A.G. Gancarski
Attorney General Ashley Moody said Friday she wanted a quick hearing in the federal lawsuit filed this week challenging vaccine mandates for federal contractors.
“We’re going to be pushing very hard for a quick hearing. We know that many folks have been watching this concerned,” Moody said on the Fox News Channel’s America Reports.
Moody filed the lawsuit in the federal Middle District of Florida in Tampa against NASA, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and President Joe Biden, among a host of other parties. The AG expressed confidence she would have a “fair judge” and a “hearing quickly to make sure our arguments would be heard.”
Judge Steven Merryday is presiding over the case. And he has been sympathetic to Florida’s arguments in the past. This summer, he sided with Florida regarding the matter of vaccine passports to board cruise ships, contending that was an example of federal overreach.
Moody offered confident statements, alternating with condemnations of the Biden administration.
“We look forward to vindicating Florida workers and making sure they don’t have to choose between a job and medical autonomy,” Moody said, expressing confidence the state will prevail even as she again condemned the Biden administration’s expansive approach to federal prerogative.
“The gymnastics that this administration had to do to get this done is reprehensible,” Moody said. “I can not believe this obliteration of the separation of powers that this President has been amenable to since taking office.”
The complaint alleges harm to universities, Space Florida, and the state’s Department of Education, decrying “arbitary and capricious” mandates.
The stentorian rhetoric from the state’s chief legal officer was in keeping with the tough talk presented in a press conference with Gov. Ron DeSantis this week, where the suit was rolled out as a defense of contractors in aerospace and other fields, and Moody said Biden dared to “laugh about freedom” when talking up the mandates.
“President Biden or his handlers don’t have the ability to control everything in this country,” Moody said. “We the states have rights, and our citizens have rights and freedoms.”
DeSantis also weighed in.
“We’ve gone from 15 Days to Slow the Spread to three jabs to keep your job somehow. Are you kidding me?” DeSantis said.
