NEW ORLEANS - As new executive orders come flying out of President Donald Trump's office, a federal appeals court has rejected the challenge of Texas and other states to his predecessor's federal minimum wage standards, rejecting arguments to not "lose sight of common sense."
Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana obtained an injunction against a President Biden executive order that forced companies with federal contracts to pay their workers at least $15 per hour. Biden signed the order in 2021, and the states challenged it the following year in Victoria, Texas, federal court.
Their suit says Biden and the Department of Labor exceeded their authority while also violating rulemaking policy under the Administrative Procedures Act. It also said Congress' delegation of authority to the president under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 violated the law.
Texas AG Ken Paxton and his colleagues said the court should not "lose sight of common sense" because it is not credible Congress wanted to give presidents the power to impose national policies under FPASA, referred to as the Procurement Act.
"(T)he FPASA's delegation of authority to the President is clear, unambiguous and broad - other than their policy concerns, which we cannot properly consider, the States do not explain why this outcome defies common sense under the law," Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez wrote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Paxton called the rule, which also required overtime wages after a worker reached a 40-hour workweek, would be disastrous. The Labor Department can also raise the minimum wage each year if it wants to. In fact, it was increased to $17.75 in September.
He warned of layoffs and inflation when he filed suit, saying Biden ignored the Constitution when imposing the rules.
"This administration has caused enough problems for our country," Paxton said in 2022. "I will not allow them to cost Texans valuable jobs and to worsen the economic downturn."
The suit got off to a good start. U.S. District Court judge Drew Tipton in September 2023 enjoined Biden from enforcing his executive order against the three states.
"The Procurement Act's text, history and purpose do not offer the President broad policy-making authority to set the minimum wage of certain employees of federal contractors and subcontractors," Tipton wrote then.
"Instead, the Procurement Act's text, history, purpose and structure limit the President to a supervisory role in policy implementation rather than a unilateral, broad policy-making power to set a minimum wage."
The Fifth Circuit disagreed. The Procurement Act authorized the president to dictate policies and directives he or she considers necessary. Biden said the purpose of is order was to promote economy and efficiency by contracting with companies that adequately pay their workers.
The states said the order did not. But that argument was a policy consideration the Fifth Circuit couldn't consider, it found. It was merely to decide if Biden had the power to issue the order.
"Congress knows how to enact statutes of various scopes and breadths," Ramirez wrote.
"And it is well aware that courts give clear and unambiguous statutory language its ordinary meaning.
"So when Congress uses broad language that is clear and unambiguous, it intends for courts to give effect to it all the same."