Last week, TPM's Elana Schor pointed out that while the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was passed, the far more aggressive Paycheck Fairness Act seems to be stalled in the Senate. Schor later spoke to Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who said that the bill could be passed as early as this spring.
The Ledbetter bill was supported by a large coalition of civil-rights and labor groups. I asked Deborah Vagins, a legislative counsel for the ACLU, if she were worried the more expansive bill wouldn't be passed, but she was bullish on the bill's chances. "We’ve only been in Congress a few weeks, I’m optimistic the groups that focused on Ledbetter are now focused on Paycheck Fairness and getting that through the Senate.”
Indeed, the civil-rights groups that backed Ledbetter will be backing the Paycheck Fairness Act as well. But labor groups, as well as Congress, may be occupied by other legislation. Mark McCollough of the SEIU told me that "we’re still engaged on trying to push through [the Paycheck Fairness Act]," but added that there were other bills the SEIU was concerned about as well, namely the stimulus package, health-care reform, and the Employee Free Choice Act. While obviously both labor groups and Congress are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, these other priorities might draw their attention for the time being. There is also likely to be stronger resistance to the bill from the groups that opposed Ledbetter, given that the bill is far more aggressive in attempting to root out discrimination.
-- A. Serwer
