Lilly Led­bet­ter with Pres­i­dent Barack Obama at the cer­e­mo­nial sign­ing of the Lilly Led­bet­ter Fair Pay Act

Pun­dits and politi­cians who oppose the Pres­i­dent this year like to mock Pres­i­dent Obama’s record. In fact, com­mon wis­dom has it that Repub­li­cans wanted the Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion to be a ref­er­en­dum on Pres­i­dent Obama rather than a choice between him and his Repub­li­can oppo­nent. Putting aside some of the inten­tional mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of that record, what can we say about what the Pres­i­dent has been doing? It would be worth­while to dis­cuss the things Pres­i­dent Obama has done, in a series of arti­cles lead­ing up to the election.

Let’s start at the begin­ning. The very first bill that Pres­i­dent Obama signed into law, on Jan­u­ary 29, 2009, was the Lilly Led­bet­ter Fair Pay Act. The bill was named after a woman who retired from Goodyear Tire and Rub­ber Com­pany in 1998, who then sued her for­mer employer for hav­ing paid her less, through­out her career, than her male coun­ter­parts. Unfor­tu­nately, the statute of lim­i­ta­tions had expired on her claim; accord­ing to what was then the cur­rent law, a claimant had to allege dis­crim­i­na­tion within 180 days of its occur­rence. Ms. Led­bet­ter had been hired many years pre­vi­ously, and the dis­crim­i­na­tion had been ongo­ing for many bad years — since 1979 — with­out legal action.

Some­how, that made it okay. The Supreme Court said so. (more…)