Advancing American Freedom is deeply concerned that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is violating the will of the American people, the direction of Congress, and EEOC precedent in its proposed rule to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Instead of following the express statutory language, the EEOC is blatantly violating the rule of law with a proposed rule that reflects nothing other than the political will of the Biden-Harris administration. Specifically, this proposed rule ignores the plain sense of statutory language and expands the powers of a government agency in contradiction to the law’s explicit and intended purpose. Further, the rule attempts to interpret statutes in a way that is antithetical to EEOC’s own longstanding definition of “related medical condition,” and violates the judicial standard set by Auer v. Robbins (1997) and narrowed in Kisor v. Wilke (2019).
In this proposed rule, EEOC has failed to consider – or has chosen to ignore – the explicit language and intent of the statute and has instead substituted an aggressive pro-abortion agenda where the Act was created simply to address pregnant mothers in the workforce. Further, the proposed rulemaking would almost certainly fail judicial scrutiny even under the most liberal reading of Chevron and Auer deference. Even so, it is the abusive misreading of agency authority as exhibited by the EEOC that has prompted AAF to file seven amicus briefs in Federal courts this year calling for the overturning of Chevron and Auer to restore balance among the three branches of the Federal government. Given the EEOC’s unconstitutional overreach here, AAF demands that the proposed rule be rescinded.
