Defendants' response to notice of supplemental authority — Feds for Medical Freedom v. Biden

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Defendants' Response to Plaintiffs' Notice of Supplemental Authority, filed 01/18/22 as Document 32 in Feds for Medical Freedom, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al., Civil Action 3:21-cv-00356, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Galveston Division. Defendants respond to Plaintiffs' Notice of Supplemental Authority, ECF No. 29, which discusses National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA and Biden v. Missouri. They state that, to the extent those decisions are relevant, they confirm that Executive Order 14043 is a legitimate exercise of the President's authority to oversee the Executive Branch workforce, and they argue that the Civil Service Reform Act divests the court of jurisdiction. The signature line reads /s/ James G. Gillingham, Assistant United States Attorney, dated January 18, 2022.

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Case 3:21-cv-00356 Document 32 Filed on 01/18/22 in TXSD Page 1 of 8

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
GALVESTON DIVISION
FEDS FOR MEDICAL FREEDOM, et al.,
Plaintiffs,

Civil Action 3:21-cv-00356

v.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., in his official
capacity, et al.,
Defendants.
RESPONSE TO PLAINTIFFS’ NOTICE OF SUPPLEMENTAL AUTHORITY
Defendants respectfully respond to Plaintiffs’ Notice of Supplemental Authority, ECF
No. 29 (“Notice”), which discusses National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA, 595 U.S.
___ (2022) (“NFIB”), and Biden v. Missouri, 595 U.S. ___ (2022). To the extent that those
decisions are relevant here, they confirm that Executive Order 14043 constitutes a legitimate
exercise of the President’s authority to oversee the Executive Branch workforce.
I.

NFIB Does Not Limit The President’s Authority To Oversee The Federal
Workforce.

NFIB addresses a statutory question irrelevant to the one at issue here: whether the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) has statutory authority to impose
a masking, testing, and vaccination requirement on private businesses. It does not address
whether the federal government may impose a vaccination requirement on its own workforce,
just as numerous other employers across the country have chosen to do.

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The Supreme Court uncontroversially observed in NFIB that “[a]dministrative agencies
are creatures of statute,” and “possess only the authority that Congress has provided.” NFIB,
slip. op. at 5. That is true, but the President of the United States is not a creature of statute;
the Constitution itself vests him with executive power. U.S. Const. Art. II, sec. 1. Thus, as
other courts have recognized, the President possesses independent constitutional authority to
act as CEO of the Executive Branch, even absent confirming statutory authority from
Congress. See Rydie v. Biden, No. 21-2696, 2021 WL 5416545, at *3 (D. Md. Nov. 19, 2021)
(“The President derives his authority to regulate the federal workforce from the Constitution,
not from Congress’s enactments.”), appeal pending, No. 21-2359 (4th Cir.); Oklahoma v. Biden, --F. Supp. 3d ---, 2021 WL 6126230, at *10 (W.D. Okla. Dec. 28, 2021) (“executive order is a
permissible exercise of executive authority . . . substantially for the reasons stated in Rydie”).
Indeed, the reason that Congress sometimes limits the President’s ability to hire or remove
whomever he pleases, see, e.g., 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16 (Title VII protections for civil servants);
5 U.S.C. § 7513 (discipline “only for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service”),
is that absent such limits the President’s Article II authority in this area would be untethered
by statute. The appropriate question is therefore whether Congress has prohibited the Executive
Branch from requiring its employees to be vaccinated, and even Plaintiffs do not suggest that
Congress has done so.
Even if explicit congressional authorization were necessary, it exists here for the
reasons Defendants have explained. See Defs.’ Opp’n. to Mot. for Prelim. Inj. at 27 (“Opp’n
Br.”), ECF No. 21. Plaintiffs point to NFIB’s invocation of the so-called major questions
doctrine, but it does not apply here. NFIB involved a mandate affecting 84 million private
2

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sector employees. In Executive Order 14043, however, the government is not claiming “the
power to regulate or license, as lawmaker,” but rather “as proprietor, to manage [its] internal
operation.” Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers Union v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 896 (1961). As the
Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed lower courts, the government’s role—as either
regulator or proprietor—is a critical distinction. See, e.g., NASA v. Nelson, 562 U.S. 134, 148
(2011) (“Time and again our cases have recognized that the Government has a much freer
hand in dealing ‘with citizen employees than it does when it brings its sovereign power to bear
on citizens at large.’” (quoting Engquist v. Oregon Dep’t of Agriculture, 553 U.S. 591, 598 (2008)));
Borough of Duryea, Pa. v. Guarnieri, 564 U.S. 379, 392-93 (2011) (“The government’s interest in
managing its internal affairs requires proper restraints on the invocation of rights by employees
when the workplace or the government employer’s responsibilities may be affected.”). Indeed,
this Court has already recognized that EO 14043 is supported by “more authority” than the
“healthcare worker mandate” addressed in Part II below, because the latter applies to
“nonfederal employees,” Hr’g Tr. at 7:18-22—and that mandate has now been upheld by the
Supreme Court in Missouri. Even putting aside that critical distinction, EO 14043 applies to
far fewer employees than the OSHA rule. See Cong. Rsch. Serv., Federal Workforce Statistics
Sources: OPM and OMB, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43590/17
(approximately 2.1 million civilian workers). 1
1 Finally, Plaintiffs’ halfhearted suggestion that Tenth Amendment principles are relevant here,

see Notice at 4, may be rejected out of hand. Whatever police powers the states generally
possess, the employment relationship between the federal government and its own workforce
is an exclusively federal concern that states are powerless to regulate under the Supremacy
Clause. See Johnson v. Maryland, 245 U.S. 51 (1920); Sperry v. Florida ex rel. Florida Bar, 373 U.S.
379, 385 (1963).
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II.

