For six months, we've waited for Mitt Romney to give his opinion on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. For six months, the Republican presidential hopeful has refused to take a stand.
So, the voting public will simply have to remain in the dark? Not exactly -- there's ample evidence that the Romney campaign and its surrogates strongly oppose the pay-equity bill.
Yesterday on ABC, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a leading Romney surrogate, argued, "[J]ust because they call a piece of legislation an equal pay bill doesn't make it so. In fact, much of this legislation is, in many respects, nothing but an effort to help trial lawyers collect their fees and file lawsuits, which may not contribute at all whatsoever to increasing pay equity in the workplace."
Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, said something very similar last week, criticizing the proposal as being little more than "opening up the lawsuits and statute of limitations."
Romney allies have pushed this line for for months. Pete Hoekstra, the Republicans' U.S. Senate hopeful in Michigan, called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay law "a nuisance." A Romney surrogate in New Hampshire said the law is little more than "a handout to trial lawyers." Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) agrees.
Rich Beeson, political director for Mitt Romney's campaign, dismissed this as a campaign issue altogether, saying of the Obama campaign, "[T]hey want to talk about the small things and distract America from the important things."In other words, efforts to ensure equal pay for equal work are "small" and unimportant.
Romney may be reluctant to answer the Lilly Ledbetter question, but the truth is hardly elusive.
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It has never been a hard question.
either YES or NO.
do you support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
nothing complicated about the question at all.
and, it's been obvious that they don't.
Here's another question- one that covers many of their "Talking Points".
Why do you hate women?
They dont hate women, they simply think they are superior to them. You know, kinda how Hitler thought he was superior to the jews
How can a person in a million years ever speak up for someone like Romney, when he has flip-flopped on every position that has existed? No one knows Romney’s true views, but his actual actions speak volumes and that in the end is all-bad. Romney is very much like a bully and since his youth has lived that very life of a bully. His father got him out of having to be prosecuted for criminal charges on violence against a teen. Romney has bankrupted companies just to make huge profits. And than to export our jobs overseas from profitable companies just so he can make more money. Romney has condoned locked-up slave labor in factories saying it was good for doing business. Romney helped to promote the pollution of China and never once insisted safe working conditions or a better environment is maintained. The smog is so thick and the land becoming so polluted that China is beginning to turn into a wasteland. They thought opening up trade in China was a good thing, but than ignored what would be the best way to do it that leaves people in misery, despair, and death. This is an outright disgrace for America for someone who would even actually vote for such a thing. Everything Romney has done has only been for himself and his own selfish interests. That is not a President of America.
Interesting that all of these remarks were made by MEN, no?
Ladies, you are a nuisance if you want equal pay! Just ask a Republican!
Are you a registered voter? If you are woman voting for Romnesia, you have to ask yourself, "Why am I cutting my own throat?"
Republicans are not a woman's friend.
Ladies, you are a nuisance to your Republican overlords when you ask for equal pay for equal work.
If you are a woman and wanting to vote for Romnesia please ask yourself, "Why am I cutting my own throat?"
Republicans don't like you...for some reason.
If Mitt gets the White House, men will be making as much money as women.
Your post makes absolutely no sense.
Try again, sheppy.
soooo let me see if I am understanding this right. You are equating a federal safety net that is intended to maintain people at a subsistence level with the right to earn a living wage for your labor?
Just trying to see if I am understanding you correctly
Trying to get a Kool Aid drinker to make sense is like expecting the sun to rise in the west in the morning.
OMG! Why is everyone parsing this? Since Romney hasn't said he would vote for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, his position is he doesn't support it, period! Why does the American public need clarification on this?!
Oops. Meant why 'do' not does.
You have to look at this in a BIG picture sort of a way. They are telling you exactly why they won't support this. Because it opens up questions of how we are paid (not just women but everyone) and they don't want that. They are afraid of the lawsuits that they know will come their way and they know it will cost them money somewhere.
This is the 0.1% these people are bound and determined to squeeze every last cent out of the populace and the market. Why do they spend billions of dollars shiping not just jobs but whole business to china, rant against unions, and want to abolish the minimum wage? because they stand to make even more mindboggeling sums of money than if they didn't. The problem isn't wanting to make money it's in wanting to make ALL the money!
When you look at it all together its not just women they are trying to rob and discriminate in the work place it's all of us.
Concur. State anti-union antics, religious (meaning corporate) pick and choose health care coverage, forced "investing" of retirement accounts, fair wages but only for some...The more workers lose, where do they think the savings are going? Business profits, maybe?
Vote Republican, because you don't really need to eat, do you?
And yet the GOTP whines that they are pushing a "War on Women", the nerve! The fact is that these people want Stepford Women, home, barefoot & pregnant, serving their martini as they walk in the door! They want to take US back to a time when "women" much like children were seen and not heard and the hard fought rights of women/minorities can go back to a fantasy re-creation of June Cleaver cleaning in her pumps and pearls! But if WE go back to that fantasy land, does that mean that the rich & corporate will start paying the 90% in taxes that they paid during the 1950's? I'm just asking!
Well the Republican argument rings true if you understand their way of talking.
