WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – President Joe Biden’s executive order requiring all federal government workers, as well as tens of millions of private sector workers, to be vaccinated against COVID-19 will not apply to Congress members, federal court members, or their respective staff members.
According to Newsweek, since Biden’s executive order specified that it applies to federal workers in the “executive branch,” the mandates will not impact those in the House of Representatives or the Senate, as they belong to the legislative branch of U.S. government.
Similarly, people employed by the federal courts will be exempt, as they are part of the judicial branch.
However, despite citizens in the private sector not being part of the executive branch of government, or any branch of government at all, they will not receive the same exemptions as Congress and the courts.
Instead, they will be required to mandate the vaccination for their employees if their workforce exceeds 100 people.
“In total, the vaccine requirements in my plan will affect about 100 million Americans, two-thirds of all workers,” stated Biden on Thursday.
“So—so here is the thing. We are—we cannot require someone to be vaccinated. That’s just not what we can do. It is a matter of privacy to know who is or who isn’t,” stated Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in a press conference held on April 29 regarding vaccine mandates for Congress.
“I can’t go to the Capitol Physician and say, ‘Give me the names of people who aren’t vaccinated, so I can go encourage them or make it known to others to encourage them to be vaccinated.’ So, we can’t—we can’t do that,” she added.
Medical privacy, which previously extended to all Americans, now has a selective application under the Biden administration.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, “The orders, which remove testing options included in earlier mandates, apply to 2.1 million government employees and millions of private sector employees with contractors who work with the government. Federal employees risk losing their jobs if they choose to remain unvaccinated through November.”
“In total, the vaccine requirements in my plan will affect about 100 million Americans, two-thirds of all workers,” Biden said.
In effect, citizens will be mandated to receive the vaccine, while their representatives in the House and the Senate, will not be.
This is not the only time Congress has been exempted in a “rules for thee but not for me” fashion.
Many remember that Congress was also exempt from Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), an act that many protested as burdensome on the middle class, due to the act requiring citizens to buy health insurance whether they wanted to or not.
Rob Schwab, a licensed insurance agent with extensive training on the Affordable Care Act, explained how Congress was able to exempt themselves from the mandates imposed on all Americans as a result of the ACA.
“The government, as their employer, has been allowed to cover a portion of their healthcare costs, thus creating a sort of subsidy that only government employees enjoy. They did this by allowing Congressional members to purchase health insurance through SHOP, the Small Business Health Options Program. The debate lies in the fact that the U.S. government and its many federal employees hardly constitute a small business,” he wrote in an article published in February 2016.
Currently, over 20 Republican states have recognized the recent vaccine mandates as unjust, and have told their constituents they are considering taking legal action against the Biden administration.
Most notable was the direct and forceful message from South Carolina governor Henry McMaster, who responded to the Biden mandate in a series of Tweets Thursday evening.
“The American Dream has turned into a nightmare under President Biden and the radical Democrats,” he wrote.
“Rest assured, we will fight them to the gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every South Carolinian,” concluded the governor.