ACK! GOP Senator: I Voted Against Equal Pay For Women Because We Have Enough Laws

[babylonsister]

GOP Senator: I Voted Against Equal Pay For Women Because We Have Enough Laws

By Ian Millhiser, Josh Israel and Sy Mukherjee on May 2, 2013 at 12:00 pm


WARREN, NH — Women in full-time year-round jobs earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Yet, at a town hall earlier this week, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) claimed that Congress has done enough to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work. Indeed, she justified her vote against legislation intended to prevent employers from dodging federal equal pay law with an excuse similar to the National Rifle Association’s explanation for why we do not need any more gun laws — we just need to enforce the ones we have:

QUESTION: My grandmother, who was an extremely intelligent woman, trained many, many men who then became her boss, and so on and so forth.{She} never received a pension, never, um, was really paid what she was worth. And I was disappointed that you voted against the Equal Pay Act, but maybe there was something in the bill that you thought would be detrimental to the economy or whatever. But I was curious if you could explain your philosophy about equal pay and how, maybe, you could suggest something that we could all agree upon so that women would stop making 75 cents for every dollar a man makes . . . .

AYOTTE: We have existing laws — Title VII, um, Lilly Ledbetter, all those existing protections in place — that, I believe, enforce and provide that people doing equal jobs are, certainly in this country, should receive equal pay. So, uh, that bill, in my view, didn’t add — in fact I think it created a lot of additional burdens that would have been hard, um, to make it more difficult for job creators to create jobs. . . . The reason that I voted against that specific bill is that, I looked at it, and there were already existing laws that need to be enforced and can be enforced and I didn’t feel like adding that layer was going to help us better get at the equal pay issue.

more/video at link~

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/02/1954381/gop-senator-i-voted-against-equal-pay-for-women-because-we-have-enough-laws/

[Initech]

1. They don't care. They don't care. They don't care.

[still_one]

2. Let them continue to show their true character

[frazzled]

3. Because laws, um, take up so much room

This is always their excuse: we already have laws, we just don't enforce them.

Well, Lily Ledbetter is not an equal-pay law, per se: it's about women being able to go to court with no time limits to sue for equal pay after they've already been discriminated against. It doesn't PREVENT the discrimination.

Also, if I hear the word "job creator" one more time I'm going to puke. How about "greedy, sexist bosses" as a more accurate term?

[Fumesucker]

4. How does the moran feel about laws restricting abortion? n/t

[LeftInTX]

10. She loves them and any law that increases our current defense dept.

[ProSense]

5. There should be a law against stupid legislators. n/t

[RC]

7. Then we wouldn't have nearly so many.

What then, huh?

[bullwinkle428]

6. If we "have enough laws already", then why the fuck are you in Congress, asshole?

[SunSeeker]

8. ^^^THIS^^^

[Arger68]

9. So if women senators and congresspersons were only paid 77%

of what men get would she vote the same way? Somehow I doubt it...

[smirkymonkey]

11. Fucktard! Go F***k yourself!