Many challengers have filed petitions with the Supreme Court asking it to stay the mandate after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the Fifth Circuit’s stay last week. The Court will be consolidating two of them into a one-hour-long oral argument on January 7 to address the common issue of whether a stay of the mandate should be in place pending the Court’s determination of its ultimate merits.
On December 22, 2021, the Supreme Court also entered an order scheduling oral argument on January 7, 2022 for the federal government’s emergency requests to stay injunctions entered against the CMS healthcare vaccine mandate. These requests, too, will be consolidated into a one-hour-long argument on January 7, 2022.
While it is unknown when the Supreme Court will issue its decisions on the stay requests, it would not be unreasonable to expect them to be issued soon after January 7—perhaps in only a couple days—given the urgency of the matters. Be sure to check back that week for more updates.