The bill seeks to give women workers new tools to combat pay discrimination. Senate GOP blocks pay equity bill

Senate Republicans banded together on Wednesday to block the Paycheck Fairness Act, a Democratic bill aimed at narrowing the pay gap between men and women.

The legislation failed to clear a 60-vote threshold to open debate on the bill, falling short, 53-44. Immediately after the vote, senior Democrats vowed that they will bring the bill up for future votes, daring the GOP to continually block a bill meant to appeal to women voters in a tight midterm election year.


“This isn’t over. Equal pay for equal work is going to remain center stage in this year’s agenda, and we are not going to let the Republicans who blocked this bill off the hook. That could absolutely mean another vote later in the year,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the chamber’s highest-ranking woman.

( Also on POLITICO: GOP not fazed by paycheck vote)

On Wednesday afternoon, President Barack Obama said it was “wrong” of the GOP to block the bill.

“Republicans in Congress continue to oppose serious efforts to create jobs, grow the economy and level the playing field for working families,” Obama said. “It’s harmful for our national efforts to rebuild an economy that gives every American who works hard a fair shot to get ahead.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) voted against the bill, which allows him to bring it up for another vote later in the year.

No Republican voted for the bill. Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, voted against the legislation.

King called it a “very difficult vote” but ultimately concluded that the bill “fails to address the real causes that are driving the wage gap.”

( WATCH: POLITICO's Driving the Day)

The bill seeks to give female workers new tools to combat pay discrimination by allowing workers to compare salaries without threat of employer retaliation, requiring companies to explain pay disparities and permitting those who claim discrimination to seek monetary damages.

The vote is one in a series of poll-tested measures that Senate Democrats plan to bring to the floor this year. It will be followed after the Easter recess by a bill to raise the federal minimum wage.

After engaging in a debate over unemployment insurance that dragged on for months, Senate Republicans decided to reject the Paycheck Fairness Act from the start, preferring to endure a day of tough headlines rather than a drawn-out debate over gender-based pay inequality.

“We see this for what it is, and it’s just another attempt by Democrats to distract from what is a very bad record when it comes to helping women in the economy,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). “That’s what this is all about, them trying to get a headline.”

( WATCH: Obama's full remarks on pay equity)

Republicans also said Reid was again stifling their amendments, a frequent GOP complaint. But the Democratic leader said Republicans offered few proposals that dealt with the underlying issue of closing the pay gap — and even if they had, he said, voting against opening debate on the bill was a strange way of pushing for their amendments.

“Today’s vote is to begin debate on the bill. Are they so repulsed by equal pay for hardworking women, they’ll obstruct equal pay for equal work?” Reid said Wednesday morning. “I’m at a loss as to why anyone would decline to debate this important issue.”

And in rejecting the vote, Democrats warned that the GOP will pay in November by voting against the Paycheck Fairness Act and turning off women voters.

“They’re out of touch. They’re so in their sort of conservative echo chamber that they don’t know what’s going on in America. And that’s going to help us dramatically in 2014,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

GOP senators said in interviews this week that pay inequity remains a problem in the United States but that the Democrats’ bill would do little to solve it. Republicans said the Paycheck Fairness Act is unnecessary, given existing laws in place that make pay discrimination illegal and Democrats’ 2009 passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which expanded women’s options for fighting employers’ sex discrimination.

( Also on POLITICO: Obama hits GOP over equal pay bill)

“There are two other laws that already cover this issue in addition to Lilly Ledbetter. I believe those laws should be enforced. And obviously I think it’s self-evident that I’m for women receiving equal pay. In fact, I’d like them to be paid more,” said Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.).

And Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), who developed an alternative to the Democratic bill, penned an op-ed in POLITICO on Wednesday morning that said women are tired of political pandering and being told what issues they should care about.

“Both political parties have spent considerable capital exploring ‘what women want.’ I think it’s pretty simple: Women (and men, for that matter) want security,” wrote the freshman senator.