress passed some five decades ago provides the legal authority for a vaccine-or-test policy affecting roughly 84 million workers at large employers," the Hill reported. "The conservative justices also appeared wary, though slightly less so, of a separate coronavirus vaccine mandate that applies to the roughly 17 million health care workers at hospitals and other facilities that receive federal funding through the Medicare and Medicaid programs."