“Here, yet again, the department is trying to do through regulation what must be done through legislation,” a federal judge ruled on Wednesday with regard to President Obama’s 2013 edict requiring minimum wage and overtime be provided to some 2 million home health care workers.
via the Associated Press:
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon had scrapped part of the rules in December, and Wednesday he completed the process.
In his decision, Leon said that the Labor Department’s concerns about wages for home care providers are understandable, but that Congress is the appropriate forum in which to debate a complex issue affecting so many families.
President Barack Obama announced the rules in 2011, avoiding a trip through a hostile Congress that would have been required had the administration chosen the legislative path. Obama presented the rules with fanfare as part of a campaign to boost the economy through executive branch action.
The Department of Labor is considering all its options, according to a statement.
