BUSH TO VICTIMS OF PAY DISCRIMINATION: DROP DEAD. Many progressives were shocked by the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co to interpret workplace discrimination laws so narrowly as to throw out all cases that aren't brought within 180 days of a discriminatory pay decision. This is obviously unfair because one often does not realize for some time that their raise was inadequate. Rep. George Miller (D- CA) and 31 cosponsors have introduced legislation to reverse this unjust decision. Under theLedbetter Fair Pay Act, workers could instead bring suit within 180 days of receiving any paycheck affected by the discriminatory decision. That might sound reasonable to you but apparently it's an outrage to the White House, which announced today a statement of administration policy strongly opposing the bill. Surely they must have some serious grounds for wanting to prevent potential victims of discrimination from having their day in court right? Wrong. They just hide behind the canard that the bill's "vastly expanded statute of limitations would exacerbate the existing heavy burden on the courts by encouraging the filing of stale claims." That's a pretty weak excuse. Am I crazy to suggest could we call the rightwing's bluff by introducing a bill to simply create more courts and hire more judges since that would presumably solve this problem they hide behind? --Ben Adler
