Variety of bills fill Obama’s first three months
By: Matt Kane
Since January, and the beginning of the Obama presidency, the only legislation that anyone seems to hear about is the stimulus plan. The stimulus plan is of course extremely important and of great public interest but what other bills have passed congress during the last three months?
There have been a number of bills that have passed that have flown somewhat under the radar because of the high profile economic plan. There are three major ones though. The three are extremely different.
The first of these was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This act changes the statue of limitations on filing a lawsuit for an equal pay lawsuit based on discrimination. The original 180 day statute of limitations was in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A supreme court decision of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. stated that the 180 days was from the time that the salary was agreed upon not from the time it was paid. The Lilly Ledbetter Act overturned that decision to when the last discriminatory pay check was paid.
After signing the bill President Obama said in a press conference, “It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign. We are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness.”
Another major piece of legislation that has passed during the Obama Administration has been the so called CHIP legislation. CHIP stands for Children’s Health Insurance Policy. This bill would provide health insurance to children in families of low income who cannot afford to insure their children.
“The first few months have been dominated by the stimulus package, and for good reason. It is one of the most significant pieces of legislation in quite a while, but other then that we will not really start to see this administration’s mark for quite a while,” said Rowan University Professor Donald Busky, “The first few months of a presidency normally is just older legislation. The majority of early things that a president passes is things that have already passed congress but were vetoed by the former president. Good examples of this are both the Chip and Ledvetter acts, they both passed congress during the second Bush term but were vetoed once they got to his desk. The real Obama legislation won’t start to get back to his desk until about next fall if not a little bit longer.”
Shifting gears slightly, more recently President Obama signed a conservation bill that preserves over 2 million acres of land. The land was all over the United States stretching from Virginia to Colorado and from Oregon to Alaska.
In another press conference talking about the bill Obama said, “Americans will not take our forests, rivers, oceans, national parts, monuments, and wilderness areas for granted, but rather we will set them aside and guard their sanctity for everyone to share. That’s something all Americans can support.”
Obama obviously has signed other pieces of legislation besides these three in his three months in office. These though are smaller and are more about small funding and policies that do not effect the majority of the American public. As the President’s term gets deeper, and the stimulus gets farther in the rearview mirror of congress, more of the legislation will be the influence of the administration.
“Although he has had quite a magnifying glass on his first few months, most presidents get a pass,” said Manhattan College Professor Joe Shanley, “He came into some really extraordinary times, times no president has seen in a long time. A lot of times a president’s decisions and bills are not examined until well into the summer months. Obama was examined from day one. I’m not saying he was being treated badly, he was just being examined more closely then normal.”
One of the major things that is likely to be passed in just a few days is a lift on a long running American institution. The Obama administration is looking to lift some of the restrictions on the embargo on Cuba. The embargo would not be completely repealed but it would be allowed for Cuban immigrants to return to Cuba to visit family and return to the United States.
The idea behind this is just to see if Cuba will start to move in a direction that America would like. The argument is that the embargo has not made Cuba helpful to America and it would open up a whole new market to American business should relations improve between the two countries.
It is clear that Obama has accomplished more things then just the economic stimulus plan in his time in office so far. There is a whole lot left to be done and it will not slow down for Obama only get busier as he enacts more of his own policy.
