Today, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee mandated the Covid vaccine for all state and private healthcare employees. These people must all be vaccinated by October 18th or lose their jobs. There is no provision for regular testing for unvaccinated people. Religious exemptions will likely be allowed, though there are scant details on who accepts exemptions and on what grounds. Likewise, there are no details on how compliance will be enforced, though I have heard that the state Dept. of Health has records for all of those who have been vaccinated. It would be easy for them to compare databases and know who has not complied.
This topic is very close to home to me. It is simply incredible that any governor can be allowed to get away with such a wide mandate. What will the next mandate be? Is there no rule of law in our country anymore?
https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-0e2d3c4d5abe76a0abd96a9f4655110d
Is Washington State under a medical emergency? I don't believe so. Even with this, an executive order does not have authority over legislated law and State and federal Constitution. This should be challenged. It is an abuse of power. The Chief executive officer (I.e governor) does not make or create law.
This is wrong. Lawyers need to challenge this immediately. In the mean time an emergency injunction should be brought for a stay of order.
Inslee is doing it under his expanded "Covid emergency" laws. They cite an increase in case numbers. Not deaths of course, case numbers. And I can speak from first hand experience that all of the PCR tests here are run between 38 and 40 cycles, which clearly leads to a huge number of false positives.
You are correct that there is no way that this could withstand a good lawsuit in a sane world. Unfortunately, our legal system here is just as corrupt as our legislative branch, so I would be shocked if there's going to be any quick recourse.
Does Washington have a state Constitution? Maybe someone needs to read it. Maybe in the correct jurisdiction some thing can be done if he isn't following Washington States Constitution.
I'm pretty sure Inslee used it up during the toilet paper shortage of '20