Romney Campaign Enlists GOP Women Who Opposed Equal Pay Bills To Attack Obama

By Josh Israel on Apr 11, 2012 at 2:30 pm

As part of its bizarre strategy of blaming President Obama for the GOP’s “war on women,” the Romney campaign released statements today from two Republican Congresswomen, Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The statements correctly note that women have been hit particularly hard by job losses in recent years, butmisleadingly lay the blame for those losses on Obama, just as Romney himself has been doing recently.

“Mitt Romney supports pay equity for women and, as president, will do what President Obama has not — implement pro-growth economic policies that will allow women and all Americans to finally get back to work,” wrote McMorris Rodgers. “Women in the Obama economy are facing hardships of historical proportions,” added Bono Mack. “Simply put, women cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama.”

But their concern for pay equity and women in the workplace must be a recent development. Both congresswomen voted against the landmark Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 — which empowers women to seek restitution for pay discrimination — and both voted against the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have made it easier for women to fight pay inequality.

This morning, the Romney campaign refused to say during a conference call whether Romney supports the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first law that President Obama signed. The campaign later scrambled to assert that Romney “supports pay equity” and “is not looking to change current law.”