"The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers..."

"... dealing a blow to a key element of the White House’s plan to address the pandemic as cases resulting from the Omicron variant are on the rise. But the court allowed a more modest mandate requiring health care workers at facilities receiving federal money to be vaccinated. The vote in the employer mandate case was 6 to 3, with liberal justices in dissent. The vote in the health care case was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joining the liberal justices to form a majority...."

The NYT reports.

Here are the opinions — NFIB v. OSHA and Biden v. Missouri.

From the OSHA case:

This is no “everyday exercise of federal power.” In re MCP No. 165, 20 F. 4th, at 272 (Sutton, C. J., dissenting). It is instead a significant encroachment into the lives—and health—of a vast number of employees. “We expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of vast economic and political significance.” Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per curiam) (slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks omitted). There can be little doubt that OSHA’s mandate qualifies as an exercise of such authority. 

The question, then, is whether the Act plainly authorizes the Secretary’s mandate. It does not. The Act empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures. See 29 U. S. C. §655(b) (directing the Secretary to set “occupational safety and health standards” (emphasis added)); §655(c)(1) (authorizing the Secretary to impose emergency temporary standards necessary to protect “employees” from grave danger in the workplace)....

From Biden v. Missouri:

[H]ealthcare facilities that wish to participate in Medicare and Medicaid have always been obligated to satisfy a host of conditions that address the safe and effective provision of healthcare.... [T]he Secretary routinely imposes conditions of participation that relate to the qualifications and duties of healthcare workers themselves.... Of course the vaccine mandate goes further than what the Secretary has done in the past to implement infection control. But he has never had to address an infection problem of this scale and scope before.... Vaccination requirements are a common feature of the provision of healthcare in America: Healthcare workers around the country are ordinarily required to be vaccinated for diseases such as hepatitis B, influenza, and measles, mumps, and rubella....

We accordingly conclude that the Secretary did not exceed his statutory authority in requiring that, in order to remain eligible for Medicare and Medicaid dollars, the facilities covered by the interim rule must ensure that their employees be vaccinated against COVID–19.

From the dissent in the Biden case. This is by Justice Thomas (joined by Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett):

“We expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of vast economic and political significance.” Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per curiam) (slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks omitted). And we expect Congress to use “exceedingly clear language if it wishes to significantly alter the balance between state and federal power.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). The omnibus rule is undoubtedly significant—it requires millions of healthcare workers to choose between losing their livelihoods and acquiescing to a vaccine they have rejected for months. Vaccine mandates also fall squarely within a State’s police power, see Zucht v. King, 260 U. S. 174, 176 (1922), and, until now, only rarely have been a tool of the Federal Government. If Congress had wanted to grant CMS authority to impose a nationwide vaccine mandate, and consequently alter the state-federal balance, it would have said so clearly. It did not.

"Historically, and almost definitionally, a gridlocked Congress that cannot pass laws tends to be better for conservative reactionaries than progressive activists."

"Lawmakers also lack the mastery of esoteric issues, say soil runoff, that civil servants can master. When the courts force Congress to expressly decide, usually either nothing happens — or lobbyists sit in the driver’s seat. Pushing decision-making to Congress from the civil service, or what Trump disdainfully called the 'deep state,' is a goal of the conservative legal project shared by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.... The reality is, even if they tried, the Democratic-controlled Congress probably couldn’t cobble together the votes to pass a mandate like OSHA’s. Ten Republicans in the Senate wouldn’t cross over to break a filibuster. Republicans are emboldened because they think opposition to vaccine mandates in the off-year Virginia elections helped win all three statewide races and flip the House of Delegates."

From "How blocking Biden’s vaccine mandate would be a Supreme Court gift to Trump" by James Hohmann (WaPo).

The Biden administration is relying on general language in a statute passed over a half century ago as it tries to do something that we know Congress won't do on its own, even though Congress has been able to see the problem to be solved for at least half a year. The administration's mandate is such an aggressive imposition on people, and the position of Congress is, essentially, to spare us. It looks as though the Supreme Court is about to make Congress's answer — no mandate — the final answer. 

Isn't that the most democratic — small "d" democratic — resolution of the lawmaking conundrum?

