Just six Republicans broke with their party to join Democrats in supporting the new bill, which is needed to counter a noxious 2007 Supreme Court decision that made it largely impossible to enforce the guarantee of equal pay for equal work contained in Title VII of the 1964 law.
...Mr. McCain chose to skip last week’s vote, but he said he opposed the bill. He echoed a baseless claim bandied about by business interests lobbying against the bill — that it would end up hurting business by spawning frivolous lawsuits. Yet, a report last July by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office foresaw no significant impact on filings or costs to either the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or to the federal courts.
The defeat of this bill was the latest evidence of the way the Republicans under President Bush have reflexively favored corporate interests over the interests of ordinary American workers. It suggests a crimped vision of the role of courts in protecting individual rights, and of a president’s duty to enforce the civil rights laws.
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