GOP Senators Seek to Overturn Biden Rule to Restrict Faith-Based Federal Contractors

A resolution of disapproval introduced by Republican senators James Lankford of Oklahoma and Ted Budd of North Carolina would cancel a Biden administration regulatory rule that limits the First Amendment rights of religiously oriented federal contractors providing social services through the government.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) (L.) speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 25, 2020. Tom Williams/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

A resolution of disapproval introduced by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Ted Budd (R-N.C.) seeks to cancel a Biden administration regulatory rule that limits the First Amendment rights of religiously oriented federal contractors providing social services through the government.

President Joe Biden’s then-Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh issued the proposal in November 2021 to nullify a 2020 provision that guaranteed such contractors the broadest protection of religious exercise “permitted by the U.S. Constitution and law.”