Menendez vs. McCain on Equal Pay for Women

by: Hopeful

Wed Apr 23, 2008 at 09:11:43 PM EDT

Senator Menendez on the Republican filibuster of equal pay legislation:

"Who would have thought that in the year 2008, when the odds are good that our next president will either be a woman or an African American, an effort to ensure fair pay for everyone in our society would be blocked in the United States Senate? It should never matter whether you are a man or a woman, what you look like, or how you worship when it comes to getting equal pay for equal work. A woman gets paid 77 cents for every dollar a man does. The glass ceiling might be a little bit higher than it was--but it's still there.
"Senate Republicans have to explain to the American people how they can support this type of discrimination and how they can deny fair wages, particularly as many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck in the midst of this economic tailspin."

The bill is blocked despite 56 positive votes. By the way, this is not even new policy, the bill would close a loophole created by the conservative Supreme Court last year. Pay discrimination is already illegal, but the Court says if you don't find out about it right away, you have no recourse. Quite a trick by Scalia and friends.

John McCain opposes the equal pay legislation (though he didn't bother to vote). He did, however, propose yet another tax break for companies today.

Even if your favorite Presidential candidate doesn't get the nomination, think about having McCain appoint the next Supreme Court justice.

Hopeful :: Menendez vs. McCain on Equal Pay for Women

Both Senators Clinton and Obama voted for the legislation. Here is the youtube of Barack Obama's statement on equal pay, and the written statement by Hillary Clinton.

Tags: Supreme Court, discrimination, John McCain, Bob Menendez, Equal Pay, (All Tags)

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Menendez vs. McCain on Equal Pay for Women | 1 comments

In 2009... (4.00 / 1)

If you look closely at the vote On the Cloture Motion ( http://www.senate.gov/legislat... ), you'll notice that Senator Reid voted against cloture (as a procedural tactic to allow himself to move reconsideration.)

So there were effectively 57 votes for cloture.

Among the 41 nay votes were Senators Allard (R-CO), Dominici (R-NM), and Warner (R-VA).

None of those Senators are running for reelection and all three seats have strong Democrats running to replace them: Mark Udall in CO, Tom Udall in NM, and Mark Warner in VA.

Even assuming no other electoral gains (despite strong challenges in many places), if those three Senate seats change to the Dems then we get those three votes on cloture.

If we cannot break the filibuster in 2008, I certainly expect to be able to break it in 2009.

by: JasonCNJ @ Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 06:14:46 AM UTC