The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted 52 – 48 to overturn President Joe Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate for private businesses with more than 100 employees.
The vote came one day after a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Georgia, issued a 28-page ruling suspending the mandate nationwide.
Republican Senators seeking to overturn Biden’s mandate used a law called the Congressional Review Act (CRA) which allows Congress to overturn federal regulations and requires just a simple majority vote in both the Senate and House.
Two Democrats — Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Jon Tester (Mont.) — joined all 50 Republicans in voting for the measure, which would ban the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from enforcing the mandate.
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In a press conference before the vote, Senate Republicans said they believe there will be enough Democrats in the House of Representatives to get a vote, despite Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) claim that “we’re not going to go for their anti-vaxxing.”
If all Republican House members vote for the CRA, it would take five Democrat votes to approve.
However, even if the votes are there, Biden will likely veto the measure, according to Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who sponsored the CRA.
If a majority of House members sign a discharge petition — used when the chair of a committee refuses to place a bill or resolution on the committee’s agenda — it would “force Pelosi’s hand … to require a floor vote,” The Hill reported.
This week, Tester said he’s “not crazy about mandates,” according to The Epoch Times. Prior to Biden’s mandate, issued in September, Tester’s home state of Montana passed a law barring public sector and private employers from discriminating based on vaccination status.
The law, which also protects the privacy of individual medical records, was signed in May by Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte.
Gianforte, who reaffirmed the law after Biden’s mandate was announced, stated in a November press release:
“Despite President Biden’s efforts to mandate vaccinations for employers and their employees, Montana law remains the law of the land, and no employer in our state should use President Biden’s OSHA rule, now halted by a federal court, as a basis for imposing illegal vaccination requirements on employees.”
Biden’s mandate set a deadline for employees to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4, 2022.