This is the worst time of year in Washington. The heat and humidity are daily reminders of the misguided political machinations that resulted in the nation’s capital being built on what was once a swamp.

Every other year (i.e., every election year), the stultifying weather outdoors resembles the political atmosphere indoors. A lot of perspiration is produced as the remaining legislative days dwindle.

At this point on the congressional calendar, most of the activity is designed to score political points and lay the foundation for next year’s policy debate when a new Congress is seated.

For example, take pay-discrimination legislation. Democrats are trying to build on what they see as an advantageous gender gap over Republicans. I’m not implying that Democrats don’t genuinely believe that women are being shortchanged in the workplace. In their view, the correct policy prescription also is good politics.

As I wrote in my posting last week, Democrats are pushing the issue hard. Advocates are urging the Senate to schedule another vote on legislation that would overturn a recent Supreme Court decision and make it easier to sue over pay disparity.

This week, the House Education and Labor Committee approved a bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would increase penalties for wage discrimination.

 That measure would allow plaintiffs to sue for compensatory and punitive damages in addition to recovering back pay. A company that pays women at a different rate than men would have to prove the practice is based on a business necessity.

The bill would permit workers to share pay information and prohibit employers from banning such discussions from the office. It also would establish Department of Labor grants for “negotiation skills training programs for girls and women.”

Some modifications of the original bill made it less stringent. For instance, in the final bill, employees can sue for disparities compared to colleagues who work for the same company within the same county. Previously, the language allowed nationwide coverage.

The change did nothing to help bring committee Republicans onboard; they hung together to oppose the measure. They said the Equal Pay Act of 1963 already makes wage discrimination illegal and that the paycheck bill would increase litigation costs while undermining recruiting and hiring.

Although the House labor committee markup on Thursday, July 24, was amiable, with Republicans and Democrats engaging in friendly banter as GOP amendments were blocked or defeated, the party-line votes demonstrate that bipartisanship on employment law is hard to attain.

The labor committee proceeding contrasted sharply with a House Energy and Commerce Committee markup of a health care IT bill earlier in the week. Democrats and Republicans forged a delicately balanced bill that was approved by a voice vote.

Don’t expect such comity on gender issues any time soon. Polls show presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama with a substantial lead among women over GOP candidate John McCain. Michelle Obama is scheduled to announce her husband’s Blueprint for America’s Working Women and Families on Monday, July 28, in a Chicago speech.

As the economy falters, Democrats believe they will make further gains among women because they’re addressing issues like pay equity.

“There is a sense of economic insecurity for women,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut and author of the paycheck bill. “It’s palpable nationwide.”

Republicans will have to figure out how to address those fears, if they’re going to broaden their electoral base this fall.

Twice within the past week, Washington political professionals have told me that the election is all about “change.” The electorate is fed up with the partisan warfare that defines politics as we know it today.

The victor in the presidential race will be the candidate who convinces voters that he’ll “fix” Washington. But one area where change is unlikely to occur—no matter who wins—is in labor-management politics.

The fault lines in that area have been basically immutable since the Depression-era New Deal. Generally, Democrats favor strengthening unions and taking a muscular approach to making business respond to the demands of workers so that they can get their fair share of the profits.

By and large, Republicans want to keep labor rules to a minimum, almost always taking the side of management and arguing that less regulation leads to stronger growth and higher-paying jobs.

If the presumptive presidential nominees, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, really want to demonstrate that they are change agents, they will propose ways to bring business and workers together on “economic security” issues, another buzz phrase in this year’s election.

Based on two events this week, however, it looks as if we’re a long way from comity on labor-management policy.

First, there was a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee regarding a GAO study about the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. The GAO found that enforcement of fair pay has declined during the Bush administration.

It was clear during the hearing that Democrats care about passionately about this issue. They want the Department of Labor to be tougher in going after alleged scofflaw businesses that engage in “wage theft,” as they call it.

“I don’t find this acceptable, that people work and aren’t paid,” Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-New Hampshire, said to Alexander Passantino, acting administrator of the agency. “I’d like to see that outrage on your part.”

Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Labor Committee, presided over the two-hour, 15-minute hearing. The way a hearing works is that witnesses give five-minute opening statements. Then each member of Congress in attendance gets five minutes of questions.

The wage and hour hearing consisted of two panels of witnesses. Miller conducted three rounds of questions, going solo on the final queries. He was highly engaged.

So were his Democratic colleagues. During the hearing, the highest number of Republicans in attendance was three. A total of 12 Democrats showed up. Not only was Republican attendance low, but the GOP didn’t invite a witness. Usually the minority party gets to have one witness at a hearing, typically someone who bats down Democratic accusations.

Perhaps it was a sign that Republicans find disputes over labor policy to be futile. They defended the Wage and Hour Division, highlighting the fact that it has recovered $1.25 billion in back wages for nearly 2 million workers during the Bush administration.

Miller, however, was exercised over GAO findings that the division does a shoddy job of investigating potential violations. He got into a sharp exchange with Passantino about the standards it sets for responding to complaints, at one point lamenting, “How the hell can that be equal treatment?”

And he wasn’t impressed by the $1.25 billion recovery figure. If the Wage and Hour Division would improve its performance, “maybe it would have been $2 billion,” he said.

He vowed to continue the review of the agency and next year to propose ways to increase the use of civil monetary penalties.

Later in the week, Democrats came out swinging again. This time it was in support of a pay discrimination bill that has been stalled in the Senate. Some of the top women leaders on Capitol Hill stoked a rally designed to inspire supporters to demand that the Senate vote again this year.

It was a political rally, so you wouldn’t expect any temporizing. Even at that, the bill’s backers were in no mood to compromise with Republicans who have offered an alternative measure.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, lived up to her reputation as a fighter.

