Griffin: ‘The rule is another example of the Biden-Harris administration trying to rewrite laws passed by Congress’

LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin today issued the following statement after filing an amicus brief on behalf of himself and 13 other state attorneys general in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas supporting Texas’s motion for summary judgment in its suit against the U.S. Department of Labor and its rule regulating overtime pay for exempt employees:

“The rule is another example of the Biden-Harris administration trying to rewrite laws passed by Congress. The new rule drives up costs for private businesses and forces state governments to increase budgets—hitting Americans’ pocketbooks twice.

“Texas has already secured a preliminary injunction stopping this rule, and I am proud to lead this coalition of states in supporting our neighbor asking to vacate this latest effort by the Biden-Harris administration to go around Congress in an election-year giveaway.”

Federal law exempts workers with “executive, administrative, and professional” duties from receiving overtime pay. For decades, the Labor Department has used salary as one factor in deciding when that applies. The new rule requires employers to provide overtime pay to salaried professional, administrative, and executive employees who are already highly paid and were previously exempt from overtime requirements by conditioning overtime exemptions primarily on workers’ pay rather than their duties.

Griffin is joined in the amicus brief by the attorneys general of Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

To read the brief, click here.

For a printer-friendly version of this release, click here.

About Attorney General Tim Griffin

Tim Griffin was sworn in as the 57th Attorney General of Arkansas on January 10, 2023, having previously served as the state’s 20th Lieutenant Governor from 2015-2023. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24th representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District, where he served on the House Committee on Ways and Means, House Armed Services Committee, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House Committee on Ethics and House Committee on the Judiciary while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority.

Griffin has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for more than 28 years and currently holds the rank of colonel. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Mosul, Iraq.

He is currently serving as the Commander of the 2d Legal Operations Detachment in New Orleans, Louisiana. His previous assignments include serving as the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment at Fort Liberty (née Bragg), North Carolina, and as a Senior Legislative Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Griffin earned a master’s degree in strategic studies as a Distinguished Honor Graduate from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

Griffin also served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for President George W. Bush; Special Assistant to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Arkansas; Senior Investigative Counsel, Government Reform and Oversight Committee, U.S. House of Representatives; and Associate Independent Counsel, Office of Independent Counsel David M. Barrett, In re: HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros.

Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway, and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He attended graduate school at Oxford University. He is admitted to practice law in Arkansas (active) and Louisiana (inactive). Griffin lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.

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