Dems, GOP quarrel over Fair Pay bill, vote schedule

The Senate chamber was quiet Wednesday afternoon but the hallways were anything but, as Democrats and Republicans traded sharp rhetoric over an equal pay bill that presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are expected to return to the Capitol to consider.

{mosads}The day-long stalemate was particularly notable given its timing the day after the Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary and the fact that Clinton's and Obama’s votes are unlikely to give the Democrats the 60-vote threshold they will need to break a GOP filibuster.

The bill before the Senate, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, would reverse a 5-4 Supreme Court decision last year that established a 180-day deadline for pay-discrimination lawsuits. Democrats say such a deadline is impractical since most companies shield their pay scales from employees; GOP lawmakers say the bill would dramatically increase frivolous lawsuits.

Republicans accused Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) of playing politics with the chamber, issuing a press release that referred to the “Clinton/Obama Senate Shutdown.” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) added that the vote was only intended to benefit the “special interest” of “plaintiff’s lawyers.”

“To have the Senate schedule completely revolve around the schedule of the Democratic presidential candidates strikes me as particularly ridiculous,” McConnell said.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) fired back by arguing that the GOP has staged 67 filibusters to block bills that would benefit Americans. Schumer also emphasized that the Republicans’ own presidential contender, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), is skipping the vote on an issue important to many U.S. women.

“I’m glad that Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama care so much about equal pay that they’re willing to come back in the middle of a hard-fought campaign,” Schumer said. “Sen. McCain, whose primary is all over, isn’t coming back. Doesn’t he care about equal pay for women? This is an act of quite a lot of gall.”

Schumer dismissed criticism that the Democrats were staging the vote to embarrass Republicans with a politically sensitive vote, saying the GOP was simply interested in obstructionism.

“They don’t have any answers so they just obstruct,” he said. “It’s the dumbest thing they can do.”