Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement after the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated, nationwide, the Biden-Harris administration’s rule regulating overtime pay for exempt employees:
“I am grateful for today’s ruling that vacated yet another unlawful Biden-Harris administration pre-election giveaway and am proud to have led a 14-state amicus brief supporting the State of Texas in this lawsuit. The now-defunct rule would have imposed billions in increased costs—straining the budgets of state and local governments, hurting employers, and ultimately killing jobs across the nation.
“The court correctly found that the United States Department of Labor unlawfully exceeded its authority under the Fair Labor Standards Act and that it should ‘nullify and revoke’ illegal actions by federal agencies. This is yet another failed attempt by the Biden-Harris administration to rewrite laws passed by Congress.
“I congratulate my Solicitor General’s Office in its work to secure the coalition of states on our amicus brief and thank Senior Assistant Solicitor General Asher Steinberg for his exceptional work in writing the brief that was cited in the order.”
Federal law exempts workers with “executive, administrative, and professional” duties from receiving overtime pay. For decades, the Labor Department has used salary as one factor in deciding when that applies. The vacated rule would have required employers to provide overtime pay to salaried professional, administrative, and executive employees who were already highly paid and previously exempt from overtime requirements.
Griffin filed his amicus brief in August and was joined by the attorneys general of Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia.
Original source can be found here.