I plead guilty to introducing legislation after reading an article in the New York Times.
This time, however, my idea was fit to draft before the Times found it fit to print.

According to a front page story today about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

 There is a framed copy of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 on a wall in her chambers. It is not a judicial decision, of course, but Justice Ginsburg counts it as one of her proudest achievements.

The law was a reaction to her dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, the 2007 ruling that said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 imposed strict time limits for bringing workplace discrimination suits. She called on Congress to overturn the decision, and it did.

 “I’d like to think that that will happen in the two Title VII cases from this term, but this Congress doesn’t seem to be able to move on anything,” she said.

 In those two recent cases, a 5-4 majority made it more difficult to win a fair employment case by narrowing the definition of a supervisor whose actions constitute a violation of the law and requiring that retaliation be the motivating factor for an unlawful act, not one of several causes.

In July, I asked that legislation be drafted to prevent Maryland’s fair employment laws from being interpreted by our courts in the same way.
It’s not the first time that I’ve done this.

Maryland also passed a law in response to the Ledbetter case. Senator Jamie Raskin and I introduced the legislation.

I gave Justice Ginsburg a copy of House Bill 288, signed by Governor O’Malley.

It was not the first time I met her.

In the fall of 1974, I took her class on Sex Discrimination and the Law.