Wyoming Challenges Federal Mandate for Health Care Workers

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon announced Wednesday that the state is continuing its challenge of the federal vaccine mandates. The action follows on other legal challenges over the past two weeks. Wyoming and a coalition of 10 states filed suit against the Biden Administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rule, which seeks to impose a vaccine mandate on healthcare workers throughout the nation. Gordon said the mandate would compound the staffing issues already felt throughout the state.

Wyoming is taking a three-pronged approach to fighting the federal vaccine mandates, filing three separate legal actions to challenge the mandates. The first lawsuit was filed on October 29th against the Biden Administration for imposing a vaccine mandate on federal contractors and federally contracted employees. Wyoming is currently awaiting a ruling on a request for a temporary injunction in the case. A second lawsuit was filed to halt the Occupational Safety and Health Administration emergency temporary standard which mandates vaccines on employees of private Wyoming businesses with over 100 employees. The lawsuit filed Wednesday seeks to prevent the Biden Administration from enforcing the mandate on healthcare workers. The coalition filing the lawsuit is led by Missouri and Nebraska and also includes Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and New Hampshire.