Friday Roundup 1-21-22

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden Administration did not have legislative authority to issue a mandate that employers with more than 100 workers require vaccination. The Court did not say that vaccine mandates are unconstitutional or a violation of individual rights. It simply said that Congress hasn’t authorized such a rights-violating mandate. The Washington Post opined that Congress should explicitly authorize a federal vaccine mandate. Give the Court’s deference to legislators, if Congress does authorize such a mandate, the Court will uphold it.

This week, Starbucks announced that it would no longer require employees to be vaccinated for COVID. General Electric have previously made a similar announcement. These moves come days after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s vaccine mandate for companies with 100 or more employees. Other employers, such as Citigroup, have announced that they will keep their vaccine requirement in place. These alternative positions would not be possible if Biden’s mandate stood. Instead, each company can decide which policy it believes is best. And that is the way it should be.

A Rutgers professor has proposed a unique solution to New York City’s affordable housing problem: make Manhattan bigger. The professor suggests using landfill to add more than 1,700 acres to the southern shore of Manhattan. He believes that this would provide enough land for an additional 180,000 housing units. The professor didn’t offer a suggestion for how this project would be funded.