U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R) hopes the Supreme Court will weigh in favor of those opposing the Biden Administration’s vaccine or testing mandate for companies with 100 employers or more and health care workers this week.

The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on challenges to the mandate this Friday which President Joe Biden announced in September requiring businesses with 100 or more employees ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated, or require those unvaccinated to wear masks and show negative COVID-19 test results at least once a week. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, who regulate the mandate have said that they wouldn’t enforce the mandate before January 10th and wouldn’t issue citations for failure to comply before February 9th as long as employers are acting in good faith to put the rules into effect.

Grassley tells KCII he hopes that the Supreme Court will not vote in favor of the mandates, “I support vaccinations. I’ve been vaccinated, I’d advise you to be vaccinated, other people to be vaccinated. But I don’t think the federal government should be telling people that you got to have a needle stuck in your arm and violating individual freedom. So naturally, I hope the Supreme Court will not uphold the President’s mandate.”

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided in favor of the federal mandates on a 2-1 vote, as over 800,000 Americans have died due to complications from COVID, 7,858 of them from Iowa. The number of COVID deaths in the state has about doubled since one year ago, as 55.8% of Iowans are fully vaccinated, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health. To hear more from Senator Grassley listen to a two-part Halcyon House Washington Page on air and at kciiradio.com.