Commissioner Mitchell Zajac, R-Marion Township, has written a resolution that will declare Livingston County’s intent to not comply with President Biden’s OSHA mandate that was announced in a speech on Thursday.
Biden’s mandate requires that federal government employees and contractors be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration create a rule for businesses with 100 or more employees to require employees to be vaccinated or get tested weekly.
“The actions of our president are unprecedented,” Zajac said in a release. “Never before have we seen such overreach and attempts to control the populous in these United States. Small businesses, workers, and families across the county will pay the price for this mandate, as they have for the past 18 months.”
Zajac took aim at what he calls “unconstitutional restrictions from the State of Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and now from the president of the United States.”
There will be legal challenges to Biden’s mandate, and the precedent case that will be most cited is the one in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an individual state — in this case, Massachusetts — could enforce compulsory vaccination laws, and that individual liberty is not absolute and is subject to the police power of the state.
The 1905 Jacobson v Massachusetts decision — regarding smallpox vaccinations — has been used during the COVID-19 pandemic to uphold Texas halting abortions by including it as a non-essential medical service or surgery — as well as a precedent case in justifying government face mask and stay-at-home orders.
If you’d like to take a deep dive inside Jacobson v Massachusetts, click here for Google’s list of scholarly articles about the case.
Zajac has requested that his resolution bypass the General Government / Health and Human Services Committee, which will allow it to be considered at the next meeting of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners, which is set for 5:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 13.
“Enough is enough,” Zajac said. “It’s time for Livingston County to stand up to authoritarian bureaucrats who seek to control our lives.”
