The Hill: Doomed labor bill becomes fodder for campaign attacks

[Omaha Steve]

http://mobile.thehill.com/leading-the-news/doomed-labor-bill-becomes-fodder-for-campaign-attacks-2008-04-22.html

by J. Taylor Rushing
04/22/08


The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act has virtually no chance of passing the Senate, but that doesnt mean it will disappear with Wednesdays failed vote.

Senators are not expected to get the 60 votes needed to call up the bill that would reverse a 2007 Supreme Court ruling against Lilly Ledbetter, a former Goodyear plant manager who sued her employer for pay discrimination.

Most Republicans oppose it and the White House has threatened a veto, so prospects for passage are dim. Yet it is expected to resurface as an advertising campaign against politically vulnerable GOP senators who are up for reelection, such as Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine.

Collins has said she intends to support the measure. Coleman said he would vote to bring it up, and then work behind the scenes for a compromise.

The court decision is at odds with previous holdings by circuit courts, and if its not remedied Im concerned about the impact on those who have been discriminated against to seek redress, said Collins. For many years, the understanding was that each paycheck was a separate act of discrimination. Thats what previous circuit courts had held, so this would help restore what had been that understanding.

Yet Collins and Coleman could not deter the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way from running ads in Maine and Minnesota to target them, despite their willingness to consider the bill. The ads note that the GOP senators voted to confirm ultraconservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in last Mays Ledbetter ruling.


FULL story at link.