Congress exempt from Civil Rights Act

[babsbunny]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39831.html

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle took Rand Paul to task when he suggested earlier this year that Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act shouldn’t apply to private businesses.

But a new report from Congress’s Office of Compliance notes that Congress has never applied the provision to itself.

“The OOC Board of Directors has taken the position that the rights and protections afforded by Titles II and III of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against discrimination with respect to places of public accommodation should be applied to the legislative branch,” OOC officials wrote in the report.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39831.html#ixzz0tzQGyEde

[ProSense]

1. What a dumb title from Politico

Title II prohibits discrimination or segregation on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin in access to public accommodations, including hearing rooms, lecture halls, retail shops and restaurants — all accommodations the public uses on Capitol Hill. Title III dictates that these same standards be applied to state and local governments.

The Speaker’s Office and the Senate Historian’s Office say they are not aware of any recorded cases in which people have been barred from entering Capitol Hill facilities on grounds prohibited by the Civil Rights Act.

<...>

Civil rights expert and Colorado College political science professor Robert Loevy says that the Civil Rights Act was largely focused on ending segregation across the country, not on Capitol Hill, where minority aides and members were already working.

“Certainly, applying the law to Congress was the furthest thing on anybody’s mind in 1964,” said Loevy, who was a Republican leadership aide at the time. “Martin Luther King held press conferences on Capitol Hill. Civil rights activist Clarence Mitchell Jr. was able to access every congressional office. Yes, this is a nice idea, ... but the question has never really come up. No one was ever accusing Congress of excluding minorities.”

Where does it say Congress is exempt?

Sounds like a BS article trying to give Rand Paul credibility.

[SunnySong]

2. Congress has always been exempt same with sexual harassment laws. nt

[X_Digger]

3. You do know that's bullshit, right?

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/01/lawmaker-loopholes/

Finally, the claim that Congress is exempt from "many" of the laws it has passed is 15 years out of date. In the 1980s there were news stories prodding members of Congress for putting themselves "{a}bove their own laws," as a 1988 Time magazine story put it. But following the "Republican Revolution" of 1994, which put Republicans in control of both House and Senate, Congress passed the Congressional Accountability Act (PL 104-1), which applies a dozen civil rights, labor and workplace safety regulations to the legislative branch. Here’s a list compiled by the independent, nonpartisan Office of Compliance, which was set up to enforce the laws in Congress:

Laws Applied to the Legislative Branch by the CAA

- The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
- The Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute
- Veterans’ employment and reemployment rights at Chapter 43 of Title 38 of the U.S. Code
- The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
- The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988
- The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
- The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
- Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970
- The Rehabilitation Act of 1973
- The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1989

In addition, the CAA was amended in 1998 to include certain provisions of the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998.

According to the Office of Compliance — and contrary to the claim in this e-mail — sexual harassment is specifically covered by Section 201 of the CAA.

[SunnySong]

4. Thank you like many I remember it being an issue in the late eighties.

I had no idea they fixed it.

Good for them.