The
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 is an
Act of CongressAn act of Congress is a statute enacted by government with a legislature named "Congress," such as the United States and the Philippines....
enacted by the
111th United States CongressThe One Hundred Eleventh United States Congress is the current meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It began during the last two weeks of the George W. Bush administration, with the remainder spanning the...
and signed into law by
PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office, as well as the first president born in Hawaii...
on January 29, 2009.
The bill amends the
Civil Rights Act of 1964The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment...
stating that the 180-day
statute of limitationsA statute of limitations is a statute in a common law legal system that sets forth the maximum period of time, after certain events, that legal proceedings based on those events may be initiated...
for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new discriminatory paycheck. The law was a direct answer to the
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 , is an employment discrimination decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Alito held for the five-justice majority that employers cannot be sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act over race or gender pay discrimination...
, , a U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins at the date the pay was agreed upon, not at the date of the most recent paycheck, as a lower court had ruled.
A first bill to amend the statutory limitations period and supersede the
Ledbetter decision was introduced in the
110th United States CongressThe One Hundred Tenth United States Congress was the meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, between January 3, 2007, and January 3, 2009, during the last two years of the second term of President George W. Bush. It was composed of the Senate and the House of...
but was never enacted, as after having been passed by the
HouseThe United States House of Representatives, commonly referred to as the "House," is the lower house of the bicameral United States Congress, the upper house being the United States Senate. The composition and powers of the House and the Senate are established in Article One of the Constitution...
it failed to survive a
clotureIn parliamentary procedure, cloture , also called closure and sometimes a guillotine, is a motion or process aimed at bringing debate to a quick end....
vote in the
SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution . Each U.S state is represented by two senators,...
due to the opposition of most of the Republican Senators.
During the campaign for the 2008 elections, the
DemocratsThe Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. It is the oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world. In the U.S...
criticized
RepublicansThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP, despite being the younger of the two major parties. In the U.S...
for defeating the 2007 version of the bill, citing Republican presidential candidate
John McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
's opposition.
The
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 is an
Act of CongressAn act of Congress is a statute enacted by government with a legislature named "Congress," such as the United States and the Philippines....
enacted by the
111th United States CongressThe One Hundred Eleventh United States Congress is the current meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It began during the last two weeks of the George W. Bush administration, with the remainder spanning the...
and signed into law by
PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office, as well as the first president born in Hawaii...
on January 29, 2009.
The bill amends the
Civil Rights Act of 1964The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment...
stating that the 180-day
statute of limitationsA statute of limitations is a statute in a common law legal system that sets forth the maximum period of time, after certain events, that legal proceedings based on those events may be initiated...
for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new discriminatory paycheck. The law was a direct answer to the
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 , is an employment discrimination decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Alito held for the five-justice majority that employers cannot be sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act over race or gender pay discrimination...
, , a U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins at the date the pay was agreed upon, not at the date of the most recent paycheck, as a lower court had ruled.
A first bill to amend the statutory limitations period and supersede the
Ledbetter decision was introduced in the
110th United States CongressThe One Hundred Tenth United States Congress was the meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, between January 3, 2007, and January 3, 2009, during the last two years of the second term of President George W. Bush. It was composed of the Senate and the House of...
but was never enacted, as after having been passed by the
HouseThe United States House of Representatives, commonly referred to as the "House," is the lower house of the bicameral United States Congress, the upper house being the United States Senate. The composition and powers of the House and the Senate are established in Article One of the Constitution...
it failed to survive a
clotureIn parliamentary procedure, cloture , also called closure and sometimes a guillotine, is a motion or process aimed at bringing debate to a quick end....
vote in the
SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution . Each U.S state is represented by two senators,...
due to the opposition of most of the Republican Senators.
During the campaign for the 2008 elections, the
DemocratsThe Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. It is the oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world. In the U.S...
criticized
RepublicansThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP, despite being the younger of the two major parties. In the U.S...
for defeating the 2007 version of the bill, citing Republican presidential candidate
John McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
's opposition. Then-candidate
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office, as well as the first president born in Hawaii...
supported the bill.
A new version of the bill was eventually re-introduced in the first session of the
111th United States CongressThe One Hundred Eleventh United States Congress is the current meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It began during the last two weeks of the George W. Bush administration, with the remainder spanning the...