The Lack Of A Perfect Historical Analogue Does Not Invalidate An Otherwise
Lawful Exercise Of Executive Power.
Plaintiffs argue that because the President has never previously required vaccines for

federal employees, he must lack the power to do so. See Notice at 4–6. That is wrong, and
NFIB does not suggest otherwise. To the contrary, as explained above, NFIB is principally
concerned with a specific statutory question not presented here.
The more relevant opinion on this question is Missouri, which shows that the federal
government may exercise old powers in new ways when faced with new challenges. Like the
Secretary of Health and Human Services, the President, in his capacity as an employer, “has
never had to address an infection problem of this scale and scope before.” Missouri, slip op.
at 7. Thus, the fact that the federal employee vaccine mandate “goes further than what the
[President] has done in the past to implement [workplace safety]” is not at all surprising—and
it does not place the executive order outside the President’s authority to regulate employee
conduct.

Id.

If that were the case, the President could never respond to changing

circumstances like the COVID-19 pandemic. See generally The Federalist No. 70, p. 425 (C.
Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (explaining that “vigor[ous] and expedit[ous]”
decisionmaking is the “most necessary ingredient[]” of the Executive’s power). Consequently,
NFIB does not decide the case; this Court, if it reaches the merits, is free to resolve
independently whether EO 14043 falls within the President’s constitutional and statutory
authority.
In any event, EO 14043 is not as unprecedented as Plaintiffs would have the Court
believe. Before 1986, no President had sought to impose a drug-testing mandate on federal
employees: It took “a new epidemic” of drug abuse to spur President Reagan’s exercise of
4

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executive power in response to a nationwide health crisis. See Address to the Nation on the
Campaign Against Drug Abuse (Sept. 14, 1986), https://perma.cc/5RFU-6XS6. Recognizing
that the federal government was concerned with both “the well-being of its employees” and
“the successful accomplishment of agency missions,” President Reagan invoked constitutional
and statutory authorities similar to those at issue here and issued Executive Order 12564,
which banned the use of illegal drugs by federal employees on or off duty and required employing
agencies to implement robust drug-testing programs. 51 Fed. Reg. 32,889 (Sept. 15, 1986).
That executive order was not rendered unlawful by its novelty, and neither is this one.
III.

Executive Order 14043 Is Not Subject To APA Review And Requires No
Rulemaking Record.
In Missouri, the Supreme Court held that, “given the rule-making record,” the interim

final rule was not arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
Missouri, slip op. at 6. Plaintiffs contend that because there is no similar record here, the
agencies’ vaccine requirements must be arbitrary and capricious. Notice at 6. But the agencies’
vaccine requirements are not final rules subject to the APA, nor is the executive order itself.
See Opp. Br. 20–21; see also Rodden, 2021 WL 5545234, at *3 (relevant “final agency action” is
an employing agency’s ultimate decision as to whether an individual employee “receives an
exemption, whether and what additional remedial measures and procedures should be taken,
and whether and how [that employee] should be disciplined). In any event, the vaccination
requirement is amply supported by CDC’s determination, adopted by the President, that
vaccination is the best way to fight COVID-19. See Opp. Br. at 23. Nothing in Missouri
suggests otherwise.

5

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IV.

The Court Lacks Jurisdiction Under The CSRA.
Finally, Plaintiffs ignore the most salient difference between this case and NFIB, which

is that the Civil Service Reform Act divests this Court of jurisdiction by creating “the
comprehensive and exclusive procedures for settling work-related controversies between
federal civil-service employees and the federal government.” Rollins v. Marsh, 937 F.2d 134,
139 (5th Cir. 1991) (emphasis added). Plaintiffs’ reliance on 1980s-era cases to contend that
these principles do not apply to programmatic challenges to generally applicable policies, see
Pls.’ Reply, ECF No. 23 at 1-4, is unambiguously foreclosed by modern Supreme Court
precedent. See Elgin v. Dep’t of Treasury, 567 U.S. 1, 7-8 (2012) (CSRA precluded district court
action seeking not only “reinstatement to their former positions, backpay, benefits, and
attorneys’ fees,” but also “a declaratory judgment that the challenged statutes are
unconstitutional”). Writing for the Court, Justice Thomas rejected the federal employee’s
contention that he “could challenge the constitutionality of the statute authorizing an agency’s
action in district court, but the MSPB would remain the exclusive forum for other types of
challenges to the agency’s decision.” Id. at 14. That is the exact same contention that Plaintiffs
advance here, and this Court is bound by the Supreme Court’s rejection of it in Elgin.
Dated: January 18, 2022

Respectfully submitted,
BRIT FEATHERSTON
United States Attorney
Eastern District of Texas
/s/ James G. Gillingham
JAMES G. GILLINGHAM
Assistant United States Attorney
Eastern District of Texas
Acting Under Authority Conferred by 28 U.S.C. §
6

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515
Attorney in Charge
Texas Bar #24065295
110 N. College Street; Suite 700
Tyler, Texas 75702
Telephone: (903) 510-9346
Facsimile: (903) 590-1436
James.Gillingham@usdoj.gov
Counsel for Defendants

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I certify that on January 18, 2022, a true and accurate copy of the foregoing document
was filed electronically (via CM/ECF) and served on all counsel of record.
/s/ James G. Gillingham
JAMES G. GILLINGHAM

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