Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

OK, so maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but the GOP senate minority did prevent cloture on the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would have allowed for women to sue for pay discrimination within 180 days of any discriminatory paycheck, as opposed to 180 days after the first discriminatory payment, thus functionally overturning Ledbetter v Goodyear. Democrats, to their credit, all voted for cloture on the bill (with the exception of Harry Reid, who voted no for procedural reasons). As Josh Patashnik pointed out, Republicans facing re-election fights, with the exception of Ted Stevens, voted for the bill. I can’t help but agree with Mark Kleiman that this could easily turn into a effective attack on McCain, who opposed the bill. That’s because opposition to the bill is tantamount to opposing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and any substantive action to combat pay discrimination.

McCain and the Republican Senate have claimed that they support equality in the work place and the reason they oppose the bill is because of the lawsuits it could generate. This is a concern that has its place, but when discussing the Ledbetter Act, it’s totally incoherent. That’s because up until Ledbetter v Goodyear , the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had never interpreted Title VII to mean that a woman had to sue within 180 days of the initial discriminatory paycheck. As the Washington Post editorial supporting the Act said, the majority of the federal courts had gone along with this approach. So when John McCain says “I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation … opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems”" he’s trying to have it both ways. If he really had a problem with the lawsuits and the government having ‘too big a role’ in employment decisions, then he should just say that he opposes Title VII of the Civil Rights Act; otherwise, he is in the weird spot of supporting the principle of Title VII, while standing idly by as its enforcement mechanism gets gutted. The “problem” of these supposedely frivolous lawsuits was around from 1964 until 2007. Where was McCain then?

So let’s be honest here. Every Republican who voted against cloture for the Ledbetter Act is substantively opposed to women being able to combat pay discrimination, and is by extension, opposed to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the principle that pay discrimination is wrong at all