Brown killed the Paycheck Fairness Act… And reaps rewards

from Bold Progressives – Last June, Senate Republicans filibustered and killed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which was designed to make sure women can get equal pay for equal work at their jobs.

One of the Senators who joined this filibuster effort was Scott Brown (MA). Brown — who, remember, is running misleading commercials claiming he is a friend to women voters — told the media the bill would’ve placed “job-killing burdens on small businesses.”

But what the media didn’t report was that many of the same Big Business front groups and lobbyists that battled the bill behind the scenes have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to re-elect Brown since he helped kill fair pay for women.

In the days leading up to the Senate vote for the bill, corporate lobbyists from groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) lined up to oppose it. One group, the Society for Human Resource Management, mobilized human resources officers at corporate firms to lobby senators to kill the bill.

The resulting filibuster ended up killing the bill, in a blow to women everywhere who are discriminated against in the workplace. But as is often the case in Washington, the vote was just the beginning. The payoff was what senators like Brown were waiting for.

Before the vote, Brown received $238,028 from interests opposed to the bill. But in his campaign against bold progressive Elizabeth Warren, the real payday arrived. Two weeks ago, Norquist’s ATR dropped $162,000 on mailers attacking Warren on behalf of Brown.

Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which has in the past been caught taking funding from overseas corporations like the state-owned Bahrain Petroleum Company — spent $300,000 to hire Meridian Strategies, a firm based in the Washington, D.C. area, to produce and send mailers attacking Elizabeth Warren.

These are just two of the most prominent groups of corporate lobbyists that opposed the Paycheck Fairness Act who are now bankrolling Brown. Others include the so-called National Federation of Independent Business, Food Marketing Institute, and National Restaurant Association.

Remember also that certain outside groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS are also spending big to support Brown and attack Warren, but we don’t even know which corporations finance that group because of the special tax status that it can claims. Conveniently, Brown filibustered and killed the DISCLOSE Act, which would’ve forced Rove to disclose all of his corporate and billionaire donors.

Read more: HOW SCOTT BROWN SOLD OUT FAIR PAY FOR WOMEN FOR LOBBYIST CASH

 

Elizabeth Warren on What It Means to Stand Up for Women and Girls

When He Had His Chances, He Voted Against Women, Over and Over

from WGBH – Touting his record on women’s issues, Scott Brown identified himself as pro-choice, referenced his wife and daughters, and said (as he had in the first debate) that he’d been fighting for women since he was six — a reference to his defense of his mother from an abusive boyfriend at that tender age.

Warren responded, in essence: I believe Scott Brown is a good father and a good husband.

But every time he’s had a chance to cast a single, defining vote on issues involving women — whether it’s abortion rights or equal pay — he’s voted the wrong way.

My paraphrased recap really doesn’t do justice to the power of Warren’s riposte; after she delivered it, Brown looked both disoriented and demoralized.

Read more: http://wgbhnews.org/post/brown-vs-warren-round-three-good-night-professor

Justice Scalia is Scott Brown’s idea of a great Supreme

from Bold Progressives —

During tonight’s Massachusetts Senate debate, moderator David Gregory asked the candidates who their “model” Supreme Court Justice is. Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) replied by saying that his model was far-right justice Antonin Scalia.

The crowd began booing, which prompted Brown to start naming off other justices he also favored, most of them conservatives.

It’s incredibly telling that Scalia is the first one to come to Brown’s mind. Here’s a primer on Scalia’s views:

• He Loves Money In Politics: Scalia was the deciding vote in the Citizens United case to open new floodgates of corporate money in our elections. In a television appearance discussing the case, he compared billionaire spending in our elections to free speech. Brown helped kill the DISCLOSE Act, which would’ve exposed some of the corporations and billionaires buying our elections.
• He Has Extreme Views On Immigration: Scalia was a huge backer of Arizona’s draconian anti-immigration law, and even cited Southern slavery laws in his court defense of Arizona’s measure. Perhaps Brown was taking after Scalia when he voted to kill the DREAM Act.
• He Is Stridently Against  Womens Rights: Scalia voted with the court’s conservative justices in the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. case to limit discrimination suits over equal pay. He is also tirelessly opposed to abortion rights. Keep in mind that Brown voted against women and with lobbyists the anti-discrimination Paycheck Fairness Act.
• He’s An Apologist For Torture: During a 2008 radio interview, Scalia said it’s “absurd” to say the government can’t hit prisoners “in the face.”
• He’s Anti-Gay: Scalia was the dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which invalidated America’s last sodomy laws (focusing on Texas). Remember that Brown has refused to endorse marriage equality.
• He Has Said It Isn’t Unconstitutional To Execute The Innocent: A fervent advocate for the death penalty, Scalia has even said there’s nothing unconstitutional about executing innocent people.

