BATON ROUGE — As we mark Equal Pay Day, the date representing how far into the new year an average woman in America would have to work to be paid the same as her male counterparts were in 2014, it’s important to remember the repeated failure of Sen. David Vitter to vote in support of pay equality. When given the opportunity to stand up for women in Louisiana and throughout our country, Vitter voted no. He voted no against the Paycheck Fairness Act in 2008, and again in 2010.
Given another opportunity to lead and to be an advocate for women’s equality when he was re-elected to the Senate, Vitter again failed the test and voted against Paycheck Fairness in 2012 and in 2014. He also voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. His ratings from women’s advocacy groups, including the American Association of University Women, are a dismal 20 percent. Four-fifths of the time, he votes against efforts to address women’s economic equality. 100 percent of the time, Vitter fails the test of leadership and refuses to stand up and demand equal pay for equal work.
“As he campaigns to follow Governor Jindal’s path into the governor’s mansion, Sen. Vitter tries to pretend that he’s a different man than the one who took his oath to Grover Norquist, that he’s not as extreme as his record explicitly shows him to be,” said Stephen Handwerk, executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party. “His opposition to equal pay for our mothers, our daughters and our sisters is out of step with Louisiana values, and it hurts Louisiana families.”
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