Howard Dean revealed his hand in late July when protestors forced him in Charleston to address whether August’s rollcall vote. This is what he said: “There will be a roll call vote at the convention if Hillary Clinton wants one,” he said.’ “We all respect each other and we certainly respect Sen. Clinton. This is a unified party. It is not easy to be on the losing side, and I know … because four years ago, I was on the losing side.”
Let’s dissect this:
“There will be a roll call vote at the convention if HRC wants one.”
In other words, a roll call vote is up to the willfulness of a candidate, not based on the traditions and values of the democratic party. It’s based on whether HRC selfishly pursues her candidacy and disrupts the facade of party unity.
“We all respect each other and we certainly respect Sen. Clinton.”
Having a roll call vote is a ceremonial show of respect and nothing more. If Clinton respects us, she’ll sacrifice her place on a ballot and promote our selection of party candidate. (more…)
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Obama’s words don’t often seem to match his actions. In one area where that’s the case is equal pay. Yes, he voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2008, the act intending to extend the time employees may sue employers for pay discrimination. But he doesn’t seem to do much for his staff, in following through on this vote. (The Act by the way didn’t pass, by the way, and Clinton voted for it too.)
A review of congressional salaries shows that Obama pays women roughly $6,000 less than men on his staff. See article Here. Legistorm publishes information on staff salaries, and that’s the source I used since when looking at salaries. The source used in other articles was a report published by the Secretary of the Senate, which I didn’t have access to, but Legistorm’s information was good enough to take a gander. Their site is here. Created in 2006 by a nonpartisan group, they watchdog congressional offices for how taxpayer money is spent.
When pay information came out about payscales, Obama people cried foul. They said it wasn’t the fault of their Chosen One, that women earned less. The fault was Obama’s COS or civil service regulations that set pay in stone. Not so according to the Congressional Management Foundation, based in DC. They responded to my email query this way: “Each House and Senate Office runs like a small business. While each has to abide by the rules of their respective chambers (ex, the House has a limit on the number of fulltime staff), they each can make their own decisions about positions and pay. Often decisions are made by the Chief of Staff and usually the Senator. Because of this, staff can be paid a wide range of salaries.” (more…)
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