Power Up: Soccer stars head to Washington as Congress reviews equal pay legislation

As lawmakers move ahead with equal pay legislation, professional soccer player and activist Megan Rapinoe is set to testify at an Oversight and Reform hearing this morning to examine the long-term economic impacts of gender inequity. Then, Rapinoe, Margaret Purce and other members of the U.S. women’s national team will visit President Biden and first lady Jill Biden at the White House in the afternoon for an event marking the day.  

• “Today is ‘Equal Pay Day,’ but it is not a celebration,” House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) will say in her opening statement provided early to Power Up. “This day marks the extra days and weeks it takes American women to earn the same pay that their male counterparts made the previous year.  Three extra months of work, just to earn the same amount. This is a disgrace, and has long-term consequences for women and families.”
• Since the pandemic, Maloney will say, “women without access to paid leave have been forced to decide whether to forego income or step back from their professions in order to care for themselves or their loved ones.”

Nationally, the gender pay gap has narrowed in recent years but women are still paid about 17% less than men — and women of color, who have been hit disproportionately hard by the coronavirus pandemic, earn even less.  

• “Black women are paid only 63 cents for every dollar paid to white men, and Latinas are paid only 55 cents for every dollar paid to white men,” per a House Oversight. 
• “Women have suffered the majority of pandemic-related job losses: since February 2020, women have lost over 5.4 million net jobs, and account for 55.0% of overall net job loss since the start of the crisis,” according to a National Women’s Law Center study released in January.

With Democrats now in full control of Washington, they are trying again with initiatives that have been repeatedly blocked by congressional Republicans. The House is once again pressing forward with Paycheck Fairness Act, which attempts to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963. And the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would clarify vague discrimination laws and put businesses on the hook to provide accommodations women need to do their job while pregnant. 

Meanwhile, Rapinoe and her teammates are still embroiled in their own fight for pay parity with the U.S. men’s team. They have settled part of a gender discrimination lawsuit with U.S. Soccer as the organization agreed to provide amenities equal to the men’s team — such as charter flights and equitable playing venues — but are still pursuing legal avenues to be paid equal rates as the men’s team after their case was dismissed by a judge last year.  

• Earlier in March, Reps. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) and Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced legislation demanding equal pay for USWNT: The bill, coming three months after players settled part of its lawsuit, aims to “force [U.S. Soccer’s] hand and finally give the most accomplished soccer players in the United States wages on par with those of the US Men’s National Team,” per Business Insider’s Meredith Cash. 

In sports, the disparities can range from pay to the amenities and facilities offered to women. Most recently, women’s NCAA basketball players highlighted the startling inequity between the men’s and women’s tournaments on social media, resulting in widespread outrage and an independent investigation of the conditions. 

• “It has used the memorable phrase to turn the men’s tournament into a billion-dollar juggernaut, and at the same time declined to use it for the women’s tournament that has grown in popularity in recent years. The result is that the NCAA has held back a valuable asset from the women’s tournament even as it now says it is committed to putting it on an equal footing with the men’s tournament.” 
• Our colleague Sally Jenkins noted in an excoriating column that the NCAA “provides no payouts to women — at all. It refuses to factor the women into any revenue-sharing.”
• “One can make an economic argument that men should get a larger benefit and payout because they have higher ratings and attendance and tickets cost more,” sports economist Andrew Zimbalist told Sally. “But to say that women should get nothing, when we all know they are on ESPN and in large arenas where they sell out and are valuable — that is totally unacceptable. It’s a clear case of discrimination.”

BACK-TO-BACK SHOOTINGS PROMPT BIDEN TO CALL FOR ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN: “President Biden on Tuesday called for tightening of the nation’s gun laws, plunging him into an impassioned debate that he largely tiptoed around until it erupted anew after two mass shootings,” our colleagues Sean Sullivan, Paul Kane and Seung Min Kim report. 

• “Biden proposed a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, as well as an expansion of background checks during gun sales … [But] any gun legislation is expected to face major hurdles in the Senate, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.”

