A federal court in Tennessee has blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a law that would require states to allow athletes to play on the sports teams of the gender they identify as.
The temporary restraining order was granted by US District Judge Charles Atchley Jr., The Daily Wire reports.
Attorneys General from 20 states sued the Biden administration arguing that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the US Department of Education overstepped their mandate from Congress by issuing new guidance that effected current and future state gender laws.
The Biden admin through the administrative legal standard creating would also have allowed those athletes to enter the locker rooms and bathrooms of the gender they identify as.
Specifically, the Department of Education added discrimination based on gender identity to the Title IX framework and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission issued the guidance for private businesses.
The judge has issued the order to temporarily block enforcement while the lawsuit navigates the legal system.
Judge Atchley wrote, “As demonstrated above, the harm alleged by Plaintiff States is already occurring — their sovereign power to enforce their own legal code is hampered by the issuance of Defendants’ guidance and they face substantial pressure to change their state laws as a result.”
The lawsuit claims that the Biden admin, “purports to resolve highly controversial and localized issues such as … whether individuals may be compelled to use another person’s preferred pronouns. 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.”
The Attorneys Generals got a big boost in their case when the Supreme Court ruled in June that the EPA lacked the authority to issue new rules to fight climate change because Congress did not specifically grant the agency that power.
The case, West Virginia v. EPA, was a massive blow to the regulatory state but liberals at the time only focused on the loss to the climate agenda.
Here is the opinion from John Roberts in West Virginia v. EPA: https://t.co/ret7VxSSpj. The three liberal justices dissent.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 30, 2022
The regulatory state is a workaround to the checks and balances of government and allows agencies to have law making power not originally granted to them.
Now, agencies can only create laws and interpretations when Congress expressly grants them the authority. This will now be taken into account as this case is adjudicated.
Now, the Department of Education and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission could be found to have violated federal law and overstepped their regulatory authority,
Enforcement will pause until that can be determined, possibly by the Supreme Court.
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