Home > House votes to block new rules for overtime pay
By Dan Morgan
WASHINGTON — The House voted 223-193 Thursday to block the Bush administration’s sweeping new eligibility rules for overtime pay, giving Democrats a significant victory that they hope will boost the party’s standing among middle-class voters in key states in the fall election.
Twenty-two pro-labor Republicans, most of them from the North and Midwest, joined a solid bloc of Democrats voting to prevent the Labor Department from enforcing the regulations, which took effect Aug. 23.
Indiana’s delegation voted along party lines, with the three Democrats voting for the amendment blocking the rules and the six Republicans voting against it.
It is unclear if Thursday’s action will stand.
The White House warned this week that President Bush might veto the underlying bill — a $142.5 billion measure funding education, worker training and health programs in 2005 — if it contains the overtime amendment attached to it Thursday.
Last year, the House added a similar provision blocking the rules, but GOP leaders, under strong pressure from the White House, jettisoned it during final House-Senate negotiations on the bill. Repeating that maneuver could be more politically perilous as the election nears, according to some legislative aides.
Business lobbies, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurant Association, favor the new rules, while major labor organizations have been seeking to undo them.
Under the new rules, workers who earn less than $23,660 annually will become automatically eligible for overtime pay, compared with the current threshold of $8,060. But critics say this gain is more than offset by other provisions that exempt certain administrative and white-collar workers from overtime even if they work more than 40 hours a week.