Ledbetter matters

About a year ago, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer appeared at the Netroots Nation conference, and mentioned the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act as one of the White House’s accomplishments.

Daily Kos Associate Editor Kaili Joy Gray, moderating the session, told Pfeiffer, “You mentioned Lilly Ledbetter. Frankly we’re a little tired of hearing about that one.”

The problem, of course, is that repetition is important, even with talking points most of us have heard many times, because while some get tired of hearing about accomplishments, some quickly forget all about them. For example, Politico’s Roger Simon tweeted this message today:

The measure some get “a little tired of hearing about” isn’t even recognized by Politico’s chief political columnist.

And while some in media don’t even know what the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is, some Republicans remain actively hostile towards it.

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Former Republican congressman Pete Hoekstra, who is now running to unseat Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), weighed in on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on Thursday, saying the law was a “nuisance” that shouldn’t be in place. […]

“Will, you know, will repealing it be a priority? If you came back and said, you know, that’s really the thing that’s hurting my business the most. My guess is there are other things that we can do that have a higher priority in terms of what I, what I believe might need to be done. I think you know we need to create — that thing is a nuisance. It shouldn’t be the law,” replied Hoekstra.

The Fair Pay Act may seem obvious and noncontroversial, but let’s not forget that when the bill came to the House floor in 2009, 172 out of 175 House Republicans rejected it. And one of them, Hoekstra, wants to go to the Senate next year to help repeal this “nuisance.”

Incidentally, Mitt Romney, who doesn’t want to say whether he supports the Ledbetter law or not, is quite friendly with Pete Hoekstra. I wonder if he agrees with the idea that the Fair Pay Act is a “nuisance”?