And once again, you haven’t missed another law, but we do have another proposed law. The Fair Pay Restoration Act is proposed in response to and to change the results of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber, a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last year under Title VII.

Those in favor of this new law would say that in Ledbetter, the Court ruled employees can’t challenge ongoing pay discrimination if the employer’s original discrimination decision occurred more than 180 days before the most recent discrimination, even when an employee continues to receive paychecks that have been discriminatorily reduced for a long period of time. Supporters of the proposed law would also say that Ledbetter undermines the Congressional goal of eliminating discrimination from the workplace when it comes to pay.

Opponents of the proposed law would say that all the Supreme Court did in Ledbetter was to enforce the current law, which says that an employee must file a claim of discrimination within 180 days of the occurrence of the discriminatory act. To allow an employee to go back for 20 or so years (which is what Ms. Ledbetter was trying to do) runs afoul of the law and places a harsh burden on employers.

The Fair Pay Restoration Act says that an unlawful act is committed when a discriminatory compensation decision is adopted, when an employee becomes subject to the decision, or when an individual is affected by the application of the decision, including each time compensation is paid. It allows an aggrieved employee to recover back pay for up to two years preceding the filing of a charge of discrimination. This proposal would amend Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Where does Senator Clinton stand on this proposed law? She co-sponsored it, together with a bunch of other senators and members of the House of Representatives. The proposal has passed the House and is bogged down in the Senate.

It’s tempting to say that the Fair Pay Restoration Act won’t have the same impact on employers that the Civil Rights Act of 2008 or the ADA Restoration Act would have. I don’t know, though. There are a whole bunch of discrimination cases filed during the course of any year. A decent percentage of them relate to pay. So, it seems right to conclude that the passage of the Fair Pay Restoration Act would significantly increase the financial exposure that employers have in these cases.