It’s hard to believe now, but from 1969 to 1996 no Democrats represented Oregon in the United States Senate. However, for much of that time the shade of Republicanism practiced in Oregon was a moderate one–and given that the GOP is now on a double-time march to the right, it may be a long time before Oregon elects another Republican to that body. Last week, Monica Wehby, the Republican hoping to derail Jeff Merkley’s bid for a second term as Oregon’s junior Senator, may have given us a pretty big reason why. Apparently she thinks robust federal laws regarding equal pay for women are a bad idea because they could actually keep women from getting jobs.
In an interview with KGW in Portland, Wehby spoke about the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have held employers responsible for wage discrimination against women and made the Department of Labor responsible for obtaining wage data. It was derailed in April when it came up seven votes short of the threshold for cloture. Wehby said she would have voted against the bill–as did all of the Senate’s Republican women–because she feels it could potentially put businesses at risk for lawsuits if they were found to be shortchanging their female employees’ paychecks. That risk, Wehby said, would make businesses “steer away” from hiring women altogether. As she sees it, it would have been an “unintended consequence” had this bill become law.
And yet, while Wehby thinks the Paycheck Fairness Act was flawed, she says she “would absolutely support” equal-pay legislation. Indeed, just a few days earlier she’d told MSNBC that she found it “hard to believe” that women were still “undervalued” in the workplace even today. She added that from her perspective as a female neurosurgeon–one of the few high-profile women in a field dominated by men–she firmly believes that women are “just as capable and valuable” as men.
So let’s see if we’ve got this right. Wehby supports equal pay, but doesn’t like a bill that would have held businesses accountable for not paying women what they’re worth? Which is it, Doctor? Merkley wanted to know as well. He found the argument so ridiculous that he simply posted a clip of the video on his YouTube channel, without any commentary.
A few months ago, Phyllis Schlafly offered what has to be the dumbest argument I’d ever heard against closing the pay gap between women and men–if women make as much as men, it would make it harder for women to find a boyfriend or husband since men prefer to earn more. Incredibly, she argued that because of this, the pay gap should actually go up. Wehby’s argument isn’t quite that dumb. But it’s certainly not going to help her close the gap with Merkley; she has consistently been behind by double digits in most recent polling. It’ll be very interesting to see if Merkley presses Wehby on this in any debates they have. If Wehby can’t come up with a better argument than this one, it may go down as the moment Merkley assured himself of a long tenure in the Senate.
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Darrell Lucus is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