Scalia is one of the most hard-right justices in the modern history of the court. It’s telling that Brown names him as his “model,” and his state’s voters should remember that.

Read more: http://boldprogressives.org/meet-scott-browns-model-supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia/

Challenges of a Female Candidate (especially in Massachusetts)

To be clear, this isn’t the main thing supporters of Elizabeth Warren need to be worried about. However, we should be aware of the “special” obstacles faced by women candidates–and maybe especially women candidates in Massachusetts, where we’ve never had a woman Senator. From Robert Kuttner/Huffington Post:

Warren is in the classic dilemma of a female candidate. If she tries to keep the focus on the issues, as she did in the first debate, she runs the risk of failing to respond to Brown’s charges and looking weak.

If she hits back, she risks looking “strident,” (a charge seldom applied to male candidates.) And if she says “Shame on you, Senator” for his more outrageous lies, she risks playing into the “school-marm” stereotype.

For more reading/analysis on women in politics, see the “Name It Change It” campaign :

Scott Brown’s Report Card on Women’s Issue

Needham Letter: Women for Warren! (Elaine Becker, Dorothy DeSimone, Gemma Leghorn)

Letter to the editor – We support Elizabeth Warren because as a grandmother, as mothers, and as daughters we understand the importance of having a no-compromise, no-exceptions advocate for women’s rights in the U.S. Senate.

Scott Brown is a member of the Republican Party whose members have introduced bills that severely restrict a woman’s right to make decisions about her health and her body, in some cases by imposing invasive and humiliating roadblocks.

Brown himself co-sponsored a bill that, under the guise of protecting religious freedom, would have allowed all employers to deny contraception benefits to women employees. He voted against the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, a Princeton, Oxford and Harvard Law School graduate and Solicitor General, claiming she lacked experience. Of course, that was just a cover for Scott Brown to vote the Republican Party line.

Elizabeth Warren will stand up for women.  If some day a young Needham woman testifies before Congress on a controversial topic, Elizabeth will praise her good citizenship and defend her against the slurs and vilification of right wing Republicans.

Elizabeth understands that women have come too far to take a step backward.

Elaine Becker (a grandmother, mother, and daughter)  

Dorothy DeSimone (a mother and daughter)               

Gemma Leghorn (a daughter)

 Read more: Needham Letter: Women for Warren – Needham, Massachusetts – Needham Times

Needham Letter: Kennedy family set the record straight (Jim Miara)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | LETTERS | CONTESTING THE KENNEDY LEGACY

THE GLOBE is absolutely correct to point out that the record of Edward M. Kennedy, like that of any public figure, is fair game for public comment (“Kennedy family isn’t the only interpreter of senator’s legacy,’’ Editorial, Feb. 29). Of course, Senator Scott Brown shares that right.

But as a public figure himself, Brown’s comments are also fair game for everyone, including Kennedy’s family. Patrick Kennedy’s recent request to Scott Brown to remove an ad claiming that Brown and Senator Kennedy shared similar views on whether employers should be allowed to opt out of covering contraceptives on moral grounds was no more than an attempt to set the record straight.

Further, the Globe is being disingenuous to suggest that legitimate confusion exists about Edward Kennedy’s views. Patrick Kennedy, very appropriately, is making it clear that his father and Scott Brown would be on opposing teams.

Jim Miara

Needham

Emily’s List: Brown is ‘Straight-up lying”

Emily’s list said in a release that “Scott Brown is straight-up lying to Massachusetts voters with his latest ad.”

“Brown does not support a woman’s right to choose – his anti-choice voting record has earned him the support of an anti-choice organization in this very campaign,” said Stephanie Schriock, President of EMILY’s List. “And Brown does not support equal pay for women – he actually voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act.”

Brown voted with other Republicans in June to block the Paycheck Fairness Act, saying it would spark lawsuits and unreasonably hamper employers. The bill would have required employers to provide a reason for disparities in pay, among other new requirements.

Read more: Scott Brown ad highlights his abortion stance, drawing criticism from Emily’s List – Political Intelligence  – Boston.com – http://bo.st/UaKBLQ

see also: Scott Brown defends defeated Blunt Amendment health care bill | masslive.com (3/1/2012) http://bit.ly/UaLAMf

On the Issues

Put the candidates next to each other and see where they stand on the issues.

Bookmark, print out, share, this handy breakdown of Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown on the issues:

https://needham4elizabeth.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/warren-contrast-one-pager.pdf

(It’s a pdf of campaign literature volunteers are bringing to the doors–voter-by-voter, it’s how we’ll win!)

Polls show that Elizabeth is surging. As voters learn about Brown’s record, they see that he is not who he says he is, and that he is not standing up for us and our Massachusetts values.

Help get the word out!

(for more side-by-side comparisons, see the RESOURCES/Policy page)