KENTUCKY — Just hours after it was announced, President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors is seeing a legal challenge spearheaded by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

Cameron on Thursday filed a lawsuit, joined by Ohio and Tennessee, challenging the Biden Administration’s mandate aimed at federal contractors. The suit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, alleges that the mandatory vaccination requirement is unlawful and unconstitutional.

You can read the full lawsuit here.

The Biden Administration unveiled details of its federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate early on Thursday, outlining a Jan. 4, 2022 deadline for federal contractors and health care employees treating Medicare and Medicaid patients to be fully vaccinated.

A similar OSHA rule will require businesses with 100+ employees to ensure all workers are either fully vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. All told, the new policies will cover two-thirds of all workers, according to the Biden administration, or nearly 100 million people.

Cameron, along with attorneys general from Tennessee and Ohio, allege the mandate would violate constitutional rights and create undue harm. Cameron also raised concerns that the rule would negatively impact local jails who employ federal contractors.

“We are taking the issue of federal overreach seriously and will protect the livelihoods of countless Kentuckians and Kentucky businesses from overbroad mandates," Cameron said in a news release.

Nationwide, the Department of Labor reports that federal contractors account for approximately one-fifth of the country’s entire labor force. The coalition of attorneys general argue that the potential workforce loss among federal contractors presents a significant concern for the economies of their states and could exacerbate ongoing supply chain issues.

In Kentucky, multiple local jails contract with the United States Justice Department to detain, house, and transport federal prisoners. Vaccination is encouraged at these facilities but not required, meaning that under the Biden Administration’s mandate, unvaccinated Kentucky workers at these facilities would be forced to receive the vaccine or find a new job.

As a result, Cameron said the facilities could be faced with the choice between increased worker shortages and the accompanying threat to public safety or the possibility of losing their federal contracts, which provide a significant funding source for each of the facilities.

The attorneys general also contend that the mandate is unconstitutional because Congress did not give Biden authority to issue such a broad mandate. Additional legal challenges are expected to mount in the coming days and weeks, as Republican governors and Republicans in Congress have signaled staunch opposition to the mandate.

But recent polling suggests that a majority of Americans favor the vaccine mandate: Nearly 6 in 10 Americans supported Biden's vaccine mandates in a Gallup survey from Sept. and similar majority approval in recent Monmouth and AP-NORC polls.