Republican senators succeeded once
again in using the legislative
filibuster to block the passage of
the paycheck fairness Act.
Now the legislative filibuster
would require of course 60 senators
to vote in favor of any piece of
legislation, which is incredibly
difficult to do when the Senate has
a 50/50 split among Democrats and
Republicans.
Kamala Harris serves as the tie
breaking vote.
Now, if you're wondering what
the overall vote was on
this particular issue.
Senators voted for
49 to 50 to tried to advance
the legislation falling short of
the 60 votes needed to
overcome the procedural hurdle,
meaning the legislative filibuster.
Now, if you're wondering why there
weren't 50 Democrats voting in
favor of the Paycheck Fairness Act,
it's because Senator Kirsten
Gillibrand, a Democrat didn't show.
We don't know why, I think it's
incredibly strange that she didn't
show considering the fact that she
has championed issues pertaining to
equality for women.
But she just decided not to show
and if we're going to hold on
Kirsten Cinema accountable for
her inability to show up to work to
do her job.
I think that it's fair to call out
Gillibrand for doing the same.
Although I would argue it might
even be worse in this case,
because she's not carrying out
actions that go along with what
her messaging has been in regard to
equality in the workplace place.
Now, for those of you who
are wondering what
are the provisions in this
legislation that just got defeated
through the legislative filibuster.
It's not just about ensuring
there's a quality and pay based on
gender and all of that.
It actually has important
provisions that affects
every single one of us.
For instance,
the bill would limit employers to
bonafide factors such as education,
training, and experience.
When justifying pay differentials
in wage discrimination claims,
as Senator Patty Murray,
a Democrat said and
I think this is exactly right.
Right now an employer can brush
aside reports of pay discrimination
by saying things like, well,
he was a better negotiator or
they work in different buildings.
And then she says, I mean,
what does that have to do with it?
And that's exactly right.
Now, here's the other part of
the legislation that's important.
Employers would also be prohibited
from retaliating against workers
who compare salaries and barred
from inquiring about prospective
employees salary histories during
the hiring process.
Okay, so let's stop right there.
First off, having the ability to
speak with your colleagues speak
with your co-workers about what
you're getting paid is
an important one to protect,
because that's how you find out
whether or not there's an unfair
pay situation taking place.
Now the second half of that
is about salary histories,
which is also important.
Think about how many millennials
graduated into
a disastrous economic situation
were unable to find
work after graduating from college.
And unfortunately we're forced to
take jobs that paid them
far less than what they should have
been making.
Because of the system we have in
place now where potential employers
look at your salary history to make
a decision about what you get paid
that unfortunately and unnaturally
keeps the pay for people low based
on what their starting salary was
at their first job out of college.
We need to do away with
that system.
It is not the right system to
function under and it clearly keeps
salaries and wages low, thus
benefiting employers and putting
employees at a giant disadvantage.
Now, I also want to talk a little
bit about Senator Mitch McConnell
because while Senator Joe Manchin,
a conservative Democrat,
believes that he could definitely
work with his Republican colleagues
on passing legislation that matters
to the Democratic base.
I do want you to listen to
the rhetoric coming from
Senate Minority leader
Mitch McConnell, who was so
offended that this legislation
even came up that he claims that
the very nature of it coming up on
the Senate floor is a sign that
there can't be bipartisanship.
Watch.
>> If you look to what the majority
leader has in mind for June, it's
pretty clear the era bipartisanship
is over the majority.
We're starting with the so called
Paycheck Fairness bill late this
afternoon, which is centrally I
give away to the plaintiffs lawyers
in America, a series of totally
partisan bills designed to get no
Republican support.
So it looks to me like majority
leaders decided that June is kind
of the check the box month with all
of the extreme
left wing provisions.
>> There was
no age of bipartisanship
during the Biden administration,
we certainly didn't see that during
the Trump administration.
Are you kidding me?
You think GOP lawmakers had any
interest in what Democrats had
to say.
Certainly in the first two years
of Trump's administration,
they didn't care at all.
And so look, obviously we know
that Joe Manchin is not being
honest in citing bipartisanship for
his reasoning behind rejecting
the calls to end the senate
filibuster the calls to at least
reformed the senate filibuster.
We know he's full of it.
But I do want to just read a quick
comment from one of our members,
eclectic miscellanea,
who writes and quite often and
he makes a really good point here.
It depends on how you define
bipartisanship, mentions not by
partisan about what voters want and
as you guys know, the majority of
voters even in a state like
West Virginia want to pass things
like the for the people act which
is robust election reform.
Electic miscellanea continues
to write, mentions not by partisan
about what voters want but
what elected officials want.
And this is important to keep
in mind guys, I know we focus quite
a bit on mansion, but
here's the reality.
TYT reported the other day that
centrist democrats are reportedly
happy because mansion is taking the
fall for them on a lot of issues
they don't want to vote for anyway.
Washington Post actually reported
on that there's as many as 10
Senate Democrats who
are against it.
Important pieces of legislation
that they don't have the guts to
speak out against publicly because
they know it's popular legislation
that their own base will retaliate
against them on.
Now, we know about Manchin,
we know about Cinema, but
there is a problem.
There is a virus that affects
every single member.
Well, almost every single member
of Congress, and
that's money in politics.
The fact that we're dealing with
corporate Democrats who have
similar corporate donors
as Republicans,
essentially leads us to a situation
where on big issues that Americans
want to see change on, both parties
appear to be very similar, right?
When it comes to issues pertaining
to the economy, foreign policy,
those types of issues, again and
again, we see very similar outcomes
from Democrats and Republicans.
And part of the reason why is
because we see that dark money.
We see that money in politics
corrupting their decision making
and obviously influencing what they
are, and are not willing to fight
for, as they claim to represent
the best interests of Americans.
We know that they don't.
We know what the reality is, and
we have to be hyper-focused on
the real motivations behind these
corporate Democrats.
We can't fall victim to what they
want us to be distracted by, right?
You see culture, war narratives on
the right, Democrats have their
own version of that.
They love to pay lip service to
disenfranchised groups of people in
this country, but
they are unwilling to do anything
to actually improve the lives of
these groups of people.
It's all rhetorical nonsense.
Don't get distracted by it.
Let's keep it real.
They want us to focus on
that as opposed to the fact that
they're not really serving our best
interests and
they're not fighting for the very
policies that they campaigned on.