BREAKING: Montana's Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R-MT) filed suit to protect healthcare workers from the threat of a federal vaccine mandate. Knudsen, along with several other attorneys general, has already been successful in blocking one of the federal mandates. This effort would target another.

AG Knudsen is leading the 11 state effort to halt the mandate, according to a news release sent out by his office Monday night.

AG Knudsen: President Biden’s trio of COVID vaccine mandates is an unconstitutional power grab and intrusion into Montanans’ lives. Federal judges have already blocked one mandate from going into effect, and the mandate for healthcare workers should be no different. The federal mandates are not about health – they are about forced compliance. Healthcare workers should be allowed to make their own decisions about their health – not President Biden. If his unprecedented overreach is not stopped, healthcare workers will lose their jobs threatening access to medical care that Montanans need.

The other federal vaccine mandate challenge deals with OSHA- the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. As Reuters reported, a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel kept a stay in place blocking that vaccine mandate.

This new legal challenge led by Knudsen targets the federal mandate that Biden is attempting to implement via the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). That is the mandate that would force frontline healthcare workers to either get the vaccine, or their facilities would lose federal funding.

According to AG Knudsen, the CMS mandate "exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and violates the Social Security Act’s prohibition on regulations that control the hiring and firing of healthcare workers. It also violates multiple federal laws, the Spending Clause, the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, and the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."

In addition to Attorney General Knudsen, attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia are plaintiffs in the case.

Click here to read the full complaint.

Read More: Natelson: No Presidential Authority for a Vaccine Mandate |

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