President Joe Biden’s expanding practice of governing through executive orders in the face of congressional inaction or opposition today drew a federal lawsuit from five state attorneys general who declared his presidency a “dictatorship.”
Arguing against Biden’s hike of the federal minimum wage over bipartisan Senate opposition, the top lawyers in Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, and South Carolina said in the suit that “the United States is not a dictatorship.”
The suit, led by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, challenges Biden’s order to lift the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour, higher than in most states.
The coalition of states said Biden’s mandate violates the Procurement Act and the Spending Clause of the Constitution, which they said allows Biden to fiddle with purchases, not wages.
“President Biden always likes to get what he wants right away, with little patience for things like facts or the law,” said Brnovich in a statement provided to Secrets. “His minimum wage mandate is yet another example of attempted federal overreach that has become a pattern with this administration,” added Brnovich, who has made a name for himself in taking on several liberal White House initiatives.
The suit notes that the Senate voted 58-42 to kill raising the minimum wage for contractors. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders tried to get it approved into a recent COVID-19 spending bill.
Biden signed Executive Order 13658 on April 27. It raised the wage to $15 from $10.95.
In Arizona, which has a minimum wage of $12.80, Brnovich’s office said the federal mandate would include “law enforcement, whitewater rafting, and fast-food restaurants, as well as all three Arizona state universities and the Civil Rights Division of the Office of the Arizona Attorney General.”
The suit argued that paying more would hurt businesses and cut tax collections. It also predicted mass job losses as companies try to make up for the added payroll costs.
