WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) voted to overturn President Biden’s vaccine mandate on health care workers through the Congressional Review Act (CRA), the official process for Congress to eliminate an executive branch rule. The resolution of disapproval under the CRA would halt President Biden’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccine mandate for virtually all health care employees and prevent any similar rule from being proposed in the future by the federal government. The CRA passed by a vote of 49-44. With Senate passage, the CRA now moves to the House of Representatives.
“This is a vote to protect frontline and essential health care workers from Biden’s overreaching vaccine mandate, especially at a time when we’re facing personnel shortages across the health care field, particularly in rural hospitals and medical centers. I will keep fighting against these harmful and overbearing federal COVID-19 mandates, which should have never been put in place by Washington,” said Senator Cramer.
Senator Cramer introduced this resolution with Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) in December. The CRA can be used by Congress to overturn certain federal agency regulations and actions through a joint resolution of disapproval. If a CRA joint resolution of disapproval is approved by both houses of Congress and signed by the President, or if Congress successfully overrides a presidential veto, the rule at issue is invalidated.
Background:
Senator Cramer has been fighting vaccine mandates across the federal government in Congress. In December, Senator Cramer and a majority of his Senate colleagues voted to overturn President Biden’s vaccine mandate on private businesses through the CRA. He
filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in the upcoming case considering the Biden Administration’s top-down Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring private employers with over 100 employees to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine or weekly testing.
Senator Cramer warned President Biden of the impacts on the vaccine mandate for truckers crossing the U.S. Canada border including further exacerbating the ongoing supply chain crisis and forcing American workers out of their jobs. He later
introduced the Terminating Reckless and Unnecessary Checks Known to Erode Regular Shipping (TRUCKERS) Act to end vaccine mandates for international truck drivers. The TRUCKERS Act would exempt non-U.S. citizen commercial truck drivers traveling from Canada or Mexico seeking to temporarily enter the United States for business through a land port of entry from proof of vaccination requirements.
In February, he introduced a resolution to unmask America’s children. The resolution would nullify a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) interim final rule (IFR) that requires all staff and volunteers in Head Start educational facilities to be fully vaccinated and wear a mask and mandates all children two years of age and older to wear a mask, including when they are playing outside. In December, Senator Cramer
introduced the Preventing Mandates on Toddlers Act, bicameral legislation which would prohibit HHS from implementing or enforcing this one-size-fits-all federal mandate on Head Start programs across the nation.
Senator Cramer also introduced legislation to overturn the COVID-19 vaccination requirements on consumers and students imposed by the District of Columbia.
