Rick Allen: “When considering any legislation, the House should first determine whether the legislation is needed and, next, whether…”

“When considering any legislation, the House should first determine whether the legislation is needed and, next, whether the bill under consideration will adequately address or improve the situation. The Committee on Education and Labor, unfortunately, did not have a full hearing on H.R. 1230 and heard from only one witness, invited by the Democrats, about the bill at a general hearing on multiple topics. This legislation, at the very least, deserved a standalone hearing so that committee members and the House could get more information to make a considered decision regarding this legislation. Publicly available data does not show the Supreme Court decisions in Gross v. FBL Financial Services or Nassar v. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have discouraged individuals from filing discrimination charges with the EEOC, which is the primary agency that enforces Federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate. A discrimination charge is a signed statement asserting employment discrimination. The lone Democrat-invited witness who testified in favor of H.R. 1230 at the Committee on Education and Labor's hearing in May, which covered several topics and bills, acknowledged that it is difficult to quantify the impact that the Gross decision has had on the number of older workers who bring cases and the number of those who win them.…”