People were upset when Uncle Joe decided to extend the renters’ moratorium despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against that extension and his own statements questioning the legality. His acts of lawlessness are just the most visible of the questionable activities so far within his administration. His lower-level appointees are following his lead and running roughshod over our governmental structure.
The United States government has an avalanche of bureaus and commissions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is one of those. It was established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to enforce civil rights law against workplace discrimination. The Commission is run by a five-member commission. The terms run for five years and are appointed by the incumbent U.S. president.
President Biden did two things regarding this commission. He took the unusual step of firing the counsel to the commission who was appointed for a four-year term. Then he appointed a new chair to the commission, Charlotte A. Burrows. Despite his changes the commission still had a Republican majority of 3-2. All policy changes have a process that runs through the commission. That was not suitable for the Biden people who came in with a plan to make changes however they needed them to be done.
Burrows unilaterally issued a guidance document which was purporting to apply a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Bostock v. Clayton County. The document redefined prohibition of discrimination because of transgender status and sexual orientation in certain contexts within Title VII.
A member of the commission, Keith Sonderling, delineated how the guidance document was issued in violation of EEOC regulations. He stated, “It was issued without public input, without formal public deliberations among the Commissioners, and without a vote of the Commission.”
The reason Commissioner Burrows did this is because she knew that she would never get the proposal through the Commission as presently constituted. She did it that way because she and the members of the Biden Administration – with whom she coordinated her effort –wanted to define certain aspects of the Bostock ruling even if it meant circumventing legal processes. They felt compelled to do this because they were defining rights for the current Holy Grail of the Democrats, transgender individuals. It doesn’t matter if the entire population must contour our lives to accommodate this miniscule population – it is the Holy Grail.
Commissioner Andrea Lucas defined why the unilateral decision was so wrong. She wrote “The Supreme Court in Bostock addressed only the question of whether an employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender has discriminated against that individual because of such individual’s sex…”
“However, under the guise and cover of Bostock, the Chair purports to extend to private employers several (pre-Bostock) federal sector administrative decisions relating to dress codes, use of pronouns, and access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers – implying that compliance with Bostock requires nationwide acquiescence to the policies and interpretations in these decisions. This sleight of hand is inexplicable when juxtaposed with the Court’s decision in Bostock including its express statements that its decision did not concern, much less resolve, some of these critical issues.”
The interesting aspect of this is, despite the document completely circumventing commission procedures, there is nothing the other members of the commission can do to rein in the lawless chair. I am sure she was advised of that before she even took over as chair by Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice whose fingers are all over this.
Not to worry; 21 state attorneys general put President Biden on notice to overturn Chair Burrows’ action. They were obviously prepared to take legal action since the chances of Biden and his team not sticking out their tongues and saying “come get us” were miniscule. Twenty Attorneys General have sued.
The lawsuit was filed against the EEOC and Dept. of Education. “The guidance purports to resolve highly controversial and localized issues such as whether employers and schools may maintain sex-separated showers and locker rooms, whether schools must allow biological males to compete on female athletic teams, and whether individuals may be compelled to use another person’s preferred pronouns,” says the filing. “But the agencies have no authority to resolve those sensitive questions, let alone to do so by executive fiat without providing any opportunity for public participation.”
This is just one incident of what the Biden Administration is willing to do in a case where they don’t have control over an agency. How many times might this be repeated and how many more times will it be repeated once the Democrats lose the House of Representatives in 2022? We have seen more actions this week with the forced resignations of properly appointed commission members and Biden’s supposed workaround through OSHA for vaccine mandates.
Our government should not be run through lawyers coming up with loopholes. Of course, when righteousness is on your side, why do you have to comply with rules and regulations?