Fair pay law for women early test for Democratic Congress -- Feb. 7, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The most memorable visual from the State of the Union was the most joyous.

We’re used to Republican members of Congress popping up from their chairs and dutifully applauding President Donald Trump – and to Democrats, with rare exceptions, sitting glumly.    

On Tuesday night, though, dozens of Democratic women wearing “suffragette white” to show solidarity and to honor the legacy of the suffragette movement, became a wave of celebration.

The women were largely quiescent until Trump began touting the economy.

“No one has benefited more from our thriving economy than women, who have filled 58 percent of the new jobs created in the last year,” he said.

The women – many of them newcomers to Congress – perked up. Smiling, they looked around, stood and applauded, pointing to themselves and each other. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi beamed.

“Don’t sit yet. You’re going to like this,” Trump said. “And exactly one century after the Congress passed the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than ever before,” he said.

At that, the women -- many of whom ran for Congress and won because of their outspoken opposition to Trump’s policies – rejoiced in their triumph with energetic fist-pumps, high fives and hugs. Their jubilation was infectious.

Now they need to harness their enthusiasm to succeed in the hyper-partisan capital. 

The Democratic House must deliver on promises to make Washington work for everybody.

It’s exciting to think the new members actually will build coalitions and pass bills that better the lives of women and families. Even Trump says he favors paid family and medical leave, although there’s nothing to show for it.  

One of the first tests for Congress is ensuring women get equal pay for their work. Finally.

Equal pay has been the law of the land since the 1960s, but the gender pay gap – the difference in median earnings of a man and a woman each working full time -- persists.

A woman in 2017 earned about 20 percent less than a man, according to the most recent Census Bureau figures. The wage gap is worse for black women and Hispanic women.

This isn’t a fluke or women working in “women’s” jobs that pay less. Men’s median weekly pay exceeds women’s in almost every occupation -- from chief executives to janitors and building cleaners, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

The Paycheck Fairness Act was first introduced more than a decade ago. It would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and make employers more accountable for their pay practices.

It would end pay secrecy and retaliation – workplace rules that keep workers from asking about others’ wages and disclosing their own; allow workers to sue for damages from pay discrimination; strengthen penalties for equal pay violations, and update the federal role in education, research and data-collection to combat gender discrimination.  

The House first passed Paycheck Fairness in January 2009, but the bill died in the Senate. It has been reintroduced repeatedly and has always failed.  

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, and Sen. Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, reintroduced the measure Jan. 30.

In the House, every Democrat and one Republican are cosponsors. In the Senate, there are 45 cosponsors – all Democrats and Bernie Sanders, independent. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia are cosponsors.

Rep. Bobby Scott, Democrat of Virginia, is now chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, and plans to fast-track the legislation with a hearing this month and a House vote soon after. The goal is to have a bill on Trump’s desk by early April.

But passage is hardly assured. Even though more women serve in Congress than ever, they still make up only about a quarter of the total membership.

What’s needed is a thaw in the Republican-controlled Senate. Republicans oppose the bill as unnecessary, saying it burdens employers and could even harm women,  if employers are reluctant to hire them.

But surely in 2019 equal pay for women doing equal work is an issue we all can agree on.

It’s time for Congress – new members and veterans – to turn to the hard work of governing and get the job done.

  ©2019 Marsha Mercer All rights reserved.

At 30, MLK Jr. Holiday inspires action -- Jan. 14, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

On the first observance of the birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as a federal holiday 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan said it was a time for rejoicing and reflecting.

“We rejoice because, in his short life, Dr. King, by his preaching, his example, and his leadership, helped to move us closer to the ideals on which America was founded. We reflect on his words and his works,” Reagan said.

We still rejoice and reflect on the life of the Baptist minister and civil rights icon who was assassinated April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. He would have turned 87 on Jan. 15. But our troubled times demand more.

People gather for prayer breakfasts and worship services, read King’s writings and tell his stories to younger generations, and listen to choirs and panel discussions of King’s legacy. Some will emulate King’s struggle by marching in Black Lives Matter protests.

