ATLANTA — Georgia's attorney general, Chris Carr, said Saturday that an application had been made to the Supreme Court to stay President Joe Biden's test-or-vaccine mandate on employers with 100 or more workers.
It comes after the 6th Circuit Appeals Court, in Cincinnati, on Friday night dissolved a ruling by another appeals court, the 5th Circuit in New Orleans, that had put the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule on hold.
The 5th Circuit had ruled to halt the mandate, which requires either the vaccine or weekly testing for employees at larger companies, in early November after it was issued by the Biden administration through OSHA.
The 6th Circuit was able to, in effect, overrule the other federal appeals court ruling because a series of lawsuits across the country against the OSHA mandate were consolidated into a single case under the court's jurisdiction.
The opinion issued by the 6th Circuit is not a final decision on the constitutionality of the mandate, but whether it should be in place or not while its fundamental legal case waits to play out.
Employers will now reportedly have until Jan. 10 to comply with enforcing the rule with their employees.
Georgia and several other states filed suit against the mandate, known as the Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), when it was issued in early November.
AG Carr and Gov. Brian Kemp argued the mandate was "illegal" and a "complete disregard for the Constitutional rights afforded to our state and our citizens."
"The federal government has no authority to force healthcare decisions on Georgia's companies and its employees under the guise of workplace safety," Carr said in a statement in November.
Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, in an opinion for a 2-1 majority in the 6th Circuit decision, wrote: "Given OSHA's clear and exercised authority to regulate viruses, OSHA necessarily has the authority to regulate infectious diseases that are not unique to the workplace."
Carr, on Saturday, said the coalition suing against the mandate was asking the Supreme Court for "an immediate stay of the OSHA mandate while the courts consider our case to stop it altogether."