Omnibus spending bill that included Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was unlawful.
The Biden administration seems willing to violate any law or constitutional principle in its weaponized-government approach to the November election.
On Monday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published new rules for pregnant workers that includes benefits for abortion — based on a law that has already been declared unconstitutional.
The EEOC rule “clarifies the provisions of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which became law last June after Congress passed it as part of a federal government spending package in late 2022,” CNN reports.
But the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that included the law was unlawful, according to federal Judge James Wesley Hendrix. That’s because Congress didn’t have a quorum present when the measure was approved; supporters relied on “proxy voting,” in which a member flips a switch at another member’s desk.
Judge Hendrix wrote: “For over 235 years, Congress understood the Constitution’s Quorum Clause to require a majority of members of the House or Senate to be physically present to constitute the necessary quorum to pass legislation. This rule prevents a minority of members from passing legislation that affects the entire nation.”
In 2020, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put forth a rule allowing proxy voting. But the court ruled that “by including members who were indisputably absent in the quorum count, the Act at issue the in violation of the Constitution’s Quorum Clause.” That means that everything contained within the omnibus spending bill, including the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, is invalid.
“Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi abused proxy voting under the pretext of COVID-19 to pass this law, then Biden signed it, knowing they violated the Constitution,” the Office of the Attorney General said. “This was a stunning violation of the rule of law. I am relieved the Court upheld the Constitution.”
Deliberately and openly violating the law to advance progressive policy priorities has become a pattern for the Biden administration.
Take student loans. The administration’s efforts to buy votes through student debt “forgiveness” has been halted by the courts time and again. But the Biden administration is undeterred, announcing as recently as this week a new round of debt cancellations — which will also be challenged by the states.
Then there’s the Biden administration’s residential eviction moratorium during the COVID pandemic, which prohibited — with criminal penalties — landlords from evicting tenants for nonpayment of rent. Despite a top administration official conceding that officials lacked any legal avenue for the mandate, the Biden administration kept and even extended its moratorium.
The Supreme Court indicated that the moratorium was unlawful, but justices allowed it to continue because Dr. Rochelle Walensky, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stated that this was the final extension.
It wasn’t. The Biden administration again extended the eviction moratorium — until the Supreme Court finally struck it down.
The administration has also colluded with Big Tech to silence political opponents. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan detailed the administration’s unlawful efforts in a report last year.
“We know through the Facebook Files that the Biden administration directed Big Tech companies to censor speech the government disagreed with, and launched a pressure campaign when companies did not comply with these censorship orders quickly enough,” the Ohio Republican said.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, ruling in September that “the White House, acting in concert with the Surgeon General’s office, likely (1) coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences, and (2) significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment.”
Likewise, the Biden administration made the political calculation early on not to enforce immigration laws.
“Existing law not only allows the Department of Homeland Security to detain aliens apprehended at the border — it requires the department to do so,” former immigration Judge Andrew Arthur explained. “The administration’s insistence on ‘catch and release’ in lieu of that detention mandate is the border crisis’s biggest driver.”
In that federal court ruling made in February, Judge Hendrix blocked the EEOC from enforcing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act against the state of Texas in what is now published, binding federal precedent.
We expect other states and businesses to cite this authority to challenge the EEOC’s abortion rule, but they shouldn’t have to.
That’s a start, but it will take much, much more to rein in this lawless administration. States like Texas, Florida, Missouri and Louisiana must continue to press the courts for relief — at least until we swear in an administration that respects the rule of law.