AG Alan Wilson joins 24-state lawsuit to block President Biden’s Head Start mandates

December 22, 2021

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has joined a multi-state lawsuit against Joe Biden’s overreaching COVID mandates. The suit, led by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, takes aim at the President’s unlawful requirements of masks on toddlers and COVID-19 shots for staff and volunteers in Head Start Programs.

“To think that the Biden Administration would politicize the Head Start program–created for underprivileged children–is despicable,” said Attorney General Wilson. “This is an example of federal abuse of power at its worst. We hope the court will put a stop to this federal overreach just as has been done in other cases. The Biden mandates were a terrible idea and should be brought to a screeching halt.”

Head Start provides much needed resources to underserved children and their families. The program provides early childhood education and resources, including diapers, to families. Forcing teachers, contractors, and volunteers in Head Start Programs to be vaccinated by January 31 will cost jobs and programing.

“Like all of his other unlawful attempts to impose medical decisions on Americans, Biden’s overreaching orders to mask two-year-olds and force-vaccinate teachers in our underserved communities will cost jobs and impede child development,” added Attorney General Landry. “If enacted, Biden’s authoritarianism will cut funding, programs, and childcare that working families, single mothers, and elderly raising grandchildren rely on desperately.”

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 APA’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.

Joining Attorneys General Wilson and Landry in Louisiana, et al. vs. Becerra, et al. are the Attorneys General from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming, and West Virginia.

You can read the complaint here.