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Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch sitting in a tree, B-S-i-n-g

Wisconsin enacted a law in 2009 which gave employees, especially women, more power to challenge pay discrimination to the state courts. With the law in place, gender pay gap in the state improved from 36th to 24th in the country (approximately $0.78 to the $1.00 that men made).

In 2012, however, Republican Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled state legislature decided to repeal this law.

Now with Governor Walker in a tight race with Democratic challenger Mary Burke, whom has been attacking him on this very repeal, Walker has decided to respond via Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, where she says the following in an ad:

"That's why I find it so insulting that Mary Burke would say that we're trying to make it harder for women to earn equal pay. Under Scott Walker, workplace discrimination will always be illegal, for any reason. Mary Burke wants to create more opportunities to sue. We want to create more opportunities for women to succeed."

What dumb and dumber are missing here is the fact that employment gender discrimination is illegal nationwide, yet women are still only making about $0.78 to the $1.00 that men are making for the same work. So, while gender discrimination in the workplace isn't "legal," it's still taking place with the pay gap as it is, and unless women are permitted to sue against these unfair pay practices, the non-discrimination laws aren't very helpful.

It's rather ironic what Lieutenant Governor Kleefisch stated in the ad. She claimed that Mary Burke just wants to give women more opportunities to sue, while she and Scott Walker want to give women more opportunities to succeed. However, as the state rankings showcased, women were given more opportunities to succeed when they were given more opportunities to sue, so it sounds to me that by she and Governor Walker not wanting to give women more opportunities to sue, they don't want to give them more opportunities to succeed.

Kleefisch's ad should have really gone like this:

"That's why I find it so insulting that Mary Burke would say we're trying to make it harder for women to earn equal pay, even though we repealed a bill which was making it easier for them to do so. Under Scott Walker, workplace discrimination will always be illegal, just like everywhere else, except when it comes to equal pay. Mary Burke wants to create more opportunities to sue, which, studies show, creates more opportunities for women to succeed. We want to create more opportunities for women to succeed by giving them fewer opportunities to sue, which has been shown to create more opportunities for them to succeed. Yeah, something like that."

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/29/3585912/scott-walker-ad-against-equal-pay/

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