As nearly everyone knows at this point, the Supreme Court tried to gut equal pay mandates in the Civil Rights Act by imposing a ridiculous 180 day statute of limitations on filing a claim after the payroll decision has been made.
Some members of Congress have decided to go ahead and fix this. A quick summary of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, in case you've missed it:
To amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and to modify the operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes.
It was killed last year, and it jut came up again. The legislation passed the House by a huge margin, and came to a vote in the Senate today. The roll call on cloture was just posted, and hot damn is it interesting.
When it came up in 2008, cloture fell short by three votes. There were 56 yeas, 42 nays, and 2 abstentions, with Reid voting against for procedural reasons. But today it passed by a landslide margin: 72 yeas, 23 nays, and 3 abstentions. Note that two of the no-shows are solid Dems, and this still excludes Burris and Franken - so effectively 76 yeas.
The list of Republicans who voted nay in '08 and yea today:
Alexander (R-TN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Burr (R-NC)
Corker (R-TN)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Martinez (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Wicker (R-MS)
McCain didn't vote in '08, and voted yea today. Bunning voted nay in '08, and didn't vote today. Snowe, Collins, and Specter voted yea both times.
The number of defections rocketed from five (those mentioned, plus Coleman and Sununu) to 17.
Four of the five R Senators who've announced their retirements switched (Bond, Martinez, Voinovich, and basically Hutchison). In sum, a whopping nine out of 13 switches are up for re-election next cycle (Murkowski, Gregg, Grassley, Burr, Bennett, plus the aforementioned four). These folk are running scared.
Frankly, I'm astonished by this vote given how few switches there were in the House vote (a grand total of two). If the roll call for SCHIP tells the same tale, we can probably railroad damn near anything we want through the Senate (with the possible exception of EFCA).