Motley Moose – Archive

From the White House:

On January 29, 2009, President Obama signed his very first piece of legislation: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The law, named after a woman who discovered her employer was paying her less than men doing the same job, makes it easier for Mrs. Ledbetter and others like her to effectively challenge unequal pay.

Lilly Ledbetter took her pay discrimination complaint all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2007 that claims like hers had to be filed within 180 days of an employer’s decision to pay a worker less-even if the worker didn’t learn about the unfair pay until much later, as was the case for Mrs. Ledbetter .

To make sure that people can effectively challenge unequal pay, the law President Obama signed shortly after taking office amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 so that unfair pay complaints can be filed within 180 days of a discriminatory paycheck-and that 180 days resets after each paycheck is issued.  

Since then, the Roberts Supreme Court has succeeded in undermining many other rights, including the right to vote and the right to fair elections – elections free of the corrupting influence of dark money. The difference was that in 2009, the president had partners in Congress who were willing to do the people’s work and fix the mistakes of the court. So much has changed, so much work that will not be done until we can elect a Congress that reflects the values of the majority of our people. That will not happen with the 114th Congress, dubbed “America’s New Congress ™” by the Republican majority – dubbed “America’s Nightmare Come True ™” by the majority of Americans.

We can fix this, we must fix this.

Between now and November 2016, tell everyone you know of the enormous power each and every citizen has: the power to choose our government. Talk it up, pump them up … so that when we all exercise that “most basic human right”, we can once again have a government creating laws like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act.  

The 114th Congress was sworn in yesterday with much fanfare. Finally, according to the beltway pundits, we have Republican lawmakers ready to do the serious business of the people. Speaker John Boehner, entering his 5th year at the helm of the ship of fools known as the Republican House, is now joined by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the very very serious doer-of-the-people’s-business who once declared that the top priority of the Republican Senate was to make Barack Obama a one term president.

The 112th and 113th Congresses were marked by what they were against rather than what they were for. Repealing the Affordable Care Act consumed much of the time, forced birth initiatives consumed some and of course the investigations into the Fox scandals (IRS targeting of conservatives, Benghaziiii, the president’s birth certificate) consumed more.  But they pretty much knew that the show bills they passed were big sloppy kisses to their base rather than legislation that would be taken up by the Senate for consideration. Now, every bill they pass will be part of the resume of Republican Governance that they are building to, according to them, “show the American people how grand this ol’ party is so that they will elect a Republican president”. Remember the Bush years of glorious health and prosperity for the American people? Funny, neither do I. Maybe we can ask a beltway pundit to help us remember.

And really, do we need a Republican Congress to serve as an example of the outcome of Republican Governance? We have evidence in state after state after state where anti-women, anti-black, anti-environment, anti-poors laws have made ordinary people’s lives miserable.

The House of Reprehensibles did not take long to show us what they will consume their time with over the next two years.