Dohiyi Mir
In Which NTodd Says His Peace
A Great Victory For American Workers
WaPo:
The Republican-controlled Senate voted yesterday to block new Labor Department rules that critics said would deny overtime pay to millions of white-collar workers, handing an embarrassing rebuff to the Bush administration on a politically sensitive jobs issue.
The Senate voted 52 to 47 to scrap the new rules despite recent changes to address earlier criticism, an intense lobbying campaign by Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao and a last-ditch GOP effort to avert defeat by proposing a long list of jobs for which overtime pay could not be eliminated.
Although the GOP's concessions were approved unanimously, they did not satisfy five moderate Republicans who broke ranks to vote with nearly all Democrats in favor of keeping the administration from cutting anyone's overtime pay.
But I'm sure the bastards at BushCo will try again. Last July, the House voted to let them go ahead with killing OT for upwards of 8 million workers (the DoL claimed "at least 644,000"). Fortunately, in September the Senate gave the House and BushCo a smackdown. I'm ever thankful for the Senatorial saucer...
ntodd
[Update: the roll call vote wasn't available when I first posted. The "moderate Rs" were: Campbell, Chafee, Murkowski, Snowe and Specter. The usual suspects, I guess. The only Dem to vote no? Miller, of course.]
