COLUMBUS – Ohio has joined Kentucky and Tennessee in a lawsuit challenging President Joe Biden’s coronavirus vaccination mandate for private employers, claiming the requirement amounts to government overreach.
Republican governors, lawmakers and attorneys general are forming a wall of opposition to the Biden administration’s plan to require vaccinations or COVID-19 testing at all private employers of 100 workers or more.
The suit filed Thursday in federal court in Kentucky, Attorney General Daniel Cameron claims the vaccine mandate for federal contractors is unlawful and unconstitutional.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and two county sheriffs have filed suit, claiming the section of the mandate that applies to federal contractors will lead to the departure of deputies, resulting “in the release of dangerous ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detainees being held in county jails across Ohio.”
“We have sheriffs that are going to lose a lot of talented deputies to this mandate, and they’ll ultimately give up their contracts to house ICE detainees rather than see that happen,” Yost said.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the eastern district of Kentucky with Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz and Seneca County Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand, as well as Yost’s counterparts in Kentucky and Tennessee, claims the vaccine mandate is unconstitutional, in part because it usurps the power of local and state police to enforce mandates and Congress did not give the president authority to issue such a broad mandate.