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How are my representatives voting on this issue?
December 15, 2005
The House passed legislation that lawmakers hope will restore health to the financially ailing employer-based pension system. The bill would require companies to meet their obligations to retirees while boosting the financial future of the federal agency that takes over abandoned pension plans. The Senate passed their version of pension reform in November.
November 8, 2005
On September 8 President Bush indefinitely suspended the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act. However, after facing intense opposition from the civil rights and labor communities, President Bush agreed to reinstate wage protections for workers rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Related story
October 19, 2005
On Wednesday, October 19, the Senate rejected Edward Kennedy's (D. Mass.) proposal to increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15/hour to $6.25/hour over an 18 month period. Similarly, the Republicans on the Education and Workforce also rejected an effort by Rep. George Miller (D. Calif.) to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25/hour over a 26-month period.
July 13, 2005
For tenth time in four years, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant has been extended for three months. The extension, which expires September 30, 2005, also includes the mandatory portion of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funds and the Transitional Medical Assistance (TMA) program.
July 12, 2005 Efforts to raise the national minimum wage, which has stagnated for eight years, were stalled yet again on July 12, when the House of Representatives refused to consider (223-191) an amendment to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour over the next two years. Full story
April 27, 2005
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2005 (H.R. 1227), also known as GINA, was introduced last month by Representatives Judy Biggert, R. Ill., Louise Slaughter, D. N.Y., Bob Ney, R. Ohio, and Anna Eshoo, D. Cal. The act would prevent health insurers from denying coverage or altering premiums based on an individual's predisposition to a genetic condition, and prohibit employers from discriminating on the basis of predictive genetic information. The Senate bill (S.306) passed by a vote of 98-0 on February 14, 2005. Related story
March 18, 2005
On March 18 the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005 was introduced in the Senate by Edward Kennedy (D. Mass.) and in the House by George Miller (D., Calif.). The Bill calls for an increase in the federal minimum wage from $5.15/hour to $7.25/ hour over two years.
March 9, 2005
The Senate Finance Committee released a TANF/Child Care reauthorization bill known as the Personal, Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone (PRIDE) Act. Included in this bill was a $6 billion increase in the Title XX Social Services Block Grant and a controversial provision which stated that a family cannot receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) unless all of the family's members have work-authorized Social Security numbers. Click for more information
March 9, 2005
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee reported out a bill reauthorizing the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). Among the bill's provisions are: an elimination of the eligibility goal of 85% of State Median Income for CCDBG and an increase in the amount that states must spend on activities in order to improve quality in child care from 4 to 6%. Click for more information
February 10, 2005
The Senate passed the Class Action Fairness Act (S. 5) 72-26, which revises the rules for class-action lawsuits. The House will take it up next week and send it to the president to sign into law.
February 09, 2005
The Senate voted against a Class Action Fairness Act amendment (40 to 59) that would have exempted civil rights and wage-and-hour state law cases from the bill, thereby preventing those cases from being moved to federal courts. Full Story.
January 25, 2005
Senate Republican leaders introduced the Class Action Fairness Act (S. 5), which would transfer interstate class actions from state court to federal court. One possible amendment would exclude from the bill's coverage class actions based on state civil rights or state wage and hour laws.
May 4, 2004
Amendment to Block the U.S. Department of Labor from Restricting Overtime Pay (S. 1637) The Department of Labor proposed a change in its interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. This shift would take away the right of as many as six million workers to collect overtime pay. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) offered an amendment to block the Labor Department's proposed rule. The Senate adopted the Harkin amendment (52-47).
March 25, 2003
Amendment to Increase Spending on the Workforce Investment Act Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) offered an amendment that would restore $687 million to worker training programs under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA). This amendment would conceivably provide job training for approximately 65,000 Americans. The amendment was adopted but ultimately taken out of the final conference report on the budget resolution.
May 15, 2003
H.R. 2 President Bush proposed additional tax cuts, in what he argued, would stimulate the economy. The Senate modified the request to reduce taxes by an additional $350 billion over 11 years. Included in the act were temporary tax break on dividend income, an acceleration of the child tax credit and the marriage penalty relief, an increase in the amount that businesses can claim as expenses, and an increase in the exemption amounts under the alternative minimum tax. Opponents of the measure said the measure would not promote economic growth or create new jobs and furthermore would harm the economy. The Senate approved the measure 51-49.
May 15, 2003
Temporary Extension of Unemployment Benefits (S. 1054) Senator Kennedy (D-MA) offered a piece of legislation whose purpose was to extend unemployment benefits for 6 months in order to prevent displaced workers from losing coverage. This amendment would provide 26 weeks of unemployment compensation, with an additional 13 weeks for workers who have exhausted federal benefits. A vote on the amendment was prevented by a Senate process known as a point of order.
107th Congress
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.) have introduced measures (S. 277 and H.R. 665) known as the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2002 to raise the minimum wage by $1.50 an hour over 18 months.
President Bush has stated that he will sign a minimum wage increase so long as it allows states to ignore the federal minimum wage law and establish their own minimum wages at levels lower than federal levels. This so-called "opt-out" provision would, in effect, end the federal minimum wage and its attempt to provide a uniform labor standard for the protection of American workers and their families. States are now allowed to enact higher minimum wage requirements of their own, and 11 states have done so. The opt-out proposal would make it much more difficult for states to sustain higher minimum wages and setting off a "race to the bottom" competition.
July 26, 2002
Senate and House negotiators announced they had reached an agreement on a bill that would rewrite bankruptcy laws. The bill would make it harder for people to escape debt when they declare for bankruptcy.
The bill would make American families who are already coping with decreases in social services and other "safety net" programs even more vulnerable when unforeseen crises-divorce, the death of a spouse, medical emergency, or job loss-occur. Minority families, single parents, children and older Americans would suffer disproportionately under this bill.
June 26, 2002
The California Assembly Insurance Committee passed SB 1661 by a vote of 11-7.
This legislation would expand the state's disability insurance program to provide up to 12 weeks of wage replacement benefits to workers who take time off work to care for a seriously ill child, spouse, parent, domestic partner, or to bond with a new child. The bill uses California's existing disability insurance program to provide benefits for family and medical leave purposes.
June 26, 2002
Senate Finance Committee passes the WORK Act by a vote of 13-8.
The Work, Opportunity, Responsibility for Kids (WORK) restores states' rights to use federal funds to provide benefits to legal immigrants who arrived in the United States after 1996. The bill also increases child-care subsidies and restores health care coverage for immigrant children and pregnant women who arrived in the country over the past six years.
June 24, 2002
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Hibbs v. Nevada Department of Human Resources.
William Hibbs was terminated from his job after taking leave to care for his ill wife. He sued the state of Nevada, arguing that state employees are guaranteed leave under the federal Family & Medical Leave Act The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Mr. Hibbs' favor, and the State of Nevada appealed.
February 5, 2002
Proposed budget raids the Social Security Trust Fund to help pay for tax cuts for the rich. President Bush's proposed fiscal year 2003 budget calls for siphoning almost $1 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund during the next decade. Bush's budget breaks a promise he made a year ago to a joint session of Congress that the Social Security Trust Fund would be set aside and not used for tax cuts or spending. While increased defense spending and the impact of the recession account for some of the funds, between 2004 and 2009 more than $500 billion of the Social Security Trust Fund will be used to pay for tax cuts that primarily benefit the rich.
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