IT'S NOT OFTEN you get to spend an afternoon with somebody your children read about in history books, but on Saturday afternoon I got lucky and ended up shooting the breeze with a true American folk hero, Lilly Ledbetter, the inspiration for the first piece of legislation President Barack Obama signed: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Ledbetter was the keynote speaker at the excellent Ventura County Women's Forum held at Cal Lutheran University, of which the National Women's Political Caucus was a sponsor.

Celebrities don't impress me. It's the plain folks who are out getting it done who I find ultimately more fascinating, and in this regard Ledbetter is without peer. With her Southern drawl and quick wit, she's a colorful and articulate voice for pay equity issues.

"You're really something. I hope you never go up against me," Sen. Ted Kennedy once told her.

For 19 years, Ledbetter, now 71, worked grueling 12-hour days and even endured sexual harassment at her job as a supervisor at Goodyear Tire Company in Gadsten, Ala. Then one night in 1998 she received an anonymous note that let her know she was earning far less than men doing comparable work at her plant.

A recipient of a top performance award, she was more organized and diligent than her male counterparts, but nonetheless found herself on the short end of the pay scale.

"I was feeling very degraded, less of an individual with less respect. I never backed down on any job no matter how hard or how dirty," Ledbetter said. And then it dawned on her that her lower wages also affected her overtime pay, Social Security and retirement benefits.

"At that moment I realized for the first time in my life that I was a second-class citizen and would be for the rest of my life. I thought about it and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission."

After several months, the investigator for the EEOC called and said, "You've got one of the best cases we have ever seen."

LEDBETTER WAS IMMEDIATELY shunned by her co-workers. "Believe you me it was like I had a very serious disease somebody could catch and when I'd meet them in the hall they'd turn and go the other way."

Ledbetter found a lawyer who would take her case pro bono, took early retirement and sued for illegal gender discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. A jury awarded her $360,000 in back pay and damages, but the case was appealed and eventually wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court where she lost in 2006 on a 5-4 decision.

Because the Civil Rights Act imposes a 180-day deadline on most claims, and Ledbetter did not find out about her pay inequity for many years, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority said that an employee is not entitled to recover for anything that occurs before that cut-off.

"But bless Justice [Ruth] Ginsberg's heart -- the only woman on the court. She said it didn't make sense. These people don't understand what it's like in the real world because people don't stand around the water coolers discussing their pay. ... These cases are very difficult to prove," Ledbetter said.

A bill to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stating that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new discriminatory paycheck passed the House in 2008, but Republicans killed it in the Senate.

More setbacks came for Ledbetter when her husband died of cancer last December. "We'd been battling that all through this. Your life doesn't stop because you've got a lawsuit."

But even while helping her husband fight a serious disease, she never gave up her cause. "The true test of a person is not so much what happens to us but how we react to it. Do we see it and do nothing or do we fight back?" she said.

A favorite of the Obamas, Ledbetter campaigned hard for our new president and after he won, she danced the second dance with him at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball. That's when she knew her bill was destined to become law.

"He kept telling me during the dance, 'We're going to do this.' And I knew he meant the bill. And he did."

IN JULY I REPORTED how the last-minute impasse staged by Senate Republicans to derail stopgap measures already approved by the Assembly added $7 billion to the state's deficit.

Now it has been widely reported that the recalcitrant "Just Say No" crowd, including our own State Sen. Tony Strickland has just added to the pain our cities will feel as the state takes $2 billion in property tax revenues away from local governments  to balance its own budget. These gaps will leave cities scrambling to plug holes they thought they had already filled in their own budget-balancing woes this year.

While the state is obligated to pay the money back in 2013 through provisions in 2004's Prop. 1A, most local officials I talk to don't really believe it will happen. 

So cities and counties were counting on Senate Bill 67 to pass in the whirlwind of the last legislative session which ended Sept. 11. This was "cleanup" legislation which would allow a consortium made up of the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties to accept the state's IOUs for the borrowed property tax and issues bonds to local governments to make up for the loss.

But this legislation, along with other bills which required a 2/3 passage, got hung up in a political snit over several unrelated matters, including a vote sought by Republicans on behalf of Intuit, the makers of Turbo Tax, to deny tax preparation services to low-income people through a program called ReadyReturn. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat and the Los Angeles Times took Strickland to task for his part in this scheme. Strickland has accepted $1 million in campaign cash from Intuit, the Times pointed out. And this OpEd piece points out just how wrong Intuit is in pursuing this matter.

Also lost in this power play by the No Crowd was money for battered women's shelters, federal money for swine flu preparations and a bill allowing the state to renegotiate letters of credit with banks, saving the state about $850 million this year.

Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, was the only one to break from his party and vote for the measures. "At the end of the day we were sent to Sacramento to govern, not play politics," he told the Lompoc Record.

BY THE WAY: If you are looking for more Republican non-responsiveness, look no further than Mike Stoker, Tony Strickland's aide and big-time polluter Greka Energy's spokesperson, who is running for the 35th Assembly District seat along with Susan Jordan and Das Williams. I watched him in action at a forum put together at a Gold Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce breakfast last week by The Paladin Principle, Republican Assembly District 37 candidate Jeff Gorell's firm. The press was of course alerted to this breakfast forum, attended by 18 people. 

