Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009
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| Enacted by | the 111th United States Congress |
|---|---|
| Effective | January 29, 2009 |
| Citations | |
| Public law | 111-2 |
| Statutes at Large | 123 Stat. 5 (2009) |
| Codification | |
| Acts amended | Civil Rights Act of 1964, Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 |
| Titles amended | 29, 42 |
| Legislative history | |
| |
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 is an Act of Congress enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on January 29, 2009.
The bill amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stating that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new discriminatory paycheck. The law was a direct answer to the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), a U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins at the date the pay was agreed upon, not at the date of the most recent paycheck, as a lower court had ruled.
A first bill to amend the statutory limitations period and supersede the Ledbetter decision was introduced in the 110th Congress but was never enacted, as after having been passed by the House it failed to survive a cloture vote in the Senate due to the opposition of most of the Republican Senators.
During the campaign for the 2008 elections, the Democrats criticized Republicans for defeating the 2007 version of the bill, citing Republican presidential candidate John McCain's opposition. Then-candidate Barack Obama supported the bill.[1]
A new version of the bill was eventually re-introduced in the first session of the 111th United States Congress, obtaining this time the necessary support to pass cloture. The bill was then brought to the attention of the President and becoming the first act of congress signed by the new President Obama since his assumption of office on January 20.
Court rulings
The anntecedents of the case were posed when Lilly Ledbetter, a production supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, filed an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination, six months before her early retirement in 1998. The courts gave opposite verdicts, first supporting the pliant and later opposing; in conclusion the pliant brought the case to the attention of the Supreme Court. The latter ruled in 2007 by a 5-4 majority vote that Ledbetter's complaint was time-barred because the discriminatory decisions relating to pay had been made more than 180 days prior to the date she filed her charge, as explained by Justice Samuel Alito. The minority position explained by Justice Ruth Ginsburg opposed an interpretation according to which the law runs from the date of any paycheck that contains an amount affected by a prior discriminatory pay decision.[2]
The case had never received much attention before, but the Court's ruling ignited legal groups on the left and Democrats that took action to transfom the Ledbetter in a cause célèbre, having activists seen in the figure of the pliant a perfect image in an attempt to persuade the public opinion that the Supreme Court was moving too far to the right.[3]
Among the first to come out against the Court's decision was Marcia Greenberger, president of the National Women's Law Center, that saw in the ruling a "setback for women and a setback for civil rights" and called Ginsburg's opinion a "clarion call to the American people that this slim majority of the court is headed in the wrong direction." On the other side, the majority's findings were applauded by the US Chamber of Commerce, that called it a "fair decision" that "eliminates a potential wind-fall against employers by employees trying to dredge up stale pay claims."[4]
Legislative history
The bill (H.R. 2831 and S. 1843) was defeated in April 2008 by Republicans in the Senate who cited the possibility of frivolous lawsuits in their opposition of the bill[5] and criticized Democrats for refusing to allow compromises.[6]
The bill was re-introduced in the 111th Congress (as H.R. 11 and S. 181) in January 2009. It passed in the House of Representatives with 247 votes in support and 171 against.[7] The Senate voted 72 to 23 to invoke cloture on S. 181 on January 15, 2009.[8] (The vote to invoke cloture ends debate on a bill, and usually leads to a final vote within a few days.) The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed the Senate, 61-36, on January 22, 2009. The votes in favor included every Democratic senator (except Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was absent from the vote because of health issues) and all four female Republican senators. Except for Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, who voted for it, every male Republican senator voted against it.[9]
As president, Obama actively supported the bill. The official White House blog said:
President Obama has long championed this bill and Lilly Ledbetter's cause, and by signing it into law, he will ensure that women like Ms. Ledbetter and other victims of pay discrimination can effectively challenge unequal pay.[10]
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced that the House would vote on S.181 (the bill passed by the Senate) during the week of January 26, getting the bill to President Obama's desk sooner rather than later. On January 27, the House passed S.181 by a 250-177 margin.
All four Republican women in the Senate voted for the Ledbetter Act, while 36 male Republican senators voted against the law, as did a top-heavy majority of House Republicans.[11]
On January 29, Obama signed the bill into law. It was the first act he signed as president, and it fulfilled his campaign pledge to nullify Ledbetter v. Goodyear.[12] However, the fact that he signed it only two days after it was passed by the House brought him under criticism from papers such as the St. Petersburg Times which mentioned his campaign promise to give the public five days of notice to comment on legislation before he signed it. The White House through a spokesman awnsered that they would be "implementing this policy in full soon", and that currently they were "working through implementation procedures and some initial issues with the congressional calendar".[13]
Critics argued that Obama distorted the facts and holding of the Ledbetter v. Goodyear case in the process of signing the bill into law.[14]
References
- ^ Corey Dade (August 31, 2008). "Obama's First Shot at Palin Focuses on Equal Pay". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ Grossman, Joanna (February 13, 2009). "The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009: President Obama's First Signed Bill Restores Essential Protection Against Pay Discrimination". Writ. Retrieved March 15, 2009.
- ^ Barnes, Robert (September 5, 2007). "Exhibit A in Painting Court as Too Far Right". Washington Post. Retrieved March 15, 2009.
- ^ Barnes, Robert (September 5, 2007). "Over Ginsburg's Dissent, Court Limits Bias Suits". Washington Post. Retrieved March 15, 2009.
- ^ "Republican Senators Block Pay Discrimination Measure". New York Times.
- ^ "Senate Republicans Block Pay Disparity Measure". Washington Post.
- ^ "House Passes 2 Measures on Job Bias". New York Times.
- ^ Senate roll call vote 4, 111th Congress, 1st Session
- ^ U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 111th Congress - 1st Session]
- ^ "Now Comes Lilly Ledbetter". Whitehouse.gov blog. January 25, 2009.
- ^ Connelly, Joel (anuary 29, 2009). "Republicans quickly turning into 'party of no'". Seattle PI. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
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- ^ "Barack Obama Campaign Promise No. 234: Allow 5 Days of Public Comment Before Signing Bills". St. Petersburg Times. February 4, 2009.
- ^ W. James Antle, III, American Spectator, "No Limitations," January 30, 2009, http://spectator.org/blog/2009/01/30/no-limitations; Paul Mirengoff, "Legislating the Lilly Ledbetter Lie," Powerline, January 28, 2009, http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/01/022671.php.