United States Congresswoman Cheri Bustos of East Moline is co-sponsoring a piece of legislation which would exempt minor-league baseball players from federal overtime regulations.

Bustos, a Democrat, and Congressman Brett Guthrie, a Kentucky Republican, introduced legislation last Friday which would amend the federal Fair Labor Standards Act to clarify that players in baseball’s minor leagues are not subject to a law designed to protect workers in traditional hourly-rate jobs.

A pending lawsuit in a California federal court asserts that federal overtime laws should apply to minor-league players, something Minor League Baseball officials claim would threaten baseball’s player-development system with unprecedented cost increases which could threaten the existence of the sport in communities throughout the country.