Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has joined a multi-state lawsuit to block the Biden administration’s Head Start mandate for program employees to vaccinate against COVID and for pre-school pupils to wear face masks or risk losing all federal funding. This is the fourth lawsuit the AGO has filed.
Head Start provides resources to underserved children and their families. The program provides families with early childhood education and resources, including diapers. The mandate requires all personnel to be “fully vaccinated” and wear masks at all times while also requiring students ages two years and older to wear masks.
The states allege that the Head Start Mandate is not only beyond the Executive Branch’s authority, contrary to law, and arbitrary and capricious; but it also violates the Administrative Procedure Act’s Notice-and-Comment Requirement, the Congressional Review Act, the Nondelegation Doctrine, the Tenth Amendment, the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, the Spending Clause, and the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act of 1999.
“The Biden Administration continues to expand efforts to impose illegal mandates on Americans, this time targeting young children and the people who serve them,” stated Brnovich. “I have and will continue to challenge this misguided federal overreach and stand alongside our most vulnerable.”
The lawsuit was filed in the District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on Tuesday. Joining Attorney General Brnovich are the attorneys general from Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming, and West Virginia.
The coalition is also seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the unlawful mandate from going into effect.
