President Donald Trump complains that Democrats need to work on legislation instead of pursuing an impeachment inquiry. The Democrat-led House has passed many bills not even considered in the Senate, thanks to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., including:
H.R. 1: For the People Act helps secure elections from foreign interference and makes them more accessible to voters.
H.R. 5: The Equality Act provides comprehensive anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ Americans in employment, education, federal funding, housing, public accommodations and more.
H.R. 6: The American Dream and Promise Act protects Dreamers, young immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, and establishes a path to citizenship for more than 2 million immigrants without legal status.
H.R. 7: The Paycheck Fairness Act prohibits employers from asking about prospective employees’ salaries, forbids retaliation against employees who compare wages and mandates employers show that pay discrepancies are based on legitimate factors.
H.R. 8: The Bipartisan Background Checks Act expands background check requirements on private sales at gun shows, on the internet or through classified ads.
H.R. 9: The Climate Action Now Act blocks the Trump administration from exiting the Paris climate agreement.
H.R. 987: The Strengthening Health Care and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Act lowers prescription drug prices, bolsters the Affordable Care Act and protects those with preexisting conditions.
H.R. 1585: The Violence against Women Reauthorization Act funds programs that tackle domestic abuse and includes an expansion of a prohibition against firearm purchases for spouses or formerly married partners convicted of abuse or under a restraining order to include dating partners never legally married.
H.R. 1644: The Save the Internet Act would reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality prohibiting broadband companies from blocking, throttling or prioritizing certain websites.
All this legislation that would make things better for the American people, passed by House Democrats, often with some Republican support, now languishes in McConnell’s graveyard. There is no “do-nothing Congress.” There is only a do-nothing Senate controlled by Republicans. They need to get to work for America.
SYLVIA SANDS PAXTON
Orford
Dan Weintraub’s recent Forum letter asserts that former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, “because she is a woman, was treated differently than white men accused of similar crimes” (“The evil sexism of our culture,” Oct. 6).
He’s right about that, but in the wrong direction. Being female, if anything, worked in Guyger’s favor in this specific case (of fearing for her life), and in her favor for sentencing after conviction.
A paper published in American Law and Economics Review shows that men in general are given harsher sentences than women for the same crimes, no matter their race, by the significant margin of 63%. It is also clear that black men are given harsher sentences than white men (by 19%), and that white men are given harsher sentences than women of any race (by about 27% on average), according to the United States Sentencing Commission.
I do acknowledge and agree with another point made by the writer — that there are some very real negative cultural elements of the male-dominated law enforcement field — but asserting that Guyger was treated worse than a male police officer would have been for the same offense is not supported by data.
DANIEL WORTS
Windsor
This is in regards to the cost estimate of $2.5 million to $3 million for the renovation of an existing Sullivan Street building for transitional housing (“County officials hold off on sober housing plans,” Oct. 9). As a longtime general contractor, I would like to see a breakdown of the estimate. The numbers seem very high.
I am in favor of a sober house, but it might be cheaper to put everyone up in the Moody Hotel.
FRANK WIGGINS
Newport
Allow me to compliment the staff at Lebanon High School for the high-quality education they provide to their students. My recently released book, China’s Grand Strategy: Weaving a New Silk Road to Global Primacy, has an appendix that, for the first time, lists the projects contained in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is history’s largest infrastructure project spanning some 100 countries. Logan Falzarano, now a senior at Lebanon High School, helped me construct this list. To do so he used his computer and analytical skills, and a finely honed sense of curiosity. It is a project that would normally be assigned to a college student. Well, I sure am glad that my helper was a student from Lebanon High!
SARWAR KASHMERI
West Lebanon