Kay Bailey Hutchison: “our regulatory reform debate has ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous and back. Today I would like to weigh in…”

“our regulatory reform debate has ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous and back. Today I would like to weigh in briefly on the side of the ridiculous. The dressing room of a fine women's clothing store may seem like an odd place for the EEOC to intrude in a way that perfectly illustrates regulatory excess, but that is exactly where we find ourselves today. The firm in question, Lillie Rubin, is a successful 49-year-old business with 60 affiliates, specializing in clothes for women. But the EEOC is measuring Lillie Rubin for a new outfit, and I think it seems like more of a straitjacket than a woman's dress. In opposition to its own regulations and its own previous decisions, the EEOC has ruled that a Lillie Rubin store in Phoenix must employ male salespeople, and it is demanding that they be allowed to work in the store's fitting rooms where female customers try on clothes. I know this does not sound like an EEOC case so much as an 'I Love Lucy' rerun, but it is true. However much our society has changed, I still believe that certain standards prevail, and I believe this dress store's customers should not be guinea pigs in a new Government experiment. I am astounded that an agency of the Government would seek to strong-arm a private business into violating basic standards in such an outrageous way.”