In a display of excessive campaign rhetoric Roslyn Democrat Adam Haber said his opponent in the race for the 7th State Senate, Jack Martins, wants “to deny equality to the women of New York.”
Haber made the attack while announcing his support for the Women’s Equality Act. “The women of Nassau County deserve fair pay,” said Haber. “They deserve to go to work without fear of sexual harassment and they deserve to be protected from domestic violence and its brutal fallout.”
The massive bill, introduced in Albany by the Democrats, is comprised of 10 parts protecting reproductive choice, establishing equal pay, aiding in the recovery of attorney fees in employment and credit and lending cases, cracking down on workplace sexual harassment and discrimination with regard to pregnancy, family status, housing and source-of-income and strengthening laws on human trafficking and orders of protection.
Much of what is included is already part of New York State law.
Under the state’s existing Equal Pay Law, “an employer may not pay different rates based on gender. Men and women must receive the same rate of pay if they work.” Human trafficking and sexual harassment in the workplace are likewise already against the law in New York.
Perhaps the biggest problem of this proposed legislation is not just its redundancy but the fact that it includes language expanding abortion rights that the authors had to know would be unacceptable to pro-life advocates.
At his press conference Haber said, “The women of Nassau County deserve fair pay. They deserve to go to work without fear of sexual harassment and they deserve to be protected from domestic violence and its brutal fallout.”
Does Haber really believe that Martins and others who oppose the Women’s Equality Act because of its language legalizing late-term abortions are opposed to efforts to reduce domestic violence and sexual harassment?
In a response, Martins said many of the reforms in the proposed legislation “have nothing to do with expanding late-term and partial birth abortions and allowing non-doctors to perform abortions, which is why they should not be linked.”
He called Haber a “hypocrite” for holding worthwhile reforms “hostage” to his abortion agenda.
We suspect that few of the state legislators have taken the time to read this massive piece of legislation. And yet they are willing to vote for it based on no more than a one-paragraph summary.
You can read A08070 yourself at: https://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A08070&term=&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Votes=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y#jump_to_Text.
The authors of this bill should go back to the drawing board and break it up into digestible pieces that can be debated on their own merits – bills that the legislators and governor might actually read.
All-or-nothing bills like this are good for politics but are not good government.
