Another federal judge has dealt a blow to the Biden administration’s authoritarian and unconstitutional vaccine mandate, issuing a nationwide injunction on the order.
Judge Terry Doughty, of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, has blocked Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers and issued a nationwide injunction on the order. His decision follows an identical ruling from Missouri District Court Judge Matthew Schelp, though the Missouri judge’s decision only applied to ten states.
The lawsuit in Louisiana was led by the state’s Republican Attorney General, Jeff Landry, and joined by 13 other states.
“If the separation of powers meant anything to the Constitutional framers, it meant that the three necessary ingredients to deprive a person of liberty or property – the power to make rules, to enforce them, and to judge their violations – could never fall into the same hands,” Doughty wrote in his decision. “If the executive branch is allowed to usurp the power of the legislative branch to make laws, two of the three powers conferred by our Constitution would be in the same hands. If human nature and history teach anything, it is that civil liberties face grave risks when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency.”
“During a pandemic such as this one, it is even more important to safeguard the separation of powers set forth in our Constitution to avoid erosion of our liberties. Because the Plaintiff States have satisfied all four elements required for a preliminary injunction to issue, this Court has determined that a preliminary injunction should issue against the Government Defendants,” the judge added. “This matter will ultimately be decided by a higher court than this one. However, it is important to preserve the status quo in this case. The liberty interests of the unvaccinated requires nothing less.”
Doughty also commented on his unique decision to issue a nationwide injunction, noting that it was necessary because the mandate was nationwide and therefore “uniformity” needed to be maintained.
“Therefore, the scope of this injunction will be nationwide, except for the states of Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, since these ten states are already under a preliminary injunction order dated November 29, 2021, out of the Eastern District of Missouri,” the judge said. “This preliminary injunction shall remain in effect pending the final resolution of this case, or until further orders from this Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, or the United States Supreme Court.”
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry celebrated the decision in a statement, while also attacking Joe Biden for issuing the mandate in the first place.
“I applaud Judge Doughty for recognizing that Louisiana is likely to succeed on the merits and for delivering yet another victory for the medical freedom of Americans,” Landry said. “While Joe Biden villainizes our healthcare heroes with his ‘jab or job’ edicts, I will continue to stand up to the President’s bully tactics and fight for liberty.”
“While our fight is far from over, I am pleased the Court granted preliminary relief against the President’s unconstitutional and immoral attack on not only our healthcare workers but also the access to healthcare services for our poor and elderly,” the attorney general added. “I will see this case through to the end – fighting every step of the way to prevent the federal government from imposing medical tyranny on our citizens and turning last year’s healthcare heroes into this year’s unemployed.”