, obtaining this time the necessary support to pass cloture. The bill was then brought to the attention of the President and became the first act of congress signed by the new President Obama since his
assumption of officeThe inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States took place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. The inauguration, which set a record attendance for any event held in Washington, D.C., marked the commencement of the four-year term of Barack Obama as President and...
on January 20.
Court rulings
The antecedents of the case were posed when
Lilly LedbetterLilly Ledbetter was the plaintiff in the American employment discrimination case Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is named after her....
, a production supervisor at a
GoodyearThe Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. Today it is the third largest tire company in the world after Bridgestone and Michelin...
tire plant in
AlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its...
, filed an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination under Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment...
, six months before her early retirement in 1998. The courts gave opposite verdicts, first supporting the pliant and later opposing; in conclusion the pliant brought the case to the attention of the Supreme Court. The latter ruled in 2007 by a 5-4 majority vote that Ledbetter's complaint was time-barred because the discriminatory decisions relating to pay had been made more than 180 days prior to the date she filed her charge, as explained by Justice
Samuel AlitoSamuel Anthony Alito, Jr. is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and has served on the court since January 31, 2006....
. The minority position explained by Justice
Ruth Bader GinsburgRuth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton with the support of Republican Judiciary Chairman Senator Orrin Hatch in 1993 and generally votes with the liberal wing of the court...
proposed an interpretation according to which the law runs from the date of any paycheck that contains an amount affected by a prior discriminatory pay decision.
The
Ledbetter decision was cited by federal judges in 300 cases before the LLFPA was passed. These cases involved not only Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, but also the
Age Discrimination in Employment ActThe Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, Pub. L. No. 90-202, 81 Stat. 602 , codified as Chapter 14 of Title 29 of the United States Code, through , prohibits employment discrimination against persons 40 years of age or older in the United States...
, Fair Housing Act, Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act and
Eighth Amendment to the ConstitutionThe Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The phrases employed are taken from the English Bill of Rights of 1689. In...
.
The case had never received much attention before going to the Supreme Court, but the Court's ruling ignited legal groups on the left and Democrats that took action to transform the Ledbetter case into a rallying issue for the left, having activists seen in the figure of the pliant an ideal standard-bearer in their attempt to bring the public opinion in the persuasion that the Supreme Court was moving too far to the right.
Among the first to criticize the Court's decision was Marcia Greenberger, president of the
National Women's Law CenterThe National Women's Law Center is a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization founded in 1972. Through litigation and policy initiatives, the Center strives to improve the lives of women and their families in the areas of health, employment, family economic security, and education...
, that saw in the ruling a "setback for women and a setback for civil rights" and called Ginsburg's opinion a "clarion call to the American people that this slim majority of the court is headed in the wrong direction." On the other side, the majority's findings were applauded by the
US Chamber of CommerceThe United States Chamber of Commerce is the world's largest not-for-profit business federation, representing*300,000 businesses...
, that called it a "fair decision" that "eliminates a potential wind-fall against employers by employees trying to dredge up stale pay claims."
First bill
The
House DemocratsThe House Democratic Caucus nominates and elects the Democratic Party leadership in the United States House of Representatives. The group is composed of all Democratic Representatives in the House...
were fast to react, coming out on June 12 against the Court. Claiming lead from Justice Ruth Ginsburg's minority opinion, which invited the Congress to take action by amending the law, the Democrats announced their intention to intervene:
House Majority LeaderParty leaders of the United States House of Representatives are elected by their respective parties in a closed-door caucus.The Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives acts as the leader of the party that has a majority of the seats in the house...
Steny HoyerSteny Hamilton Hoyer is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Maryland's 5th congressional district since 1981...
and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller said that a bill was to be passed to avoid future court rulings in line with
Ledbetter, clearly putting that "a key provision of the legislation will make it clear that discrimination occurs not just when the decision to discriminate is made, but also when someone becomes subject to that discriminatory decision, and when they are affected by that discriminatory decision, including each time they are issued a discriminatory paycheck", as said by Rep. Miller.
Republicans immediately opposed the bill as drafted, with Education and Labor Committee
ranking memberIn United States politics, the term ranking member refers to the second-most senior member of a congressional or state legislative committee from the majority party. Another, incorrect, usage refers to the most senior member of a congressional or state legislative committee from the minority party...