The holiday also inspires volunteering. President Bill Clinton signed the King Holiday and Service Act, establishing the holiday as a national day of service, in 1994.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans, starting with President Barack Obama and his family, join in the day of service, “picking up the baton handed to us by past generations and carrying forward their efforts,” Obama said last year.

In his final State of the Union address, Obama said he is inspired by the “voices that help us see ourselves not, first and foremost, as black or white . . . but as Americans first, bound by a common creed. Voices Dr. King believed would have the final word – voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love.”

We hear precious little about unconditional love in politics, but King said in his 1964 speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

Obama said the voices of truth and love “don’t get a lot of attention; they don’t seek a lot of fanfare; but they’re busy doing the work this country needs doing.”

After 30 years, most people may not remember that Congress dithered for 15 years before enacting the holiday. Congress finally passed the bill and Reagan signed it in 1983, effective in 1986. Some states dragged their feet even longer on adopting a state holiday for King. The last was New Hampshire in 1999.

Even today, the holiday remains contentious in a few states.

Three states – Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi – celebrate the birthdays of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and King on the same day. The joint holiday once may have seemed a pragmatic compromise but now is cringe-worthy, especially as Southern states have reconsidered or removed vestiges of their Confederate past.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, told reporters Jan. 6 that he hoped the legislature will separate the King and Lee birthdays. An effort to do so last year failed.

Virginia separated King from Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in 2000 and now has a state holiday honoring the Confederates on the Friday before the King holiday on the third Monday in January. Richmond, Lynchburg, Bristol and several other cities in Virginia no longer observe the Lee-Jackson holiday.

Alabama still has three state holidays honoring Confederate heroes. Besides the King-Lee holiday, Confederate Memorial Day is April 25 and Jefferson Davis’ Birthday is June 6. Alabama is the only state with a holiday honoring the president of the Confederacy.

And the King holiday can be fraught with peril for politicians. Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton got in hot water in 2006 when she said at an MLK holiday event in Harlem that the GOP-led House of Representatives has been run “like a plantation – and you know what I’m talking about.”

Republicans insisted they were not racist. A Democratic senator from Illinois named Barack Obama defended Clinton.

As people drive to their volunteer service on King’s birthday, some will travel on a street named for him. About 900 boulevards, avenues, streets and courts in the United States are named for the civil rights leader, most in the Southeast.

Naming those streets often has been political, says Derek Alderman, geography professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, who has studied the issue since the 1990s.

Ironically, many streets named for the champion of justice and equality -- political and financial -- are in blighted and segregated communities. They serve as a graphic reminder of the civil rights struggles that remain three decades after the first national holiday for King’s birthday.

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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The state of our union is . . . political -- Jan. 7, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The state of our union is strong -- unless it’s getting stronger or is the strongest ever.

Presidents from Ronald Reagan through Barack Obama have used “strong” in their State of the Union addresses to summarize the country’s current state.

It wasn’t always so simple.

On Jan. 14, 1963, President John F. Kennedy packed 66words into one sentence to assess the state of America: “And today, having witnessed in recent months a heightened respect for our national purpose and power – having seen the courageous calm of a united people in a perilous hour and having observed a steady improvement in the opportunities and well-being of our citizens – I can report to you that the state of this old but youthful Union, in the 175th year of its life, is good.”

Ah, the pre-Twitter, pre-Trump, pre-sound bite era, when reasons and context mattered and we had respect for “our national purpose.”

On Tuesday night, President Obama will give his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. I wish he’d take a look at Democrats and Republicans, as well as at himself, and state the obvious, “My fellow Americans, in 2016 the state of our union is . . . political.”

An election year is always political, but we’ve become resigned to deferring substantive policy moves until the next president for most of a president’s second term. The State of the Union address should be a time for the president, even one on his way out, to seek common ground and work for the public good.

Instead, political calculations rule.

Obama’s address is earlier than usual because of the primary calendar. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the GOP’s vice presidential nominee four years ago, will be seated with Vice President Joe Biden on the dais behind the president. Ryan has already announced his goals for 2016.

