The Biden administration is seeking a consolidation of the flurry of legal challenges that have been filed against its private employer COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which would affect 84 million workers if allowed to take effect. A federal appeals court over the weekend put the mandate on hold as judges decide whether or not to overturn it. Legal challenges against the mandate have raised “grave statutory and constitutional issues,” the court panel said. Because at least a dozen lawsuits have been filed against the emergency rule, promulgated by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the panel should abide by a federal law that says multiple challenges should be combined, government lawyers told the judges in a Nov. 8 filing. The law says that in such cases courts “shall, by means of random selection, designate one court of appeals, from among the courts of appeals in which petitions for review …