On July 30, the House passed, 225-199, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (H.R. 2831). The House Education and Labor Committee approved the legislation on June 27 (see The Source, 6/29/07), and held a hearing on the subject on June 12 (see The Source, 6/15/07).
The bill, named after the plaintiff in the wage discrimination case (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber) decided by the Supreme Court earlier this year, would amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (P.L. 88-352), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (P.L. 90-202), the Americans with Disabilities Act (P.L. 101-336), and the Rehabilitation Act (P.L. 93-112) to renew with each allegedly discriminatory paycheck the length of time (180 days) in which an employee can file a claim against his or her employer for wage discrimination.
Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL) stated, “Mr. Speaker, like all of my colleagues here on the floor and in the House of Representatives, I fully support efforts to end all forms of discrimination. I admire Ms. Ledbetter’s bravery for standing up for her right to work in an environment free from discrimination. I know what it is like. I sat in law school class and was told by my professor that I was taking up the place of someone who belonged there, a man. As a woman who has felt discrimination, I understand her frustration and I am pleased that Congress is discussing this important issue.” Rep. Biggert continued, “If this bill were an anti-discrimination bill, I would be happy to vote for it and would encourage others to support it. But this bill is not about discrimination. It is about the statute of limitations…The statute of limitation requires plaintiffs to bring a claim or a cause of action within a reasonable time. And that is so witnesses don’t disappear or die off, memories don’t fade, and supervisors don’t move on and documents are not discarded or destroyed. That is why I cannot support the legislation before us today. H.R. 2831 would dismantle the statute of limitation for filing a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. If enacted, this legislation would allow an employee to bring a claim against an employer years, even decades, after the alleged act of discrimination.”
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said, “Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman [Rep. George Miller (D-CA)] for moving so quickly to fix this bill because we really can’t wait…The bill as it was intended…is not a hyper-technical statute of limitations bill. In fact, interestingly, the statute of limitations is not involved at all. It is the same 180 days as it always was. The bill before us reinstates the law as it was consistently applied and interpreted by the courts, including the United States Supreme Court, before, during, and after I administered this law as the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and administered this very section.” Del. Norton added, “I want to remind my colleagues that the first pay cases under this act were not brought by women at all. They were brought by black men who were working in southern factories in a segregated part of those factories, [and were] paid less than white men. Imagine if we said, ‘Look, you fellas, go and see if you can find out what the white men, who won’t even let you work in the same part of the factory, are earning.’ Of course we didn’t. And, of course, nobody can require that of women or African Americans, who are just as affected by what we do today as women are…We have got to fix this. The American people have demanded it. We have to fix it for women.”
