After passing House, pay fairness bill stalls in Senate

Legislation to curb gender-based pay discrimination quickly passed in the House after President Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021, but it made no further progress in the Senate.

The Paycheck Fairness Act, sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and backed by Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign, passed the House on April 15, 2021. The near party-line vote was 217-210.

The measure would have limited employers' legal defense against gender-based pay-discrimination lawsuits to only "bona fide job-related factors." It would have strengthened protections for workers from being retaliated against when they complain about pay discrimination. And it also increased civil penalties for employers' violations, among other provisions.

However, a companion bill in the Senate never moved out of committee and is poised to die at the conclusion of the current session at the end of this year.

The Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., had the support of the other 49 Democratic senators. But in a chamber where 60 votes are typically required to break a filibuster and move to a final vote, Republican opposition stymied the bill. 

No Republican co-sponsored the measure in the Senate. In the House, only one Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, voted for it. Critics of the legislation cited the possibility of widespread lawsuits against businesses. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it "strongly opposes" the bill. 

Now that Republicans won enough seats in the midterm elections to take control of the House, the bill's chances in that chamber are effectively dead for the next two years. And while Democrats still control the Senate, their failure to pass the measure during Biden's first two years in office suggests that winning enough Republican support to break a filibuster is unlikely.

We rate this promise Stalled.