After I cast my vote early the morning of November 4, I passed a group of giddy supporters of Democratic nominee Barack Obama. They held up signs saying, “Honk for Obama.” In my heavily Democratic neighborhood, horns blared.

As I write this, I’m not certain who won. Although Election Day is a time to look to the future, it’s also a moment to remember that we have only one president at a time. Until January 20, President Bush will hold sway in one crucial area: regulations.

Rule-making in the waning days of the Bush administration could have a big impact on Workforce Management readers. Even as speculation swirls about the president-elect’s Cabinet, the current leadership of government agencies wields power.

For instance, it’s likely that the Bush administration will promulgate a final rule modifying the Family and Medical Leave Act. It will be the first time since it was enacted in 1993 that any changes have been made to the controversial statute.

When the regulation was introduced earlier this year, I wrote a story outlining how businesses thought it was a step in the right direction but didn’t go far enough. Advocates for leave maintain it undermines work/life balance.

The Department of Homeland Security also is busy on the regulatory front. A couple weeks ago, it released a supplemental final rule on so-called Social Security “no-match” letters. The business community can’t stand this one because it makes the receipt of such notices evidence of a knowing violation of immigration law.  

The problem, according to employment lawyers, is that the Social Security database is rife with mistakes. Resolving a mismatch can take much longer than the deadline contained in the regulation. If a company can’t take care of the discrepancy in time, it has to fire the employee in question.

Another regulation in the works from the DHS would force all federal contractors to sign up for the government-run electronic verification system called E-Verify.

The Society for Human Resource Management and other groups criticize this rule as a back-door route to making the voluntary E-Verify program mandatory. Currently, about 90,000 employers use the system. SHRM, however, wants to overhaul E-Verify, which it calls inefficient, ineffective and a potential choke point in the labor market.

Finally, the Treasury Department is in the middle of shaping regulations that will govern the $700 billion financial markets rescue package that Congress passed in early October. That means it will have enormous influence over how tough, or how lenient, the executive pay strictures will be for companies participating in the program.

Already, members of Congress from both parties are warning the Treasury not to let banks and other institutions use tax dollars to fund hefty executive severances and bonuses. Capitol Hill leaders want to assuage constituent outrage about Wall Street titans feathering their nests while retirement savings vanish.

Congress approved pay restrictions at companies that sell toxic assets to the government. But now the Treasury has come up with a new twist on the bailout: It is buying stock in failing banks through the Capital Purchase Program.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on October 29 saying that the interim final rule on golden-parachute limits at the Capital Purchase Program institutions was too weak. It doesn’t block parachutes “unless they equal or exceed three times [an executive’s] base pay.”

“We are concerned that such lavish severance packages could weaken public support for your critical efforts to stabilize the economy,” they wrote.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, expressed similar sentiments in his own letter to Paulson. “Mr. Secretary, funds made available under the economic rescue package should not be used to pay for bank acquisitions, raises and executive bonuses,” he wrote.

The Center on Executive Compensation, which is hosted by the HR Policy Association, also lobbied Paulson. The center wants him to use his discretion to allow companies ample room to offer severance packages that will lure top executives.

“The goal of this program is to restore the performance and economic viability of these institutions, thus allowing them to repay shareholders and taxpayers,” the center said in a statement. “An absolute prohibition would serve only as an impediment to attracting and retaining the talent needed to accomplish this essential and monumental task.”

Paulson will continue to get a lot of attention from Capitol Hill and others in Washington between now and January 20, Inauguration Day. Until then, he and other Bush administration officials are in charge and will be regulating.