Legislative Update IV

President Obama signed his first bill into law this week. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act reversed a 2007 Supreme Court decision declaration pay discrimination claims must be filed within 180 days of the first offense. This law triggers a new 180-day window after each discriminatory paycheck. Lilly Ledbetter is an Alabama woman who discovered after 19 years on the job at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co that she was the lowest-paid supervisor at her plant despite having more experience than several male co-workers. President Obama remarked that it seemed fitting that the first bill he would sign into law stood for greater equality.

Despite President Obama personally consulting and making concessions with the GOP, the House of Representatives passed its version of the economic stimulus bill without a single Republican vote. The Senate will take up its version next week, where it will need at least a few Republican votes to pass. Then, changes will need to be worked out between the two chambers and passed again before President Obama can sign it into law.

The Senate passed its bill to expand the SCHIP program. The House will take up the same measure next week, and President Obama will sign it into law. President Bush had vetoed the bill, but now with a Democratic President and greater Democratic majorities in Congress, this version of the bill gives even more of what Democrats wanted.

Also, the Senate for a second time approved a bill that delays the national transition to digital television to June 12th from February 17. The House failed to pass the bill under rules that required a two-thirds majority due to Republican opposition. The House will likely pass it when it takes it up again next week under normal rules that requires only a simply majority to pass. President Obama will sign the bill.

Lastly, Attorney General-designate won a strong 17-2 recommendation from the Senate Judiciary Committee and should receive bipartisan approval from the full Senate on February 2nd.

Legislative Update II

Given incoming-President Obama some early victories, Congress approved the release of the final $350 billion of bailout money and the House passed the SCHIP expansion which President Bush had vetoed. The Senate also passed a bill outlawing the sale and counterfeiting of inaugural tickets and several Obama cabinet picks went before Senate committees. Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton got a 16-1 vote out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and even Attorney General-designate Eric Holder (who exclaimed that "waterboarding is torture" and that President Obama will follow through on closing Gitmo) looks like he will not have the opposition once predicted due to his approval of President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich.

Eric Holder is AG

Obama has named Eric Holder, former Deputy Attorney General under Clinton, as the new Attorney General (h/t Adam.) Holder assisted the Obama campaign and has reportedly grown close to the President-Elect, and given his experience his selection was not a surprise. Still there is some controversy attached to his name, as he was at the center of the imbroglio over the last-minute pardon of Marc Rich by President Clinton on the President's last day in office. Here are some interesting excerpts from the Washington Post article I link to above:

When Holder reached home after a bruising Senate Judiciary Committee appearance last month, he says he wanted to "crawl into bed and pull the covers up over my head."

"I'm done. Public life's over for me," Holder says. "I had a moment in time. That moment has passed."

The Rich episode has brought down upon Holder the kind of doubts that can haunt a person's career. He was asked at a congressional hearing whether his desire to become attorney general caused him to go easy on Rich, who was represented by well-connected former White House counsel and Al Gore adviser Jack Quinn. At the same hearing, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) told Holder he greatly respected him, but labeled his positions on Rich "almost incredible."

In political Washington, "neutral, leaning towards favorable" could become his epitaph. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) commented ruefully at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that Holder may be an unintended casualty of the intense lobbying that accompanies the pardon process.

"A lot of well-meaning people get involved and they put on a lot of pressure," Feinstein said. "And a lot of other well-meaning people get involved in that -- I think Mr. Holder is one of them, for example -- and something like this can really ruin their entire career."

But as they say, time heals all wounds. The Rich pardon all seems like a very long ago, and Clinton's "scandals" all seem so quaint compared to what we've been regaled with during the Bush years. Hopefully Holder learned a lesson from his involvement in that pardon, and goes back to D.C. older and much wiser. Or at least so we should hope, since he has a big job in front of him cleaning up the DOJ.