Doomed labor bill becomes fodder for campaign attacks

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act has virtually no chance of passing the Senate, but that doesn’t mean it will disappear with Wednesday’s failed vote.

Senators are not expected to get the 60 votes needed to call up the bill that would reverse a 2007 Supreme Court ruling against Lilly Ledbetter, a former Goodyear plant manager who sued her employer for pay discrimination.

{mosads}Most Republicans oppose it and the White House has threatened a veto, so prospects for passage are dim. Yet it is expected to resurface as an advertising campaign against politically vulnerable GOP senators who are up for reelection, such as Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine.

Collins has said she intends to support the measure. Coleman said he would vote to bring it up, and then work behind the scenes for a compromise.

“The court decision is at odds with previous holdings by circuit courts, and if it’s not remedied I’m concerned about the impact on those who have been discriminated against to seek redress,” said Collins. “For many years, the understanding was that each paycheck was a separate act of discrimination. That’s what previous circuit courts had held, so this would help restore what had been that understanding.”

Yet Collins and Coleman could not deter the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way from running ads in Maine and Minnesota to target them, despite their willingness to consider the bill. The ads note that the GOP senators voted to confirm “ultraconservative” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in last May’s Ledbetter ruling.

A lower court awarded $4 million in damages to Ledbetter. But the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, saying she didn’t meet a requirement to file within 180 days of the discriminatory action, and the high court agreed in a 5-4 ruling.

“These are senators who supported Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, and we want people to understand the consequences of that,” said Peter Montgomery, vice president of communications for People for the American Way.

The Senate version of the bill, which has already passed the House by a 225-199 vote, has been introduced by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and would allow much greater leeway for employees to sue employers for wage discrimination.

The issue has drawn  strong opposition from the business community, which sees an endless stream of lawsuits that would follow the bill’s passage.

“There is a lot of problems with frivolous litigation in this country, and this wouldn’t do anything to change that,” said Michael Eastman, executive director of labor policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Most Republicans have echoed that position.

“It creates massive new opportunities to sue,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “Some people would argue we need more litigation, but I don’t think most Americans think that massive amounts of litigation are necessarily in our best interests.”

The impending advertising campaign hasn’t rattled Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman John Ensign of Nevada, who brushed off the possibility of the issue hurting his candidates this fall.

“The American people are not on the side of trial lawyers,” Ensign said.

Democrats dismiss the GOP concerns, saying fears of new litigation are unfounded since the law would only restore the legal precedent that existed before last May’s Court decision. They also point to a Congressional Budget Office opinion that the legislation wouldn’t increase the caseload before federal courts or the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“I have yet to hear a good, plausible argument on the other side about why we shouldn’t restore what has been the law of the land for years,” said Kennedy.

Coleman is among those looking for a middle way through the dilemma. He called the 180-day deadline “woefully inadequate,” but argued that statute of limitations laws shouldn’t be open-ended, either. He said he will vote to proceed to the bill and then work to negotiate a “balanced, middle-ground solution.”

He also said he is not worried about the ads running against him in the Twin Cities.

 “I’m in a reelection race and there are folks on the other side with a lot of money,” he said. “I’m just going to focus on my record and be positive.”

Likewise, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said GOP candidates like Coleman will have little to worry about.

“Most Americans get this,” Graham said. “Most people understand that the government shouldn’t mandate wages like this. It’s not going to be an issue that we can’t defend against.”