The Washington Examiner’s Betsy Woodruff writes that Texas Republicans are “jittery” over Democrat Wendy Davis’ equal pay lawsuit law gambit. In that gambit, Davis is pushing a state law that more or less mirrors the equal pay lawsuit law that President Obama already signed on the federal level. Why we even need a state law when there’s already a federal law isn’t addressed much, either by Woodruff or by Davis herself. Apparently we need a state lawsuit law because Wendy Davis needs something to talk about and the media needs something to get breathless about.
The law Davis proposes doesn’t actually do very much. No one in this day and age doesn’t support the concept of equal pay for equal work. The question is whether we need a law, and in the case of the law that Davis supports, whether we need a law that makes it easier for people to file lawsuits. Trial lawyers may support that, because it’s good for their bottom line. But Texas is a tort reform state. Trail lawyers aren’t the most popular critters around here. The last Democrat to run for governor got tagged a “liberal trail lawyer” so much that the phrase became as much a part of Bill White’s name as his actual name. He had to have “liberal trial lawyer” surgically removed. He lost, for that and many other reasons. Liberal trial lawyers like Steve Mostyn fund the Democratic Party in Texas. That’s one of the reasons that the Democrats here keep siding with trail lawyers, and against the majority of Texans. And they lose. Mostyn’s millions haven’t and won’t change any of this.
Woodruff didn’t ask me to comment on the “jitters” that she finds among Texas Republicans — those she does quote, she quotes anonymously, leaving readers to guess who they are (and I have a couple of suspects) — but if she had, I would have expressed no jitters at all. Davis has yet to produce any anxiety whatsoever. The truth is, Wendy Davis isn’t even a very credible candidate in this state. That could change, but so far there’s no evidence of that happening.
Wendy Davis has spent the first months of her campaign floundering around embarrassingly. She claimed to be “pro-life” when she is most famous for supporting unrestricted late-term abortion in substandard clinics, at the behest of the ravenous abortion lobby. Her filibuster helped her tally up donations in leftist enclaves outside Texas, but it brought dishonor on the state at the time, with the “Hail Satan” chants and all the other despicable things her allies did. Davis claims that she’s pro-gun despite her attempt to kick gun shows off Fort Worth city property. Wendy Davis is against voter ID; most Texans support it. She sued a newspaper because it hurt her feelings. Wendy Davis got caught fudging her own origins story.
It’s true that Davis has finally found a bit of traction over this equal pay lawsuit law, but there’s no substance here. The law does very little, to the point that it’s redundant. There is no evidence that states that have their own equal pay lawsuit laws do any better on the actual equal pay front than states that don’t. In fact, there’s no evidence that the federal law does very much. The president and his party are certainly not angels on equal pay — they talk a good game but they’re all talk. The Democrats including Wendy Davis pay women less than men. I’ll resist going full Molly Ivins and declaring that Wendy Davis’ equal pay lawsuit law maneuver is “all hat and no cattle,” but it is. So I guess I didn’t resist too hard. Sorry. But there’s just no there there.
Davis’ campaign is in such bad shape that they’re importing staff from Team Harry Reid, but those imports will soon find out that Texas is not Nevada and tactics that work there won’t work here. They won’t have their union buddies to muscle things around here. Texas is a right-to-work state. Texans also don’t take to being insulted by politicians, something Harry Reid seems genetically disposed to do just about every day. In the end, perhaps Reid’s castaways will render Wendy Davis every bit as popular as he is.
Davis herself is a poor candidate in Texas. She might be able to win something elsewhere, but she is a leftist and Texas is a conservative state in which Barack Obama and his policies are unpopular. Wendy Davis is not just an Obama Democrat, she supports everything he has done. Wendy Davis supports Obamacare, which means she supports a law that most Texans reject. Davis is also with Obama on taxes, border security, the whole dishonest “war on women” schtick — all of it. Wendy Davis has yet to express any differences with Obama or the national Democrats at all. If she did have any such differences, they surely would have come out by now.
Now, I get why media within Texas would write about “jittery Republicans” and the equal pay lawsuit law. Media here desperately want a real race for governor. They say so all the time. There hasn’t been a close race here in 20 years, mainly because the Democrats are so awful and out of touch (also because the Republicans here tend not to be squishes). Media here have a rooting interest in having a real statewide race, just so they’re not bored from now to November (and because most media here are Democrats, of course). The Texas media comes up with silly stories like this one just to pass the time, in which they drop the most important quote after the bold headline and lead-in. I’ll set it apart so no one can miss it.
Davis faulted Abbott for successfully fighting a 2011 pay discrimination case in court — albeit one based on race and nationality and not gender…
So…Wendy Davis didn’t know what she was talking about and launched a baseless attack. Not the first time that’s happened, probably won’t be the last.
When Davis was asked afterward about why women make more than men on her Senate and campaign staffs, she said that the pay differential was based on differences in experience and ability. Asked whether that might not be the same case among assistant attorneys general, Davis said, if so, it was up to the attorney general to explain and defend that circumstance.
Abbott’s office did make that case. Try to keep up, Sen. Davis.
We’re more than half a year away from the election. Wendy Davis launched this lawsuit law attack far too soon, she cannot sustain it for months on end, and the fundamentals of this state’s politics are very much not in her favor. I get that she is trying to change that, but she’ll fail because she and her party are out of touch with most Texans. Davis won’t even have any useful help from MSNBC, since politics have gotten so bad for Democrats that their pet network’s earnings are down the tubes. Davis might land a gig there after November, though. They’ll be looking for new talent to replace their current roster failures. Wendy Davis will need a job.
Texas politics and the currents of national politics support Republicans winning races even in some purple and blue states this year. We’re looking at a 2010+ result nationally unless things change dramatically. Texas is not blue, or even purple. Texas is a red state. By what reasoning is there a case to be made that Wendy Davis can run successfully here? Harry Reid’s hatchet men will end up tasting Texas-style defeat, and then head back to Nevada to find that their old boss isn’t even the Senate Majority Leader anymore.
We’re not jittery here in Texas, well, other than maybe being jittery with the thought that football season is getting closer. That’s always exciting. The race for governor of Texas won’t be.
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