“We have to have a conservative in the White House,” Ryan told Fox’s Sean Hannity Tuesday night. “We want a mandate election.”

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will give the Republican response. Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rebranded the response as the “Republican Address,” an attempt to put it on a par with the president’s remarks.

And perhaps to launch Haley into her next political phase. Haley, 43, the daughter of Indian immigrants and the nation’s youngest governor, is on the short list of potential GOP running mates.

The opposition party always picks a rising star for the response, although it’s no guarantee of greatness. In 2010, then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell gave the GOP response. He was later convicted on corruption charges involving gifts from a political supporter, and is appealing.

When then-Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine gave the 2006 response to George W. Bush, Kaine was thought a likely Democratic VP pick. That hasn’t happened, although Kaine did make it to the U.S. Senate.

In 2007, then-Sen. James Webb, Democrat of Virginia, responded to Bush. Webb quit the Senate after one term. His 2016 bid for the White House fizzled last year.

Speaker Ryan started the year by sending Obama a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature achievement, reverse the expansion of Medicaid and defund Planned Parenthood.

The bill wasn’t about changing health policy; a veto was assumed. It was about how quickly a future Republican president could scrap Obamacare.

“The best way to win the election is to give people a choice,” Ryan said.

Obama also wants to show voters their political choice. He will deliver a nontraditional address with no long list of legislative priorities for the coming year, although there will be some, the White House says. Instead, he will talk about his and Democrats’ vision for the country.

Defying lame duck status, Obama rolled out modest efforts to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.

Obama expects little except opposition from the GOP-controlled Congress, but his year ahead looks like a cakewalk compared with what Bill Clinton faced in 1999.

In the midst of impeachment proceedings in the Senate, Clinton delivered a State of the Union address that lasted 77 minutes and never mentioned impeachment.

“The state of our union is strong,” Clinton said.

A year later, having weathered scandal and impeachment, Clinton declared in his final State of the Union, “My fellow Americans, the state of our union is the strongest it has ever been.”

May we survive politics in 2016 and be so lucky next year.

(C)2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Backstory on SOTU: TJ wouldn't approve -- Jan. 15, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

On Tuesday night, President Barack Obama will ride in his limo to the Capitol where, bathed in TV light, he will deliver his State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress. 

Ho hum, you may say with 21^st century ennui. Big deal. We don’t think twice about presidents appearing before Congress.

But nobody was blasé in April 1913 when President Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress in person. It was shocking.

Presidents in those days didn’t deliver speeches to Congress. They followed the model of Thomas Jefferson and sent carefully written reports.  

The Constitution requires that a president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” It’s silent on how the information should be delivered.

Presidents George Washington and John Adams gave annual messages to Congress in person, but Jefferson ceased the practice. He found the pomp and ceremony too reminiscent of the English monarch’s “speech from the throne” to Parliament. The first two presidents had appeared with quite the entourage -- their entire Cabinets and all their secretaries.

Jefferson apparently wasn’t a polished public speaker and the Capitol wasn’t yet finished, so he was happy to give the speech a pass. So were his successors.   

Wilson, the Virginia-born former president of Princeton University and former governor of New Jersey, was a gifted orator at ease before crowds. He said when he broke with the tradition: 

“I think that (a personal appearance) is the only dignified way for the president to address Congress at the opening of a session, instead of sending the address to be read perfunctorily in the clerk’s familiar tone of voice. It is a precedent which, it is true, has been discontinued a long time, but which is a very respectable precedent.”

Wilson gave a brief speech and made the trip simply, driving to the Capitol with one Secret Service man. His male secretary followed in his own car, The New York Times reported. Democrat Wilson was fortunate to have Democrats in control of both houses of Congress.

After appearing in person before Congress a few weeks after his inauguration, Wilson went back to Congress in June and August of 1913. He started weekly press conferences. That December, he gave his first annual message to Congress – what we now call the State of the Union Address.  