THE GUN CONTROL DEBATE IS BACK, BUT WILL IT GO ANYWHERE?: “Senators, assemble, stage left and stage right, and face the audience. Now, express your outrage and frustration,” the New York Times’s Giovanni Russonello writes. “This theatrical blocking is all too familiar, playing out with an uncanny consistency every time a mass shooting takes place.” Here’s what lawmakers are saying this time:

• Democrats: “In addition to a moment of silence, I would like to ask for a moment of action,” Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence. “We are Senate leaders. What are we doing?”
• Republicans: “Every time there’s a shooting, we play this ridiculous theater,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said during the hearing. “What happens in this committee after every mass shooting is Democrats propose taking away guns from law-abiding citizens because that’s their political objective.”
• But even before the recent shootings, the House passed two bills “aimed at closing loopholes in the criminal background checks,” our colleagues Sean Sullivan, Paul Kane and Seung Min Kim report. But Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) “opposes the bills as too far reaching, effectively dooming their prospects in the 50-50 Senate.”

A former president weighed in:

TAX HIKES GALORE: “White House officials are exploring tax increases on businesses, investors and rich Americans to fund the president’s multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and jobs package,” our colleagues Jeff Stein and Tony Romm report. 

• “The president has said his tax increases will not affect people earning less than $400,000 per year. He and his advisers have called for funding the next major domestic priority with higher levies on wealthy Americans, citing the relative success enjoyed by the affluent during a pandemic that has pummeled the working class.”
• Republicans have condemned the proposal. “Rep. Kevin Brady (Tex.), the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, slammed the emerging infrastructure proposal as one that would ‘fleece American workers, families and Main Street businesses.’”

IS A MINIMUM WAGE COMPROMISE ON THE HORIZON?: “Moderate Senate Democrats are pushing their leaders for a more modest approach to the party’s signature minimum wage hike, arguing for a compromise that can attract broader support after the defeat of a $15 hourly wage proposal,” Politico’s Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine report. 

• “Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) convened a meeting on the topic Tuesday afternoon … Given the differences between Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on the issue, attendees expected a collision. But the meeting was promising, Democrats said.”

BIDEN EXTENDS AFFORDABLE CARE ACT SIGN-UPS: “Biden announced Tuesday that the federal insurance marketplace will remain open for consumers to buy Affordable Care Act health plans through mid-August, doubling the length of an unprecedented extra enrollment period that launched last month,” our colleagues Amy Goldstein and Seung Min Kim report. 

• On Tuesday, a U.S. delegation led by Roberta Jacobson, the White House’s immigration czar, met with Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and other Mexican officials to “develop an effective and humane plan of action to manage migration.”

• “The missile tests represent north Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s first challenge to Biden … [and] renewed pressure on the United States to develop a strategy to address a nuclear threat that has bedeviled successive Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.”

REMEMBERING THE 10: “Boulder police on Tuesday identified the 10 victims of the mass shooting at the Table Mesa King Soopers. Victims included grocery store workers, a police officer rushing to the scene and beloved individuals who just happened to be shopping on a Monday afternoon,” the Denver Post’s Tynin Fries reports. 

• Denny Stong, 20
• Neven Stanisic, 23
• Rikki Olds, 25
• Tralona Bartkowiak, 49
• Teri Leiker, 51
• Eric Talley, 51
• Suzanne Fountain, 59
• Kevin Mahoney, 61
• Lynn Murray, 62
• Jody Waters, 65

The “Boulder shooting suspect’s gun would’ve been illegal under city’s now-void assault-weapon ban,” the Denver Post’s Elise Schmelzer reports. Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, “purchased a Ruger AR-556 pistol on March 16, six days before the mass killing… A gun like the Ruger AR-556 pistol was banned in Boulder until March 12, when a Boulder County District Court judge ruled the city’s ban on assault weapons and magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds was illegal.”

• “The ruling means that the ban has been unenforceable since March 12, but Boulder police did not issue any citations under the ban during the two years it was in place. The ordinance also allowed people to keep a banned weapon in their car while traveling in the city.”

• “Colorado is known for its gorgeous mountain views, but its history of violence is as ugly as that of any other place in America: the Sand Creek Massacre, the Denver Anti-Chinese Riot, the Ludlow Massacre. In more recent times, Colorado has been disproportionately plagued by the gun violence epidemic.”

• But “the rate of mass shootings in the United States did slow last year, interrupting the trend becoming more frequent and more deadly since 2015.”

CINNAMON TOAST SHRIMP: Jensen Karp found a few “’shrimp skins-looking things,’ ‘a small string’ and something that looked like a pistachio — all encrusted in sugar” in his box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, he told the New York Times’s Ezra Marcus. 

• ?: “This is not General Mills’ first shrimp rodeo. In 2011, the company sued a Michigan blueberry packer after a shipment — which was intended for future use in blueberry scones — was found to be contaminated with pieces of shrimp.”