Lilly Ledbetter Takes a Seat in Maine Legislature

I can see the headlines now: "Brawl breaks out in office over pay records." "Worker stabbed in parking lot for being paid too much." "Supervisor assaulted by angry employees over pay disparity."

This also falls under the category of "What were they thinking?"

After Congress passed and the president signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which makes fair pay discrimination cases the only other offense besides first-degree murder to have no statute of limitations, some states moved into action, one being Maine.

There, in the home of Democrat-in-Republican-clothing Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, a Lilly Ledbetter clone named Deborah Simpson, who happens to be a Democratic state senator, introduced a law to enable employees to share their paystub information.

"So, you make $1,250 a week? Who the h--- do you think you are?" he exclaimed while cold-cocking his coworker across the aisle.

"You b----! You mean I've been working here ten years and you six months, and you make that much more than me!" she shreiked while pulling apart her coworker's perfectly coiffed bouffant hair by painful hair.

I may be making those scenarios sound unrealistic because they're too openly spiteful. No doubt the real retaliation would be more subtle, as in the Klingon prescription that "revenge is a dish best served cold."

Unless I'm missing something here, this all seems surreal, but the "Act to Ensure Fair Pay," as it's called, has surprising support in the Maine capital of Augusta.

Representatives from several organizations testified in support of the bill, including those from the Maine Women’s Lobby, the Maine Civil Liberties Union, the WAGE Project, and the Maine State Employees Association. William Peabody, director of the state Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Standards, also voiced support.