“You’ve got to be riled up. You’ve got to be revved up,” she exhorted a crowd of mostly young women. Then she suggested what they say when they call and write to Senate offices: “Do the real deal. Don’t support the decoy bills.”

Middle ground on labor-management policy will be hard to find.

My home state of Indiana, situated in the heartland, is a good place to take the pulse of America. If an issue is on Hoosiers’ minds, it’s probably important to the rest of the country too.

That’s why I recently asked a candidate for Congress running in the southeastern part of the state to tell me what he’s hearing from the people he meets at county fairs, parades and town hall meetings. The first two issues he listed were predictable: energy and jobs.

The third one he mentioned was a bit more surprising: health care.

Sometimes when you ask a candidate about voter priorities, they’ll give you a litany that highlights their own themes. But this candidate is a Republican. His party isn’t known for emphasizing health care reform. In addition, the sprawling, mostly rural but diverse district in which he’s running provides a good barometer for voter concerns. In this case, many are worried about affordability and access of health care.

That seemed to underscore a point made by a group that has launched a $40 million campaign to elevate health care to the top of the agenda this fall. Health Care for America Now calls itself an “unprecedented coalition” of 100 labor, business, community, provider, policy and advocacy organizations.

In its debut at the National Press Club in Washington on Tuesday, July 8, the coalition unveiled the first of a series of television ads that will air between now and Election Day. The group is mobilizing a huge grass-roots effort to promote a broad set of principles that it wants all members of Congress, and presumably their challengers, to embrace.

The coalition is calling for “a bold new solution” that guarantees choice, quality and affordability in health care. The options are to “keep your current private insurance plan, pick a new private insurance plan, or join a public health insurance plan.”

But leaders of the coalition see the health insurance industry as the enemy. Throughout the press conference, they excoriated insurance companies for putting profits ahead of coverage and emphasized that they can’t be trusted as a partner in reform.

They intend to frame this choice for candidates: “Now is the time to pick a side. Which side are you on?”

On the other side is the insurance industry. In a statement released the day of the coalition kickoff, Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, said that health care costs must be addressed. She said they’re being fueled by variations in care; overuse, underuse and misuse of services; and new technologies whose effectiveness is not evaluated.
“We welcome and intend to make a significant contribution to the national discussion of how to blend public and private strategies to achieve a uniquely American solution that can work and be enacted,” Ignagni said.

Health insurers will have a lot to say about how health care reform unfolds in 2009 under a new president and a new Congress. But during the campaign, it looks as if we won’t have a discussion about health care. We’ll have a battle.

Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now, is not concerned that he may be torching a stakeholder—insurers—that his allies will have to work with when Washington gets down to business on reform.

“You can’t burn a bridge when they’re trying to set the whole health care system on fire,” Kirsch said in an interview after the July 8 press conference.

It will be interesting to see how, or if, the health care passions stoked during the campaign will cool into consensus next year.

Many years ago, one of the most knowledgeable political operatives I know told me a great story about a meeting he had with labor leaders.

My friend was chief of staff for a Republican senator. For the senator’s first few campaigns, unions stridently opposed him. But he won by increasingly large margins. Eventually, the senator was consistently cruising to re-election with nearly 70 percent of the vote.

When my friend and the senator met with union representatives during the senator’s third term, the labor chiefs were singing a different tune. They were seeking ways to cooperate with the senator to move their agenda forward. They succinctly described their change of heart: “Senator, if we can’t beat you, we’re for you.”

That kind of attitude is now framing the way the business lobby approaches several issues. Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill are only going to grow in the next election. Traditional Republican business allies are being defeated or are retiring in droves.

From 1995 through 2006, Republicans held sway in the House and Senate. Business interests could squelch, delay or modify employment proposals that were deemed too burdensome for corporations.

Now, Democrats control the legislative agenda. For the moment, they can’t ram through everything they want, especially with a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate. But they are the ones framing the debate. For the most part, they propose legislation and Republicans (and the business lobby) have to reach out or risk getting flattened.

Lately, the business community has decided to negotiate with advocacy groups and work out compromises on bills that could have been a nightmare for HR professionals.

For instance, they have reached an accommodation on a mental health parity bill that will equalize coverage for medical procedures and for mental health. But it will not expand mental health coverage to every ailment listed in a diagnostic manual used in the psychiatry profession, a provision that business adamantly opposed.

Another recent example involves a bill that would broaden the interpretation of a law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. The original version of the measure drew opprobrium from the corporate lobby, which argued that it would generate frivolous lawsuits.

After months of negotiations with disability advocacy groups, a compromise bill emerged that doesn’t please everyone yet doesn’t enrage anyone to the point of causing them to dig in against the measure. The bill was approved by the House in late June, 402-17.

The Society for Human Resource Management hails the agreement as a victory for workplace fairness. The machinations on this bill may have caught some SHRM members by surprise. As an organization that often takes the management side on legislation, this kind of accommodation was a change of pace.

Former SHRM president and CEO Susan Meisinger told an audience at the SHRM annual conference in Chicago last month that the bill illustrates how HR can be a catalyst for overcoming corporate inertia and making the workplace more diverse.

“We need to be that third option between action and inaction, between ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ ” she said.

Mike Aitken, SHRM director of governmental relations, put it this way during a public policy session at the SHRM show: “Our job at SHRM is not just always to oppose things.”

The cooperation also is a sign of hope that Washington can work in an era of bitter partisanship.

“If this works, if the [bill] passes and gets signed into law, it would be a great model,” says Larry Lorber, a partner at the Washington law firm Proskauer Rose and a leader of the coalition supporting the disability bill.