A Supremely Questionable Supreme Court Ruling

 On Jan. 13, 2022, the Supreme Court issued its ruling on the COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate case. This ruling is historic and may turn out to be fatal error on the part of the Court in the future and as viewed and assessed by history. As a ruling it was quite bifurcated. The ruling recognized the federal government’s right to establishing a vaccine mandate and simultaneously the federal government’s over-reach on establishing a vaccine mandate.

A cursory reading of the introductory paragraph should certainly cause you to think, either the person writing this is an idiot or the Justices on the Supreme Court are. As the potential recipient of the ‘idiot’ judgement, I want to point out that there is no requirement that either of those attributions is required to be true, nor is it necessary that the idiot condition might not be true for both parties. Given the uncertainty of whom the appellation may apply to, it is appropriate to consider if what we have here is a “Who’s the Idiot” equivalent of the Schrodinger’s Cat concept. Just as determining whether the cat is alive or dead requires that one look, determining who’s an idiot may also require that we look. So, let’s open the box on SCOTUS’ vaccine mandate decision, decisions, or quagmire of reasoning.

The reasoning on the healthcare workers mandate grants that the federal government has the authority to impose a mandate based on the federal government providing Medicare and Medicaid funding to healthcare entities. Federal funding in concert with other rationales for protecting the public’s interest in the necessary functioning of the nation’s healthcare system and personnel seems odd contortion of criteria. I suppose that the Justices may have recognized that just citing the authority based upon the use of federal funding alone would be fraught with unintended consequences. However, while I may think it is possible the Justices considered the funding basis alone to be too risky for them; I do not actually think it is likely that they have foreseen nor thought about the implications which come from it. Time will tell is any smart lawyer or advocacy group can see the potential here.

Now onto the other side of Supreme Court’s decision coin, the Vaccine Mandate for large businesses. SCOTUS reasoned that the federal government through OSHA did not have the authority to establish a vaccine mandate for large businesses’ employees. The reasoning here was different. Here the federal government was ‘over-reaching’ based upon some of the Justices’ interpretations of how they viewed what was important, or true, or applicable. This is probably true in general and I suspect applied in the healthcare workers case as well, but that isn’t something the Court wants you think about how they reach their judgements. The Court seeks to have their ruling ‘based’ upon the Constitution, legal precedents, and the intentions of what legislators had in mind when they passed legislation. In other words, on many things that are not firm and immutable concepts like those of the Laws of Physics or other scientific knowledge.

The majority decided that OSHA’s establishing legislation did not include (or more accurately intend) for that federal agency to have. Of course, this is opinion and interpretation; because there is no way to ‘know’ what the intentions of the politicians who created and authorized OSHA intended. It is not explicitly written into the legislation because such enumeration of ‘authority’ is not just impractical and impossible, it is definitely beyond the abilities of politicians, their staffs and advisors. There is no way to define the scope of authority for conditions which may arise in the future that are not contemplated or even comprehended by those creating the text of legislation.

Another argument used in the majority opinion was that the authority for such mandates ought to reside with the states and local authorities. This is a good example of how the Justices’ can use a sound principle, even precedents from some prior decisions, to attain a decision which is legally defensible but not logically sound and which could be easily overturned based upon other legally defensible and authoritatively established precedents. This may be an instance of a jurisprudence equivalent to the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, where Justices cannot know what is Constitutional and what is intended by the law simultaneously (though in the legal context there is no requirement that Justices be able to know either one). Consider that the federal government provides funding directly and indirectly to many of the businesses which are protesting the mandate. Is the ‘funding’ condition not applicable to some degree here? Does the federal government ‘fund’ the military? So, how doesn’t that criteria apply to the military question of a mandate?

The Court also argued that if the legislature wanted OSHA to have this authority, then they would have explicitly given it to them, either in the original establishment of the authority (this is the interpretation issue) or the legislature would ‘act’ to establish that authority when needed. The naivety of these perspective is quite damning for the Justices, particularly those in the majority. Having to await upon elected officials to ‘act’ promptly, correctly, and in the nation’s interests is an unreasonable and unrealistic expectation for this branch of our government. It may be a utopian vision of what Congress ought to do, but it is not a valid basis upon which to risk the public’s health nor the national interests.

The authority of the states to establish mandates related to COVID seems to be well supported by SCOTUS’s logic and there were cases that the Court upheld would thus support that governmental authority exists. However, the Court ignored the reality of the question and the situation where there is a conflict over authority and which authority and who prevails in given situations. The majority also seems to base their decision upon an ‘either-or’ criteria that there can only be one authorized authority. The classic state versus federal line. But there is no definitive requirement that a government authority must exist only in one or the other. Both have the power to tax. Both have the power to establish laws related to the same legal issue, right or situations on many fronts. Usually the federal laws cannot be countered by a state law, but we are all aware of various federal laws that states have and continue to find ways of adapting via state laws without overtly claiming to ‘overturn’ or ignore the federal laws.

What the recent COVID Mandate rulings demonstrate is that there are many paths that the Supreme Court can take in reaching its decision. Whether the decision is sound, well-reasoned, and consistent with the Constitution, established law, precedents, legislative intent, and national interests and America values is not a given. The Justices are just as likely to apply personal perspectives and even political ideological principles as those on either side of an issue.

The Court also ignored the most salient aspect of this case, which authority is using the most appropriate and relevant knowledge, expertise, and judgement on what is in the nation’s best or essential interests. The Court can say that that is not factor that they can consider, but that is a judgement that they are making and perhaps not founded in or upon the law