Montana Joins Lawsuit to Stop Federal Contractor Vaccine Mandate

The State of Montana has officially joined 23 other states against the Biden administration for imposing an illegal vaccine mandate on federal contractors and federally contracted employees.

Attorney General Austin Knudsen provided details to KGVO News.

“I'd like Montanans to know, and specifically your listeners to know, that following the Biden administration's executive order mandating that any company who does business through a federal contract with the federal government has to have their employees vaccinated, we've joined a number of other states in challenging that executive order,” said Knudsen.

Despite the fact that the Montana Legislature passed and Governor Gianforte signed a law forbidding a vaccine mandate, the Biden Administration has found a way around that legislation targeting businesses that have federal contracts.

“The order is in effect until there's either a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order put in place,” he said. “We don't have that yet because we just filed this lawsuit. But now that it's been filed, we can go in front of a federal judge and we can ask to have the executive order enjoined and stopped pending the outcome of this litigation. That's pretty standard practice and we'll be doing that here.”

Knudsen said his office has been deluged with calls concerning the executive order.

“This has become one of the single largest issues that my office gets called about every single day,” he said. “We've got lots of companies, businesses and employees, even in the state of Montana that in one way shape or form might do a little bit of business with the federal government, by way of contracting, and this is concerning a lot of them and when they're being told to hey, you're going to have this rug pulled out from underneath you and have your contract cancelled and unless you're vaccinated.”

Knudsen also referenced the many efforts underway to counteract HB 702, the bill prohibiting discrimination based on a person's vaccination status or possession of an immunity passport.

“The first one was filed by the Montana Hospital Association. They just yesterday filed a motion to amend their complaint. The second lawsuit was filed by a small law firm in Sydney, Montana. Similarly, they have just filed a motion to amend their complaint and join another plaintiff onto it. And prospectively because they want to they want to argue that the Montana constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment is being violated (by HB 702).”

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the vaccine mandate unlawful and enjoin the Biden administration from enforcing it.

Read the full lawsuit here.