President Joe Biden’s administration did not have the authority to impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on workers and volunteers in a federal childcare program, a U.S. judge has ruled.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) forced Head Start workers, and some volunteers, to get a COVID-19 vaccine starting in early 2022. Head Start provides childcare to children from low-income families.
HHS cited the Head Start Act, which says the health secretary can add “administrative and financial management standards,” “standards relating to the condition and location of facilities (including indoor air quality assessment standards, where appropriate),” and “such other standards as the secretary finds to be appropriate.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that the mandate was outside of the power granted by the act. The law “does not mention vaccinations,” he and other plaintiffs said in a brief.
U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix agreed.
“The wisdom of Head Start’s rule is not before the Court—only its legality. If the people, through Congress, wish to impose a vaccine mandate on Head Start programs, they may do so by passing a law. But an agency can do only what Congress authorizes it to do,” Hendrix, a Trump appointee, said in his ruling.
“Regardless of how well intentioned, HHS’s attempt here to shoehorn the vaccine mandate into statutory language authorizing modification of Head Start’s administrative, financial, and facility-management standards goes too far. Equally fatal to the rule is the agency’s decision to implement it without the necessary public notice and comment, consultation with stakeholders, and reasonable explanation,” he added.
The ruling strikes down the mandate, which Biden’s administration had refused to rescind. The mandate had already been struck down in 24 states, per a 2022 ruling by a different judge.
HHS and the U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.
“I’m proud to announce that the Biden Administration’s attempt to use the Head Start program to mask toddlers and force the vaccine on staff and volunteers has now been permanently defeated,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican and one of the plaintiffs, said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.
