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As COVID-19 cases surged across the country, the Supreme Court quickly heard two disputes about the Biden administration’s expansion of vaccination efforts. On Wednesday night, the judges took an unusual move. They will hear oral debates on two federal policies on January 7: authorization to vaccinate or test workers at large employers, and vaccines for healthcare workers Authorized to receive federal funding.

Case study Emergency appearance last weekAnd the formal question in the two disputes is whether the government should be allowed to implement these policies while the lawsuits that challenge the policies continue. But judges’ views on whether to grant emergency relief may be influenced by their views on the merits of the potential challenge itself.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a vaccine or test directive on November 5. It requires all employers with more than 100 employees to mandate that these employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or tested weekly and wear masks at work. (among other things) business groups, religious groups, and Republican-led states across the country Several challenges were raised to this rule, and the authorization was deemed to be beyond the authority of OSHA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit temporarily shelved the authorization in November, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit restored the authorization last week.

The challenger quickly went to the Supreme Court and submitted more than a dozen separate requests for the judge to block the Sixth Circuit’s ruling.Judge on wednesday night Set up two of the oral arguments request – One submitted by a group of trade associations and the other by a group of states headed by Ohio – submitted very quickly.The Sixth Circuit’s ruling on the restoration of authorization will remain valid until the Supreme Court takes action at the request of the challenger, although OSHA has pointed out The non-compliance subpoena will not be issued until January 10 at the earliest.

The Biden administration also came to court last week and asked the judge to allow it to temporarily implement a rule issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, which requires all healthcare workers in facilities participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs to be fully vaccinated against COVID -19 vaccines, unless they are eligible for medical or religious exemptions. The lower court ruling prevented the government from enforcing vaccine regulations in about half of the states.Justice Will hear arguments Whether these rulings should be retained.

Soon after receiving the urgent request last week, the court set the deadline for replies to the two disputes as December 30. The decision to hear oral arguments on urgent requests on Wednesday was somewhat unexpected: the court seemed more likely to process the request with a short order, as is usually done on the so-called “shadow file”.Instead, maybe in response criticize Due to the increasing use of shadow files to litigate major policy disputes, judges have accelerated the speed of oral arguments because they have done so twice this year when handling emergency relief requests. Controversial abortion law dispute in Texas and Texas prisoner’s request Ask his pastor to touch him and pray loudly while executing the death sentence.

This article is Originally published in Howe on the Court.