Wisconsin Republicans probably have to take a backseat to the trans-vaginal ultrasound states in the competition for absolute worst Republicans in the nation, but they're making a play for honorary mention, War on Women category, by repealing Wisconsin's Equal Pay Enforcement Act. That law, passed in 2009, provides "a stronger enforcement mechanism for violations of pay and workplace discrimination by allowing victims to plead their case in the less costly state circuit system rather than having to try to get their cases heard by federal courts," in addition to strengthening penalties against discriminators.
Now, both the state Senate and Assembly have voted to repeal the enforcement part of the law, and all that's left is for Gov. Scott Walker to sign it, which you have to believe he will. Discrimination will still be illegal, it'll just be a lot harder to do anything about it.
Democratic state Sen. Dave Hansen, an author of the Equal Pay Enforcement Act, connects this to the broader war on workers being waged by Walker and his legislative allies:
"The whole [Republican] agenda in this state is about attacks on workers," he said. "It's an ongoing assault on workers' rights. But now it's also taking the assault to workers in the private sector. It's not just an assault on women. Older workers can be taken advantage of, and they're hurting in this bad economy. It didn't hurt business at all."
Amanda Terkel reports that business associations like the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association lobbied for repeal. Because what else would a business association do but try to weaken enforcement of any law that protects workers?
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to force the business groups and the politicians supporting laws like these to just be honest about what they want and vote to make discrimination legal? If they could no longer pretend they thought that sexism or racism were wrong, but only objected to some technicality of enforcement, and had to choose between allowing enforcement to continue and admitting publicly that they think letting businesses underpay women (or whatever other group) is absolutely fine, if it's what's convenient for the businesses?