The Tenth Amendment, though often ignored or neglected, explicitly excludes powers to the federal government that are not granted to it in the Constitution (or implied by the powers that are granted), the effect is that the federal government does not have general “police powers”. The legal phrase describing the federal government is that it has “limited and enumerated powers.”
Taken together, the Tenth Amendment and Jacobson leave no doubt that the ability to create vaccine mandates belongs to the states. The Federal Government has NO authority to issue vaccine mandates. A state’s mandates will be upheld as long as it isn’t enacted or enforced in an unreasonable, arbitrary or oppressive manner (see Jacobson, at 39,40), so the Supreme Court’s refusal to stop the Maine mandate is not surprising.
Biden is aware[4] the power to issue vaccine mandates rests with the states. There is no COVID exception to the Constitution. At the time the Constitution was drafted, the Founders were well acquainted with plagues and outbreaks of various disease. Such occurrences were a fact of life for them, and yet they refused to create special “plague” or pandemic powers for the federal government. Since Biden is actively attempting to over-reach the limits on his power, and subvert the explicit authority of the states, he has become an active threat to the Constitution.
Biden’s actions violate the Tenth Amendment. Every federal employee (and every lawyer) swears an oath to protect the Constitution. Our obligation is to oppose the mandate and all efforts by this administration to appropriate powers that belong to the states and to coerce the people. The Constitution can’t protect itself.