Ledbetter Bill Is an Unreasonable Overreach (Sen. Mike Enzi)
April 23rd, 2008
Sen. Enzi is ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
This evening, the Majority Leader is forcing a vote on legislation aimed at overturning the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear which would effectively eliminate the statute of limitations on employment discrimination cases as guaranteed in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and make it much more difficult to resolve claims quickly and fairly.
Rather than moving this legislation by regular order, and through the Committee process, the Democrat leadership opted simply to spring this bill on the Senate in the hope of forcing a vote with little or no meaningful deliberation and no realistic opportunity to improve the bill. This action is a transparent attempt to score political points at the expense of responsible legislating.
The writers of the Civil Rights Act intentionally included a well-reasoned statute of limitations, but the Ledbetter bill would reverse that intent. A statute of limitations serves an important purpose, and that is fairness. The Fair Pay Restoration Act, on the other hand, isn’t really about fairness. By effectively eliminating the statute of limitations, it undermines the goal of resolving employment discrimination claims fairly, quickly, and based on sound evidence.
Under current law, employees must file employment discrimination claims within either 180 days or 300 days, depending on the state in which the case is filed. But H.R. 2831 would eliminate this requirement and allow individuals to bring claims years or even decades after the alleged discrimination occurred – even after the employee has left the workplace.
Supporters of the bill, who argue that such a change is necessary because employees may not know they are being discriminated against or because employers may hide facts from employees to prevent the timely filing of a claim, are ignoring and misrepresenting the actual state of the law.
The law already provides remedies in instances where employees do not know they are being discriminated against, or where employers hide information. If anyone believes that more protections for employees are needed, then the Committee process could have addressed that in a rational and targeted manner. By side-stepping regular order and bringing this bill directly to the Senate floor, without the opportunity for meaningful discussion, the Majority has taken that option off the table. The result is the current bill which is an unfair, unreasonable overreach that could allow legal action against employers almost without end into the future. You just cannot have a fair bill without a fair process.
Discrimination in the workplace, or elsewhere, is simply not acceptable. A fair statute of limitations ensures that employees who have faced discrimination receive prompt justice. The so-called Fair Pay Restoration Act would put an enormous and unnecessary burden on employers, and it would deprive employees of an incentive to resolve their claims quickly.
If a case is filed decades after an employee claims discrimination occurred, evidence will have been lost, memories will have faded, and witnesses will have disappeared or passed away, making the case very difficult to resolve. The undeniable reality is that all evidence fades over time, and this is particularly true in our country’s extremely mobile workforce.
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