5 Democrats Oppose Workplace Fairness
A few days ago, we "http://thatsmycongress.com/index.php/2009/01/23/john-mccain-votes-against-fair-shake-for-workers/">wrote with concern about how it might have been if John McCain had been elected President and been in position to veto the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which he just voted against in a demonstration of cruel ideological ridgidity. The Lilly Ledbetter Act does nothing more than remove the unreasonable requirement that workers sue for compensation of wage discrimination against them within a few months of the time when that wage discrimination starts – even if the workers don’t find out about the wage discrimination until years later.
John McCain and his allies seem to think that it’s okay to allow bosses to discriminate against their workers, just so long as they keep the discrimination secret for a few months first. It’s an outrageous position that ought to make anyone who voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Act ashamed of themselves.
Let us not leave you with the mistaken impression, however, that all the uncaring opposition to the Lilly Ledbetter Act came from Republicans. No, there were Democrats who voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Act’s restoration of simple fairness as well. In the House of Representatives, for example, the following five Democratic representatives took sides against working Americans, and voted no:
Dan Boren
Allen Boyd
Bobby Bright
Travis Childers
Parker Griffith
Particularly troubling is that three of these Democrats – Bright, Childers and Griffith – were just elected to Congress in 2008. Are they the new face of the Democratic Party, representing inequality, injustice and special favors for the powerful?
We’ve already seen seen a lot of reason for disappointment from these new blue dog Democrats. Bobby Bright not only voted against giving workers a fair shake – Bright voted against health care for children too, and has been so lazy about communicating with his own constituents that his online biography only reveals one fact about his life – that he became a member of the House of Representatives on January 6th.
Travis Childers seems dedicated to working against the underdog, hosting a special page on his congressional web site just for the concerns of business owners, but not bothering to offer a similar service to the working people of his district. Congressman Childers was among those members of Congress who voted to support George W. Bush’s Big Brother electronic spying program – a program that turns out to have been used against American soldiers, among many other law-abiding Americans.
Parker Griffith supported Bush’s spying against Americans too, as well as Sarah Palin’s drill baby drill nonsense. He spent his campaign pandering to fears on the immigration non-issue and promising big pork barrel for military contractors.
For this bunch of new blue dogs, indifference to the needs of working Americans is only the start of the problem.
It is always fascinating to see the various requests to Congress and the things they do. This Congressional session will perhaps be more interesting because of everything included in the stimulus bill and everything else that Congress will have to deal with. I’m curious to see how this particular Congress will handle all of the competing priorities. I’m glad they have already chosen to address this issue. The Lilly Ledbetter Act is important and I hope that the majority of the members of Congress continue to vote for legislation like this.
The Democrats are touting their first 100 days as the time when they are going to get a tremendous amount accomplished. I hope they do accomplish something significant in the first 100 days. It seemed like the last Congress didn’t accomplish much in all of 2008. I saw that the Friends of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is asking people to give their opinion on the most important thing for Congress to do in their first 100 days. Then they’re going to work to get Congress to accomplish what the public actually wants them to do. If you think they should do even more to address this issue, make sure to add your opinion so Congress can know what our priorities are – http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/email/email4.cfm?id=200