As part of C-SPAN’s “Newsmaker” program, reporters interviewed Rep. Tammy Baldwin about the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, House legislation that would prohibit employers from discriminating against people based on sexual orientation.
Baldwin, D-Wis., acknowledged that even though the House passed the bill, it is not likely to become law in the 110th Congress because President Bush has threatened to veto it. “It was a historic vote,” she said.
Baldwin avoided entering the debate over Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican who this summer pleaded guilty in charges related to alleged homosexual activity in an airport men’s room. “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Baldwin said when asked if Craig is gay, and she declined to comment on whether he is a hypocrite for opposing gay rights while purportedly engaging in homosexual relations.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney granted an interview to technology blogger Michael Arrington of TechCrunch today. They discussed a few tech policy topics, including tech growth policies, Internet taxes, H-1B visas for high-skilled workers, venture-capital tax issues and renewable energy.
You can read the transcript at TechCrunch or listen to the interview.
The House Education and Labor Workforce Protections Subcommittee held a Sept. 18 hearing on legislation to expand the nation’s law on family and medical leave in order to help family members care for wounded soldiers. Under the bill, covered family members could take up to six months of unpaid leave.
Here are video excerpts featuring subcommittee Chairwoman Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., and the following witnesses: Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families; Jessica Perdew, deputy director of government relations for the National Military Family Association; and Sarah Wade, the wife of an Army sergeant injured in Iraq.
A new report of 46,000 job losses in manufacturing in August is “devastating news,” especially on top of the 3 million jobs lost since 2000, according to the National Association of Manufacturers. NAM President John Engler blamed the declines on “a cost strructure that’s out of control.”
“Thirty-two percent higher costs in this country, decisions not made in Beijing or Brussels but here at home, the lax of an energy strategy, a tax burden that’s the highest of the developed world, regulatory and legal litigation costs out of control — those are polilcy choices that have to be addressed,” Engler said. “Regardless of who’s controlled the Congress or even who’s been in the White House, we have not been aggressive as a nation in facing up.”
Family members of wounded veterans would be eligible for benefits under the Family and Medical Leave Act for six months under language co-authored by Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. The proposal has the support of both Democratic and Republican senators.
“Imagine if your husband or wife, or your son or your daughter, had been injured,” Clinton said on the Senate floor. “You’d want to be with them and want to take care of them. But you wouldn’t want to lose your job in the process. It’s not a choice that military families should take.”
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