Rob Andrews: “I wanted to clear up what I think were three inaccuracies in my friend from Minnesota's statement about the bill. First…”

“I wanted to clear up what I think were three inaccuracies in my friend from Minnesota's statement about the bill. First of all, this bill will not extend an endless statute of limitations. It restores the statute of limitations the law recognized until the ill-considered Ledbetter decision. It essentially says you have 180 days after each paycheck to make your claim. If you don't make your claim, your claim expires. It doesn't extend the statute beyond that. Second, with respect to pensions, the bill makes it clear in the ``findings'' section that the same law that applied to pensions is not touched by this bill at all. The courts have generally recognized that when the pension structure is put in place and the person gets their pension, the clock starts running, and if the time expires after that, your ability to make the claim expires after that. Finally, with respect to the point that is made about people who never worked for the employer being able to sue, I think that is simply not an accurate statement. What is true is if someone suffers discrimination and their estate is owed money for what they would have earned when they were working, the estate is absolutely entitled to recover that sum of money because the man or woman who died would have recovered that. So this is a good bill. There was an extensive hearing on this issue previously. I would urge the House to do the right thing and adopt this bill.”