Is Speaker John Boehner going to have anything to say about this one?
President Obama is preparing to take the action against anti-LGBT discrimination that House Republicans have refused to take, issuing an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. But Greg Sargent raises an interesting question:
How big a fit will Republicans have over this?
Prominent gay rights advocate Richard Socarides recalls that in 1998, Bill Clinton signed an executive order prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal workforce. At that time, Congressional Republicans mobilized to block it with a bill that would have prohibited government agencies from spending money to enforce it — in effect, defunding the Executive Order. It got nearly 200 votes, Socarides recalls.
Obviously such an effort now would not get through a Senate that passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, but will any House Republicans make noises about acting to protect employers from facing negative consequences for discriminating? Some Republicans, including Speaker John Boehner, were
vocally unhappy when Obama increased the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 an hour. As politically damaging as it would be for Republicans to issue yet another reminder of how many Americans they think should not have basic workplace protections, it's all too easy to believe that at least a few of them will make a point of doing so.