Governor Gordon: Wyoming Joins 20 Attorneys General in Opposing Vaccine Mandate for Federal Contractors

Governor Gordon has announced that Wyoming Attorney General Bridget Hill has joined 20 other Attorneys General from across the country in challenging the Biden Administration's yet-to-be-instituted mandate regarding independent contractor vaccinations.

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21 Attorneys General wrote a letter and, in it, they noted that "the mandate stands on shaky legal ground, is supported by inconsistent federal directives, and requires compliance on an unworkable timeline in the midst of a supply-chain crisis."

In the letter, they urged President Biden to reconsider the mandate (that has not yet been put into action) and Governor Gordon offered his full support.

“I thank General Hill for her work to defend the interests of Wyoming people in the courts,” Governor Gordon said. "Her team is also preparing to challenge the federal overreach related to Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards and federal vaccine mandates on top of this work to push back against federal contracts being insidiously used to extend federal intrusion ever more into our lives.”

According to a media release from Governor Gordon's office, President Biden directed federal departments and agencies to include a clause in contracts requiring all contractors and subcontractors to ensure adequate COVID-19 safety protocols. He did so via Executive Order 14042 on September 9.

On September 24, the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force issued guidance that imposed the vaccination mandate that was, in the words of the Governor "more expansive than the President's Executive Order, is internally inconsistent, and is at odds with actions taken elsewhere by the federal government."

Because of this, Attorneys General from Wyoming, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia, wrote a four-page letter to President Biden.

"We write to express our grave concerns about imposing the federal government’s
mandatory vaccination requirement on federal contractors across the government supply chain," the letter began. "Like other mandates being imposed by the federal government, this mandate stands on shaky legal ground, cannot be reconciled with other messaging provided by the government, and forces contractors unable to make sense of its many inconsistencies to require that their entire workforce be vaccinated on an unworkable timeline or face potential blacklisting by the federal government or loss of future federal contracts. We strongly urge you to instruct agencies to cease implementing the mandate or, at a minimum, to provide clarity to agencies and federal contractors across the country and delay the mandate’s compliance date."

A copy of the letter in its entirety can be found here.