DOJ SPOKESWOMAN: 'THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DESERVE RESOLUTION' OF DURHAM INVESTIGATION INTO RUSSIA PROBE

Department of Justice spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told "Hannity" Wednesday that "the American people deserve resolution" about exactly what happened in the early stages of the Russia investigation."[Connecticut U.S. Attorney] John Durham and his team have been thoroughly and meticulously working on their investigation for many months now, as the attorney referenced earlier this week ... " Kupec told host Sean Hannity.

"The American people deserve resolution as to what happened to President Trump, his campaign, and then, of course, subsequent to that as well. It's important for the American people. It's important for our system of justice. And it's important, certainly, for the media to accurately report and cover that as well. What that resolution looks like remains to be seen."

DURHAM MOVING 'FULL-THROTTLE' ON RUSSIA PROBE REVIEW

Last week, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein -- who oversaw the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller -- testified that he would not have signed a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant renewal application for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page had he known about since-revealed "significant errors" in in the document.

Mueller’s investigation yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 election, though the question of whether Trump obstructed justice was left open in the final report.

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Kupec declined to comment on Rosenstein's testimony but assured Hannity that Durham was "is working as hard as ever."

"What happened to President Trump was one of the greatest political injustices in American history," she said, "and never should happen again."

"But there’s more to the story of Harris’s endorsement. Yes, she genuinely likes Biden."

"The endorsement was real. 'I really do believe in Joe,' Harris told me. But coming days after the California primary, the timing of Harris’s announcement struck me as curious. ... I asked her about it. 'I had two women colleagues in the race, and I did not feel right putting my thumb on the scale [that] in any way would harm their candidacy,' Harris said, referring to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Both ended their campaigns last week. 'So, when Elizabeth announced that she was getting out of the race, I let Joe know that I would endorse him.... Elizabeth and I have a very special relationship'...."

Writes Jonathan Capeheart in the Washington Post.

IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm said: "Does she know Tulsi Gabbard is still in the race? Not a friend?"

To be fair, we are all forgetting about Tulsi. And Tulsi isn't a Senator. I think Kamala meant women of my rank when she said "I had two women colleagues in the race." Senators are not "colleagues" of the folk in the lower house. The OED gives the etymology:

< French collègue, < Latin collēga , one chosen along with another, a partner in office, etc.; < col- together + legĕre to choose, etc.

The OED points me to "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, and I wanted to give you the full passage, because it's about separation of powers in government:

Ostentation was the first principle of the new system instituted by Diocletian. The second was division. He divided the empire, the provinces, and every branch of the civil as well as military administration. He multiplied the wheels of the machine of government, and rendered its operations less rapid, but more secure. Whatever advantages and whatever defects might attend these innovations, they must be ascribed in a very great degree to the first inventor; but as the new frame of policy was gradually improved and completed by succeeding princes, it will be more satisfactory to delay the consideration of it till the season of its full maturity and perfection. Reserving, therefore, for the reign of Constantine a more exact picture of the new empire, we shall content ourselves with describing the principal and decisive outline, as it was traced by the hand of Diocletian. He had associated three colleagues in the exercise of the supreme power; and as he was convinced that the abilities of a single man were inadequate to the public defence, he considered the joint administration of four princes not as a temporary expedient, but as a fundamental law of the constitution. It was his intention, that the two elder princes should be distinguished by the use of the diadem, and the title of Augusti; that, as affection or esteem might direct their choice, they should regularly call to their assistance two subordinate colleagues; and that the Cæsars, rising in their turn to the first rank, should supply an uninterrupted succession of emperors. The empire was divided into four parts. The East and Italy were the most honorable, the Danube and the Rhine the most laborious stations. The former claimed the presence of the Augusti, the latter were intrusted to the administration of the Cæsars. The strength of the legions was in the hands of the four partners of sovereignty, and the despair of successively vanquishing four formidable rivals might intimidate the ambition of an aspiring general. In their civil government, the emperors were supposed to exercise the undivided power of the monarch, and their edicts, inscribed with their joint names, were received in all the provinces, as promulgated by their mutual councils and authority. Notwithstanding these precautions, the political union of the Roman world was gradually dissolved, and a principle of division was introduced, which, in the course of a few years, occasioned the perpetual separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.