Subsequent presidents went back and forth between written and oral State of the Union messages and some delivered both. Since Reagan, presidents have delivered speeches. The first official televised response by members of the opposing party came in 1966. In 2010, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell gave the official Republican response.

   

This will be Obama’s sixth State of the Union Address, and he’s a lame duck. His legislative wish list will be dismissed as mostly fantasy – if people watch at all.

Viewership of Obama’s State of the Union speech last year dropped to its lowest level since his first address. In 2009, about 52.4 million people tuned in to see Obama. Last year, just 33.3 million watched. That was also the lowest viewership for the State of the Union since Nielsen began keeping track in 1993. That year, Bill Clinton’s first, 66.9 million people watched.

Presidents often hit the road to sell their proposals after the State of the Union address. Obama has tried to build interest in his speech by previewing his proposals. He quipped that with only two years left in his term, he couldn’t wait for the speech to roll out his ideas.

Traveling around the country, he announced an array of proposals aimed at improving the lives of middle-class Americans. These include making community colleges free, stepping up cybersecurity measures, expanding broadband service, protecting the environment and allowing workers paid family and sick leave.

The catch is that many of Obama’s proposals require the approval of Congress. That will be no mean feat -- even after the president stands before a joint session and makes his pitch in person.  

© 2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Michelle Obama: rescuer-in-chief? -- Jan. 30, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

President Barack Obama says that from now on he’ll do the chief executive thing his way -- with Congress if possible, without Congress when necessary.

And what about Michelle Obama? Scorned as a “feminist nightmare” by Politico last November because she has focused on fitness, health and gardening instead of elbowing her way into policy fights, what’s her next step?  

This just might be the year the first lady rescues her husband from terminal lame duck status by showing him how to work around Congress and, more importantly, by helping Democrats get elected in November’s congressional midterm elections.

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Obama praised his wife’s Let’s Move project as a model for how he now intends to get things done without congressional support.  

“As usual, our first lady sets a good example,” he said. “Michelle’s Let’s Move partnership with schools, businesses and local leaders has helped bring down childhood obesity rates for the first time in 30 years – an achievement that will improve lives and reduce health care costs for decades to come.” 

It was a canny comparison not only because the first lady is more popular than the president but because Let’s Move is effective without being threatening. Obama was telegraphing the folks at home that his plan to act unilaterally by executive order is nothing to be afraid of – despite what his critics say. 

    

Michelle Obama may be the fourth most powerful woman in the world, according to Forbes magazine, but she still seems more mom-in-chief than power player. There’s no Michellecare the way health care reform was Hillarycare in the Clinton years. Forbes ranks Obama behind Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany; Dilma Rousseft, president of Brazil, and Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Hillary Clinton is fifth on the list.

Michelle Obama often gets more news coverage for her hair and clothes than for her views and actions. Fashion writers loved the dark green dress and jacket she chose for the State of the Union. In wearing the ensemble by Azzedine Alaia, she was giving the Tunisian-born, Paris-based designer a business boost. New York University finance professor David Yermack calculated in a 2010 study that when Mrs. Obama wears an outfit, she creates $14 million in added value for the lucky designer.

I’d like to see her wear American designers – especially on a night when her husband is touting Made in America products. A least the ensemble wasn’t brand new: She’d worn it for a "Nightline” interview and White House tour with Barbara Walters in December 2012.

After the State of the Union, the Obamas hit the road in opposite directions. He set out for Maryland, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Tennessee to build support for his policies. She went on a three-day trip, prospecting for campaign gold in California.  

In the Los Angeles home of Phil Rosenthal, creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Mrs. Obama warned that her husband wouldn’t be able to achieve his goals if both houses of Congress go to Republican control in November.

“Let’s be clear: Barack cannot do this alone sitting by himself in the Oval Office,” she said, according to news reports. “So make no mistake about it, it matters who is elected to represent us in Washington. It matters.”

She urged about a crowd of about 200 to “write a big, fat check.” The guests, who included Barbra Streisand and her husband James Brolin, paid as much as $32,400 each to attend the fundraiser benefiting the Democratic National Committee.

