Obama’s new overtime ‘regulation’ was slapped down by a judge that Obama himself appointed:
FREE BEACON – A federal judge appointed by Barack Obama struck down one of the president’s signature labor regulations on Tuesday just days before it was to go into effect.
Texas District Court Judge Amos L. Mazzant granted a preliminary injunction on the department’s new overtime regulations, which would have forced employers to pay overtime to any white collar employee making less than $913 a week—double the previous threshold of $455. Mazzant’s temporary injunction will prevent the rules from taking effect on Dec. 1.
“Congress intended the EAP [executive, administrative, or professional] exemption to depend on an employee’s duties rather than an employee’s salary,” Mazzant said in the ruling.
President Obama called for new overtime regulations in a 2014 executive order. The department announced its final rules in May in a press conference attended by Obama and Labor Secretary Tom Perez.
The overtime rules not only doubled the pay level, but also put into place a pay-scale escalator that would have automatically raised the threshold every three years. It was one of the Obama administration’s most wide-reaching regulations and was expected to affect 4 million workers.
Judge Mazzant, who Obama appointed to Eastern District of Texas court in 2014, agreed with the plaintiffs that regulators stepped beyond the scope of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
“Nothing in the EAP exemption indicates that Congress intended the Department to define and delimit with respect to a minimum salary level,” he ruled.
I’m sure Obama wasn’t happy about this at all, but what a wonderful irony.