Reid signals government jobs must take priority over private-sector jobs

From: The Hill's Floor Action

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday indicated Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.

"It's very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it's the public-sector jobs where we've lost huge numbers, and that's what this legislation is all about," Reid said on the Senate floor.

Reid was responding to recent comments from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who accused Democrats of purposefully pursuing higher taxes as part of the teacher/first-responder bill, S. 1723, so that Republicans would oppose it. McConnell said the bill was meant to fail in order to give Democrats an issue to run on in the 2012 election, but Reid said the Republicans are simply trying to defeat President Obama any way they can.

The legislation Reid is defending is part of Obama's jobs package. Vice President Biden was in Pennsylvania, an important election state, on Tuesday to push for the administration's plan on increasing the number of teachers.

Reid reiterated his emphasis on creating government jobs by saying Democrats are looking to "put hundreds of thousands of people back to work teaching children, have more police patrolling our streets, firefighters fighting our fires, doing the rescue work that they do so well … that's our priority." He said Republicans are calling the bill a "failure" because they are "using a different benchmark for success than we are."Private-sector jobs have increased over the last 19 months, while government jobs have lagged. They've also seen cuts in several states that are struggling to balanced their books.

Despite these comments, a spokesman for Reid pointed out that Senate Democrats have tried to pass several bills aimed at spurring private sector job growth, but have been blocked by Republicans. Among other things, Democrats have proposed tax cuts to help companies hire workers and write off expenses, as well as infrastructure jobs that would add to private construction payrolls.

"Senator Reid believes that Congress must work to spur job-creation in the private sector, which is why he's working to pass tax cuts for small businesses to hire new workers, tax cuts for small businesses to write off business expenses, and investments to create private-sector construction jobs," Spokesman Adam Jentleson said. "Republicans are blocking all of these proposals to create jobs in the private sector because they care more about defeating President Obama than putting Americans back to work."

Reid also said a majority of people polled support the bill, and that the tax hike needed to fund the $35 billion spending program is minimal.

"My friend, the Republican leader … is complaining about a tax of one-half of 1 percent … on people who make more than $1 million a year to pay for a program that would stop teachers from being laid off and rehire some of the teachers that have been laid off," Reid said.

Democrats who support the bill have said it would help save 400,000 teacher jobs and thousands of first-responder jobs that have either been cut or could soon be cut. Reid said Wednesday that these layoffs are "rooted in the last administration," but did not explain further.

Senate Democrats are hoping to pass S. 1723 as early as this week, although votes could be delayed until early November, depending on the progress made on passing a 2012 spending bill.

Reid also dismissed efforts by the Republican House to ease environmental regulations as a way to create jobs.

"The Republican response has been cutting back environmental health safeguards, I guess hoping that a sicker, more polluted country is a better place to create jobs, and it's not," Reid said.

Connecticut Lets Men In the Ladies Room?

From: CBS New York

The House of Representatives approved legislation late Thursday that provides protections from gender identity discrimination under Connecticut law.


The bill would include “gender identity or expression” as a protected characteristic along with race, national origin, sex and other attributes under current state law. It now moves to the Senate for further action.

State lawmakers voted 77 to 62 in favor of the bill, following five hours of debate that touched on such issues as employment law and whether pedophiles might be encouraged to misuse the law to track down young girls in women’s restrooms.

Proponents said the legal protections are needed to help a small group of people who’ve experienced discrimination regarding employment and housing matters.

“It is a reality, and there are members of our community who face this crisis in their own lives and all we’re doing tonight is saying that it’s not our place as a society to discriminate against those people.

It’s not our place as a majority of the population to decide that they are not entitled to the same rights and privileges that the rest of us enjoy,” said House Majority Leader Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden.

As the father of six-year-old daughter, St. Rep. Vincent Candelora says he has a concern. His child is too old to accompany him into a public restroom for men. So, if the two are out a restaurant, for example, he generally walks her to the ladies room and waits outside. What if, he wonders, she should be exposed to a male transgender in the bathroom.

“..and exposed to seeing, you know, male genitalia and as a result of that, it’s going to spark a conversation that I don’t necessarily think that my daughter is emotionally ready for,” he tells WCBS 880 Connecticut Bureau Chief Fran Schneidau.

Candelora admits the scenario is remote, but he believes the law, as written, is just too vague and he cast his vote against it.

But much of the debate focused on the potential for people to abuse the legislation.

Rep. Christopher Coutu, R-Norwich, said he worries that male pedophiles will become emboldened by the legislation and try to gain access to women’s restrooms. He said the legislation could prove disastrous.

The House narrowly defeated an amendment, proposed by Republicans, which would have created some exemptions under the law. For example, separate bathrooms based on gender and locker rooms would have been exempted. Some legislators said the bill created a potential hardship for business owners, especially those with public restrooms. Members of the Family Institute of Connecticut, a conservative group that dubbed the legislation “the bathroom bill,” sent numerous emails to legislators, warning how the bill could be abused by peeping toms and sex offenders.

The amendment failed on a 67-62 vote.

In attempt to quell some concerns, the bill was amended with language that allows a court to seek evidence of person’s gender identity issues, such as medical history, to determine if they’ve been discriminated against.

The amendment passed on a voice vote. The bill defines gender identity or expression as a person’s gender-related identity, appearance of behavior, even if that identity is different from what’s traditionally associated with the person’s physiology or sex at birth.

The legislation has been a perennial bill for years. Proponents are optimistic about its chances this year, however, because Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has said he’d sign the bill into law.

At times, Thursday’s debate was emotional, graphic and personal. One lawmaker, Rep. Richard Roy, D-Milford, spoke of a male cousin who decided last year to become a woman.

“I’m going to support (the bill) with the hope that we all move forward from tonight and treat all of our fellow human beings with a little respect, with no scorn and perhaps we can find some love,” he said.

Rep. Linda Scholfield, D-Simsbury, a health care consultant, provided her fellow lawmakers a detailed explanation of how people can be born with gender assignment issues, such as a mismatched mental gender and physical gender, or mismatched genitalia.

“We shouldn’t discriminate against people just because Mother Nature or God made them differently,” she said.