Calling the Shots: Multistate Challenges to Federal Vaccine Mandates

Multistate litigation brought by state attorneys general (“AGs”) frustrated the Biden administration’s efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic by vaccinating workers. Nationwide injunctions played an important role in halting the implementation of vaccine mandates in multistate actions. State challenges to vaccine mandates are consistent with AG lawsuit trends against recent presidential administrations.¹See Elysa M. Dishman, Generals of the Resistance: Multistate Actions and Nationwide Injunctions, 59 Ariz. St. L.J. 359, 365–66 (2022); Paul Nolette & Colin Provost, Change and Continuity in the Role of State Attorneys General in the Obama and Trump Administrations, 48 Publius: J. Federalism 469, 469 (2018). These challenges also reveal new emerging patterns that shed light on the future of multistate litigation and nationwide injunctions. State vaccine mandate lawsuits have continued to raise criticisms of nationwide injunctions and, at the same time, provide insights on pathways forward for reform.