Stoker's idea of debating is apparently interrupting and shouting over his opponent's voice. He isn't much of a listener.

THAT'S THE STATED MOTTO of the National Women's Political Caucus, a group I've taken a leadership role in this year. This shouldn't surprise anyone as I haven't been shy about my support for certain female candidates here.

But we haven't done particularly well in California in our stated goal our goal of 50-50 by 2020: 50 percent women and 50 percent men in government by the year 2020, the 100th anniversary of the right to vote for women. In fact, we actually lost ground in the state legislature last year.

While we have two female U.S. senators, other NWPC-supported candidates only hold 12 out of 40 seats in the State Senate, 16 out of 80 in the State Assembly and 1 out of 6 in statewide office (Secretary of State Debra Bowen). Our candidates hold 18 out of 50 state seats in the House of Representatives. We hope to do better in the next few years.

What I love the most about NWPC is that it is multi-partisan. It is the only group of its kind devoted to recruiting, training and promoting female candidates who are supportive of women's issues, regardless of party.

We have a couple of networking events coming up which I'd like to mention here. If you're interested in coming, send an email to this address.

The first is a meet-and-greet with 35th District Assembly Candidate Susan Jordan on Thursday, April 16 at 7 p.m. at Marie Callender's, 1295 S. Victoria Ave. in Ventura. Jordan is an accomplished businesswoman turned environmental activist from Santa Barbara who, as a senior partner in a top New York-based market research and consulting firm had clients ranging from Russian President Boris Yeltsin to Westinghouse and HBO to California Gov. Pete Wilson and New York Senator Patrick Moynihan. She is running in what will likely be a hotly contested Democratic primary race in June of 2010 against Santa Barbara City Councilman Das Williams, who is known in Ventura for his anti-Wal-Mart activities.

We also have our most popular event coming up May 9 in Ojai, "Politics, Tea and Thee." It's an elegant afternoon of tea, good food and conversation. Confirmed for the event are city council members Roseann Mikos of Moorpark, Maricela Morales of Port Hueneme, Irene Pinkard of Oxnard, and Ventura Mayor Christy Weir who will participate in a panel discussion on the challenges facing our municipalities today.

Many more events will be scheduled throughout the year. Our local caucus is a wonderful group of smart, talented women -- and a few men, too! Check back here for more events.

Yet another 2/3-vote stalemate in Sacramento

WHAT IF SOMEONE asked you to vote to extend the unemployment benefits of nearly 300,000 jobless Californians in a way that wouldn't cost state taxpayers a dime?

Would you do it?

Even with state unemployment figures now running at 10.1 percent, local Assemblywoman Audra Strickland (R-Moorpark) couldn't bring herself to vote for AB 23 3X, which would help unemployed workers for an additional 20 weeks, all with federal stimulus money.

It seems like a no-brainer, but Strickland sat on the sidelines along with 17 of her GOP colleagues, including Cameron Smyth, (R-Santa Clarita) and intentionally failed to vote. Another nine had the nerve to just vote against it.

Just one more vote Monday night and this bill to help our struggling families would have passed. Is it always a fait accompli that we must grovel for one Republican vote every time a 2/3 vote is required?

A GROUP OF UNEMPLOYED local tradesmen who had heard about Monday night's incomprehensible outcome decided to voice their opinions about it today at a press conference outside the Oxnard Employment Development Department.

"This bill's not going to cost California taxpayers one penny," Steve Weiner of the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties Building Trades Council told a group of around 50 unemployed workers. "We're telling them they need to approve this bill. It's time for them to do their job."

Marilyn and Leo Valenzuela told me they were up in Sacramento when the vote occurred and were very angry about it, especially when they attempted to lobby Audra Strickland to get it passed and the meeting didn't go well. They were perplexed that Strickland Chief of Staff Joel Angeles did not seem to know much about it. "He didn't even know how she voted," Marilyn said.

Marilyn, executive secretary-treasurer of the Tri-County Central Labor Council, had been honored on Monday by Assemblyman Pedro Nava as the 35th District's "Woman of the Year." She and her husband decided the Oxnard press conference was too important to miss.

"We got up at 5 a.m. and drove from Sacramento and pulled into the parking lot at 12:30 today," she said.

NEARLY 1.8 MILLION CALIFORNIANS are currently unemployed; about 1 million are receiving unemployment benefits. For 70,000 of those people, benefits will run out in a month. Sacramento Democrats sought to get AB 23 3X passed in time to help these folks. The measure is expected to bring in an estimated $2.5 billion to $3 billion in federal stimulus money for 20 weeks of additional emergency unemployment benefits during 2009.

Later today I talked to 35th District Assembly candidate Susan Jordan, who was also up in Sacramento on Monday. "I was at a dinner listening to Hilda Solis -- probably the most inspiring Labor Secretary we've ever had -- and she was telling us how this administration is helping working families," Jordan said.

"At the same time, two blocks away, the Republicans were refusing to extend unemployment benefits. It was outrageous. I don't know how any of them can justify this."

UPDATE Monday 3/23/09: The Assembly passed the bill today on a 76-0 vote. For more, go here.

FURTHER UPDATE Thursday 3/26/09: The Senate passed the bill today on a 38-0 vote, along with its companion measure which updates unemployment benefits. For more, go here.