Howard McKeonHoward Philip "Buck" McKeon , an American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1993.-Early and Personal Life:...
raising the issue that business executives would be held liable for actions taken by managers who weren't leading the company anymore: "At the end of the day, such a loophole conceivably could allow a retiring employee to seek damages against a company now led by executives who had nothing to do with the initial act of discrimination".
The issue proved contentious also among lawyers: while the
American Bar AssociationThe American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
passed a resolution supporting the new bill, others such as Neal Mollen, argued that extending the term limit would put a strain on the chances of an adequate defense for the employers, as to defend themselves one "has to rely on documents and the memory of individuals, and neither of those is permanent. If a disappointed employee can wait for many years before raising a claim of discrimination ... he or she can wait out the employer, that is ensure that the employer effectively unable to offer any meaningful defense to the claim".
Legislative history
The bill ( and ) was defeated in April 2008 by Republicans in the
SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution . Each U.S state is represented by two senators,...
who cited the possibility of frivolous lawsuits in their opposition of the bill and criticized Democrats for refusing to allow compromises.
The bill was re-introduced in the 111th Congress (as and ) in January 2009. It passed in the House of Representatives with 247 votes in support and 171 against. The vote was nearly perfectly split along party lines, with only three Republicans voting in favor (
Ed WhitfieldWayne Edward "Ed" Whitfield has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1995,representing , which covers much of the western part of the state, including Fort Campbell....
of
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
,
Don YoungDonald Edwin "Don" Young has been the sole Representative from Alaska in the United States House of Representatives since 1973. He is a Republican. Currently Young is the 7th most senior U.S. Representative and the 2nd most senior Republican Representative, as well as the 2nd most senior...
of
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and
Chris SmithChris Smith may refer to:In politics:*Chris Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury , former British Member of Parliament and government minister*Chris Smith , U.S...
of
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
) and two Democrats voting nay (
Travis ChildersTravis Wayne Childers is the U.S. Representative from Mississippi's 1st congressional district. The district includes much of the northern portion of the state including Columbus, Oxford, Southaven, and Tupelo....
of
MississippiMississippi is a state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The state's name comes from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, and takes its name from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi . The state is heavily forested outside of the...
and
Parker GriffithParker Griffith is an American politician and Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing since 2009. He is a Blue Dog Democrat...
of
AlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its...
).
The Senate voted 72 to 23 to invoke
clotureIn parliamentary procedure, cloture , also called closure and sometimes a guillotine, is a motion or process aimed at bringing debate to a quick end....
on S. 181 on January 15, 2009. (The vote to invoke cloture ends debate on a bill, and usually leads to a final vote within a few days.) The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed the Senate, 61-36, on January 22, 2009. The votes in favor included every Democratic senator (except Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was absent from the vote because of health issues) and a handful of Republican senators.
As president, Obama actively supported the bill. The
official White House blogWhitehouse.gov is the official website of the White House and is owned by the United States government. Launched in October 1994, it contains general American history information, as well as current news pertaining to the President, press briefings, proclamations, executive orders, and any speeches...
said:
President Obama has long championed this bill and Lilly Ledbetter's cause, and by signing it into law, he will ensure that women like Ms. Ledbetter and other victims of pay discrimination can effectively challenge unequal pay.
House Majority Leader
Steny HoyerSteny Hamilton Hoyer is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Maryland's 5th congressional district since 1981...
announced that the House would vote on S.181 (the bill passed by the Senate) during the week of January 26, getting the bill to President Obama's desk sooner rather than later. On January 27, the House passed S.181 by a 250-177 margin.
On January 29, Obama signed the bill into law. It was the first act he signed as president, and it fulfilled his campaign pledge to nullify
Ledbetter v. Goodyear. However, the fact that he signed it only two days after it was passed by the House brought him under criticism from papers such as the
St. Petersburg TimesThe St. Petersburg Times is one of two major newspapers serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Times has won eight Pulitzers since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single year for...
which mentioned his campaign promise to give the public five days of notice to comment on legislation before he signed it. The White House through a spokesman answered that they would be "implementing this policy in full soon", and that currently they were "working through implementation procedures and some initial issues with the congressional calendar".