Equal pay for equal work, would not work without the enforcement of law, all claimed morality cast in the ditch.
And, well, enforcement of law would require lawyers, this seems to be true, but then what law would not require lawyers.
So it is perfectly fitting that Republicans would benefit themselves, enabling their superior morality to be pulled muddied from the ditch.
Laws apparently aren't the only issue, and from the brutality of the Republican view, they don't need lawyers, or for that matter laws period.
Republicans, conservatives and right wing nutmegs always season their food for a low morality diet, yet look so splendid at Sunday Services.
It is not in the least puzzling, equality, fairness, justice and uniform enforcement of laws, are not just abhorrent to a republican, it's opposition is a superior morality rule that is as constant as Sun shine, as it shines on Republicans that is.
Democrats are just grateful to remain the shadows, using what little may slip by Republicans wishing to blot out the Sun if necessary.
I suppose Republicans should pass law saying that all must be unequal, and use it to replace civilization all at once; we would not want any lawyers but just our trusty side arms.
All Republican arguments ring true if you understand their way of talking, but we also have to stop trying to understand it since it is a waste of time.
Talking about the Republican point of view enforces their message, and steals the time from your own message.
Republicans oppose all laws that benefit everyone, preferring only laws the benefit Republicans. This is precisely how Romney got rich, laws protecting the public from shyster investors were repealed, and Romney was free to pick the bones clean from any corporation that had meat on its bones. Then flew back to his nest pass the same disease to his sons, bypassing all known laws. It is not the theft of vast sums of money that concerns us all, it the cost of redemption that God will impose on the father and his five sons, all of America will be lost if this unfettered greed is allowed to stand.
The Romney model for the future must not come to past.
Can we get honest? Equal pay is commonsense and the only reason the GOP opposes it is because of Big Business. Exactly whom do you think has to make up actual monetary difference in the paychecks? The employers who are underpaying women and they are too cheap to just pay fairly. It's just another example of the GOP doing anything possible to protect incumbent wealth.
I agree sunshine! Does anyone have the correct info on Mormonism? I understood from my neighbor (a Mormon wife) that in the Morman religion the man makes all decisions and that women are not even permitted to enter certain areas of the temple. If she spoke the truth, Mormonism seems to be secretive and certainly biased. If true, should anyone believe that Mitt would vote for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Play Act?
So Mitt really isn't into African Americans, as proven by his speech at the NAACP, and he's mostly alienated the Latino block with his anti-immigration speeches, and he really doesn't feel the need to support half the labor force because it's female, and he sure doesn't care for anyone who is progressive or liberal or a Democrat....he wants to gut the social safety nets that cover our poor and elderly and retired and rescind ACA that helps our sick...
Mitt Romney for President of
the Nationthe priviledged few.Fair Pay or Play---in a hurry
I'm SO sick of this. NO fair pay, it's only for TRIAL Lawyers. Women CARE about jobs...and that's it! Women...put all your concerns and rights on the back burner and CARE about this country! You know, we CAN walk and chew gum at the same time!
You sound like a drooler in need of more Kool Aid.
Look I want Obama to win and I don't care if the equal pay thing helps make it happen, but....
If two people do the same work but the lower paid one can only sue the employer if she's female, isn't THAT gender discrimination?
Females are legally entitled to the maximum pay for a given job. Guys are not.
Guys, did you find out you're the company's "bargain"? Like women, you can quit, suck it up, or embezzle. They also get the fourth option to sue, but hey, some inequality is okay.
Really, guys, I *AM* a liberal, but conservative knuckledraggers, like monkeys throwing darts, get it right once in a long while if they throw enough.
This is a violation of the 14th amendment and could likely get struck down. Watch.
The scary question is... can we entitle ALL people to sue for low pay? Then we (maybe justifiably) get tarred as "Socialists!!!!!!!" (exclamation points, theirs.)
Is disparate pay itself deemed unseemly? What about good old fashioned nepotism? Can a woman sue if the boss' son does the same job for twice the pay? The issue does not strike me as cut and dried as the comments imply. I do not enjoy that this observation feeds the unhealthy patriarchal tendencies of our nation, believe me.
Have you ever heard of such a situation actually existing? I haven't.
Well, thats when the LAWYERS come in, to actually prove someone is getting paid more because they are doing a better job. You cant suck at your job, and be a lazy @$$ and expect to get paid as much as the people who actually do a good job and work hard. Well, unless your a member of congress....
Rubio's arguments are against all laws because there is no law that does not come from or benefit lawyers! DUH the brilliance of playing lawyers against lawyers, COMITY, is called, but it is not because the hysterical laughter cause the letters to dropped.
COMITY - The act of lawyers treating each other with respect in all cases out of their jurisdiction. 'You cannot insult lawyers, because it redundant.'
"Run for President"
Wash a clean pot, flip flop
Wash a clean pot, flip flop, flip flop
Wash a clean pot
By Retired Moocher
Republicans hate laws like this since they're cast in their usual role as "defendants".
His career is OVER!
I wish I could just shake these greedy people.
Just as we suspected every law brings a lawyer, should have known!