I have no beef with OSHA, though I’m sure many employers hate hearing those two syllables.
These posts and others have reassured me that this part of Biden’s mandate isn’t so outrageous. Thanks all.
Maybe lock down those states and not let anyone out?
That will work just dandy. After all, we’ve been so successful in keeping our national borders secure from unwanted crossings that isolating a couple dozen states should be child’s play.
Sorry, forgot the /f for facetiousness.
Didn’t Obama implement DACA through an executive order, after Congress failed to pass legislation?
We can play that game all day.
In the last several Administrations, executive orders have been abused by all of them. It has noting to do with one particular Admin.
Of course things like this should be handled by the legislature, and of course there’s plenty of time for them to do so. The time was before the virus emerged, and they already did handle it, by creating OSHA.
No one is talking about the rules being suspended, though. Biden clearly has the power to do this. Congress granted him that power when it created the OSHA. That entity empowers the executive branch of the federal government to enact policies for the purpose of workplace safety. And given that lack of vaccination can harm or kill workers, that fits its mandate.
This was a known power the president had when Biden was elected. It was part of why a lot of us elected him, in fact. We believed he’d be more likely to use the powers of the presidency to actually help with the pandemic. Rather than making a decision from on high, he is representing the people who voted for him, along with several more and several more. He believes (and I agree) that the majority of Americans want this done.
When Biden talks about losing patience, he’s not speaking for himself. He’s speaking for huge numbers of people. We’re tired of how a minority in Congress can keep any legislating passing to actually deal with the refusal of Americans to follow basic safety measures during a public pandemic. He’s acting as our representative. The president is an elected position, so he is also a part of our representative democracy.
So, since he’s acting within his Congressionally delegated powers, and is acting on behalf of the people, I can’t see how he is acting outside of representative democracy at all. Would it be better if Congress had done this? Possibly. But I see no reason to assume they would change their tactics now. It’s not like the current situation is a new problem.
I say it possibly could have been better if Congress did something. But I’m not actually sure. Congress is not as restrained as the president. I don’t see them restricting themselves to the workplace, as they delegated that authority to OSHA.
While this is being played up as full on mandate in some circles, it really isn’t. Not only does it only matter in the workplace, for places above a certain number of people, but it also has reasonable accommodation clauses. It mentions testing and not just vaccination, that thing that so many antivaxxers say should be enough. And reasonable accommodations include working from home.
This may be the most palatable mandate possible that still has some teeth. I suspect Congress, if it could ever pass anything, either would have a mandate with no teeth, or something more draconian.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
The time to get one’s panties in a twist about that is not when a Presidential administration is trying to enact measures to protect all its citizens in the midst of a deadly pandemic. One that lawmakers and executives in the opposing party (and their supporters) have disastrously and irresponsibly encouraged in defiance of all rationality, science, and their plain duty.
Conservative/Republican covidiots are killing thousands of people with their ignorance and negligence in the current crisis, and exploitative power-hungry conservative/Republican political leaders are encouraging them in their reckless behavior, because they’re scared that pushing back against it might make them unpopular.
If that’s the best that conservatives/Republicans can do with this crisis, I have very little sympathy for their whining about executive overreach when the other party is actually trying to solve the problem.
Really? Show me.
It’s also how dozens of democracies have responded to temporary crises without degenerating into dictatorships. So I’m not freaking out in response to your Chicken Littleing just yet, thanks.
There are fair points to be made in general about abuse of executive orders and constitutional concerns about legislative versus executive checks and balances. But right now, we’ve got a disaster that is killing thousands of Americans per day, mostly due to the ideological irresponsibility of members of one party.
And it’s not as though there is any serious debate over the necessary policies to enact here, either. This isn’t some purely economic crisis where reasonable people can disagree about what needs to be done to solve the problem. This is a deadly pandemic that’s killed about two out of every thousand existing Americans so far, and it needs to be brought under control by increasing vaccination rates and complying with anti-contagion protocols. There are no two opinions about that.
If your party is impotent or unwilling to effectively support the needed policies, that’s your failure (collective “you”). I’m not impressed by your (collective “you” again) moaning that this executive order is breaking democracy. You (still collective “you”) already broke democracy when you cravenly abdicated your responsibility to use democratic means effectively to protect the lives of the people you’re supposedly leading.
Do you believe that the Executive can unilaterally suspend the Constitution during a pandemic?
I don’t believe the President of the United States is proposing suspending the Constitution.
What Czarcasm said.
The Constitution has not been suspended, and there is no plan to do so. You’re being dramatic.
This is a clear concession that the Legislature has abdicated its power to the Executive.
So when your preferred policy is in front of a Legislature and is rejected, then the right thing do in a democratic society is to say that they didn’t do it right and have a despotism? Like this democracy stuff is good for talk, but when it comes down to it, you (general you) will obey your leaders.
This is bonkers.
It is not despotism when the executive uses powers granted by the legislature.
The word you want is “delegated”, and unless you’re suggesting that every single federal agency created by act of Congress is unconstitutional, then I’m not sure what your point is.
Which branch makes laws, the legislative or the executive? The SCOTUS has already ruled that the CDC exceeded its authority with the eviction moratorium. Who’s to say that they won’t eventually rule that OSHA has exceeded theirs?
Who’s to say that lint your stare at on your nightstand, night after lonely night, isn’t an advanced civilization with billions of inhabitants? Really, who?
The legislative, which they did in 1970 when they passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
Yes, because in a system with a separate legislature and executive, that’s what the legislature does. A body of hundreds of separate individuals can’t run a country. So when they think something needs to be done, they empower one individual to do it. Congress creating OSHA, and then the President controlling OSHA, is the system working as designed.
Ask again when we’re talking about a policy the legislature has rejected. They’ve already accepted this one. Granted, that was done by a different set of legislators, but if they genuinely objected to this, the current legislature could repeal or rewrite the legislation that created OSHA. They have chosen not to do that.