WASHINGTON (CBSDFW.COM/CNN) – Republican attorneys general in three states filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday challenging President Joe Biden’s move to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour.
The case — filed on behalf of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — argues that Biden did not have the authority to issue the policy. The lawsuit says, “President Biden chose to ignore the will of our federal legislators and instead forced a raise in the minimum wage through executive fiat.”
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“Through leveraging the disproportionate bargaining power of the federal government, Defendants have decided to coerce federal contractors into abiding by a policy that Congress does not endorse, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of businesses that employ as much as one-fifth of the entire US labor force,” the lawsuit said.
The states allege the move was an unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power and that it is an unconstitutional exercise of the government’s spending power. The states also contend that the federal contractor minimum wage raise ran afoul of administrative law.
Biden announced the raise via an executive order last April. The Department of Labor finalized the regulation in November, with a rule that made the $15 an hour minimum wage effective January 30. It had been $10.95 an hour in 2021 for workers performing work on covered federal contracts.
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is named as a defendant in the case, as is Jessica Looman,...
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