Supreme Court Litigant to Address Democratic National Convention

Tony Mauro

Legal Times

One sign that the Democrats will raise the Supreme Court as a campaign issue will come Tuesday night when Lilly Ledbetter addresses the Democratic national convention in Denver. Ledbetter, you may recall, was a Goodyear tire worker who lost a 2007 Supreme Court case based on her claim of unequal pay (pdf).

The justices, in one of the most criticized rulings of the Roberts Court, ruled that her claim was untimely because it was filed long after the initial pay decision was made. She worked for the company for more than a decade before realizing the disparity. Democrats reacted with outrage, and Ledbetter became a symbol of the effects of the Supreme Court's conservative turn.

"The Supreme Court is on the ballot," says Kitty Kolbert, head of People for the American Way who applauds the fact that Ledbetter -- one of the few nonpoliticians on the agenda -- will speak to the convention. "That case plays well to the movable middle."

Efforts in Congress to change the law to allow claims like Ledbetter's are still pending. The political action committee of People for the American Way will be pushing the Supreme Court issue in key states in the fall, Kolbert says.

First reported in The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Editor's note: See related Special to Law.com article, "Measuring the Impact of High Court's 'Ledbetter' Ruling."