Most analysts say the House is likely to remain in Republican hands and the Senate – where six seats could shift the balance -- could go either way. Michelle Obama warned that the health law would be repealed and same-sex marriage threatened if Republicans were in charge on Capitol Hill.

“You can write a check, do you hear me?” she told the crowd, the Los Angeles Times reported. “That’s what you need to do; I’m serious. Write a big, fat check. Write the biggest check you can possibly write.”

That’s one way to fight economic inequality and redistribute wealth. The night’s event reportedly brought in nearly $700,000 for the Democratic Party.

© 2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Can Obama hit reset with State of the Union address? -- Jan. 23, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Here’s something you will NOT hear from President Barack Obama Tuesday night: “I must say to you that that the state of the union is not good.”

That was the dour assessment of President Gerald Ford in his 1975 State of the Union address, five months after Richard Nixon resigned and Ford moved into the Oval Office.

“Millions of Americans are out of work. Recession and inflation are eroding the money of millions more. Prices are too high, and sales are too low,” Ford said.

The bad news kept coming. He lamented a rising federal deficit and debt and our dependence on foreign energy.  And, he said, “Some people question their government’s ability to make hard decisions and stick with them; they expect Washington politics as usual.”

A year later, in 1976, Ford tried again. “The state of our union is better…but still not good enough,” he said. So much for presidential candor.  Voters turned him out for a political outsider named Jimmy Carter that fall.

Obama’s 2014 State of the Union address comes as polls show many Americans think the country is on the wrong track.  Only 45 percent approve of the way Obama is handling his job, and 53 percent disapprove, the latest Associated Press-GfK poll reported Thursday.

“Nice guy, so-so president,” the AP concluded.

Obama is expected to try to use his one-man show Tuesday to hit reset.  He can recite some good news : Unemployment is down; Congress has passed a two-year budget deal and $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill, and about 2.1 million people have enrolled in health insurance plans on the new exchanges.

He’ll stand before a joint session of Congress, but his real audience is middle class voters, who hold the key to whether he can turn around his dismal job approval ratings before they chill Senate Democrats’ prospects in the midterm elections.

“The State of the Union is not just a conversation with Congress but a conversation with you, the American people,” Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, says in a video on the White House website, which invites viewers to “watch, then say you’re in.”

The Constitution requires that the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information on the state of the union,” but it doesn’t require a high-profile speech. Presidents basically mailed in a written annual message until Woodrow Wilson delivered his 1913 message in person.  

Other 20^th century presidents embraced new technology to connect. “Silent” Calvin Coolidge’s 1923 speech was the first broadcast on the radio. Harry Truman’s 1947 address was the first televised, and George W. Bush’s in 2002 was the first broadcast live on the Internet.

To reach its target audience, the Obama White House promises more digital bells and whistles than ever.

There will be an “enhanced version” of the address with graphics, data and charts that can be viewed on any device. Viewers may comment on social media during the speech and ask questions of administration experts afterwards. Obama will take questions in a Google+ Hangout Jan. 31.

Almost none of Obama’s 2013 State of the Union proposals got through Congress. He’ll renew his call for immigration reform and a hike in the minimum wage. He’ll also urge Congress to extend jobless benefits and expand workforce training. He calls 2014 a “Year of Action” and vows to use executive actions to help the middle class if Congress balks.   

Naturally, Republicans in their responses to Obama’s address will dramatize their opposition and their contention that he and Democrats have been an abject failure. Fox News host Sean Hannity reportedly will attend the address as the guest of Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tex.

Some Democratic House members are inviting jobless Americans as guests. First lady Michelle Obama has invited about two dozen guests, several of whom can expect to be mentioned by the president to illustrate his points.

A year ago, Obama declared, “We can say with renewed confidence that the state of our union is stronger.”

Expect no less Tuesday.  But it may take specific proposals and concrete action --not just an upbeat tone and tweets -- for Obama to convince Americans that he can make it even stronger.    

© 2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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