[Republic Brief] On Friday, conservative justices questioned President Joe Biden’s vaccine requirement for businesses, as the Court heard arguments from Republican officials and businesses who want to block the policy.
Justices John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch have said that states and Congress should lead the effort to combat the pandemic, rather than a federal agency.
Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative justice, argued the workplace policy was too broad, affecting more than 80 million Americans.
GOP-led states and business leaders brought a lawsuit against the mandate for companies with 100 or more employees as an example of federal overreach.
It appears that the liberal justices sided with the Biden administration’s position that vaccinations and mandates were the best way to curb the pandemic.
Roberts, however, asked U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar whether the Official Safety and Health Act of 1970 authorized the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to adopt the mandate.
’That was 50 years ago that you’re saying Congress acted. I don’t think it had COVID in mind.
’That was almost closer to the Spanish flu than it is to today’s problem,’ Roberts said, referring to the pandemic of 1918.
Arguments were heard while the nation struggled with the latest wave of infections, spurred on by the highly infectious Omicron variant. 
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