Michelle Obama provided a fist-bump to the National Partnership for Women and Families on Friday, June 20, by appearing at the organization’s annual luncheon in Washington.

The sense of optimism and momentum surrounding her husband’s chances to win the White House are apparent when Mrs. Obama is in a room.

That’s why it was a coup to get Mrs. Obama on the partnership program. She rearranged her schedule to be there, according to event organizers.

Washington is a town based on relationships and appearances. The people with whom you associate directly affect your status. For the partnership, that means their issues will be at the forefront of an Obama administration.

The group is a leading advocate for equal pay for women, paid sick days and paid family and medical leave. In her remarks, Mrs. Obama spoke of mothers she met on the campaign trail whose salaries haven’t kept pace with the price of groceries. If they take a second job, they can’t afford baby sitters, she said.

“When will our leaders not only support but champion the cause of working families?” she asked. “It’s time for the leaders of this country not only to champion these causes but to fight for them every day.”

After missteps earlier in the campaign season, she was fairly heavily scripted and didn’t achieve the soaring rhetorical levels of her husband. She got her point across more sharply when she said, “Basic health care is not a privilege but a fundamental right of every single American.”

In closing, she reflected the urgency that her husband tries to convey.

“We don’t have time to wait,” she said. “There’s too much at stake.”

The political ground may be shifting even before the presidential election in November. On Thursday, June 19, the House passed a bill that would provide four weeks of paid parental leave to 1.8 million federal employees for the birth or adoption of a child. The measured passed with a healthy margin at 278-146.

The White House has threatened to veto the measure, calling it a “costly, unnecessary new paid leave entitlement.” Yet it garnered the backing of 50 Republicans. Its fate in the Senate is unclear.

But Democrats are using the bill to frame their approach to employment issues. They argue that they don’t want workers to have to make a choice between loved ones or their jobs.

“It is time to turn family values into a reality in the lives of the workforce,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, author of the bill, during the House floor debate.

The partnership touts gains it has made this year—expanding family and medical leave for military families and gaining approval for paid leave in a couple cities and states.

“If we can accomplish all this in a recession … in an election year … in the seventh year of an administration that has turned such a blind eye to women and families, just think of what we’ll be able to accomplish next year—and in years to come,” said Debra Ness, president of the partnership.

If Democrats increase their margins on Capitol Hill, which is likely, and win the White House, which is looking more and more probable, organizations like the partnership will be in ascendance.

That will put pressure on groups like the Society for Human Resource Management that represent the management side of these issues. They raise concerns about costs and the regulatory burden on business operations.

They’ll have to work hard to reach compromises with the partnership to keep themselves in the fray on Capitol Hill. So far, they’ve been able to come to agreements with advocacy groups on mental health parity and disability law. Look for the same approach during an Obama administration.

Over the last few days, it has seemed that nearly everyone in Washington has a Tim Russert story. The ubiquitous Meet the Press moderator was a presence in thousands of lives in the political and policy worlds. His untimely death is a profound loss in the capital.

I, too, have a Russert vignette. Our paths crossed a couple times, but I did not know him personally. One spring Sunday morning in 1996, however, I thought he was going to change my job status.

Like Russert, I began my career in politics and later crossed over to journalism. When I worked on Capitol Hill, I was press secretary for Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana. At one time, Lugar held the record as the most frequent guest on Meet the Press. He may still be in the pole position for the show, which is his favorite.

But Meet competitors are also good “gets.” In 1996, Fox News Sunday had just launched. On that spring Sunday, the show made a guest offer to Lugar. I accepted. Later in the week, Meet made an offer. I played it straight and declined because Lugar had already been booked.

On Friday, the Fox appearance fell through. I scrambled to get an offer from MSNBC, another fledgling cable channel at the time. So, everything seemed to work out—until Sunday.

The MSNBC show and Meet both used the same greenroom at the NBC studios. As Lugar was preparing for his MSNBC spot, Russert walked in. I slipped out, in reflexive self-preservation. I knew what was coming.

“Hi, senator,” Russert said in a booming voice that audibly conveyed his infectious smile. “I tried to get you on my show today, but your press office said you weren’t available.” My heart sank. Updating my résumé became a priority for the afternoon.

Lugar knew that his weekend TV booking had undergone some changes throughout the week. I just hadn’t filled him in on the gory details. Russert did that for me.

Thankfully, the senator was his usual reassuring, magnanimous self as we walked out of the studio after his MSNBC spot. I didn’t suffer a job setback over my error in the biggest-stakes game in Washington media—Sunday morning TV.

Tim Russert is the reason that Sunday public affairs programs have become central to American political life. His rigorous research and probing but respectful grilling of guests set a standard that may never be met again. Russert made news almost every Sunday—and most politicians longed to be seated across from him in what was the holy grail of TV appearances.

Those political leaders also were quick to issue encomiums when Russert died Friday, June 13. Two of the most prominent of them framed the debate that is engulfing Capitol Hill—and the presidential campaign—when it comes to workforce issues.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, both highlighted Russert’s Buffalo, New York, background.

“His rise from working-class roots to become a well-respected leader in political journalism is an inspiration to many,” Reid said.

McConnell said: “Yet for all his achievements, Tim Russert always remained tethered to his middle-class upbringing and the good and decent people who made him who he was.”

Reid calls Russert’s background “working class,” McConnell defines it as “middle class.” The divergent definitions speak to divisions between Democrats and Republicans on workforce issues.

You see the divide in the debate over extending unemployment benefits. The Bush administration and many Republicans want to make such a move only in states that have the highest unemployment rates. Democrats argue that economic difficulties afflict workers across the nation and the benefits should be expanded everywhere.

Republicans say that even with the recent jump in the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent, it’s still at a historically low level. Democrats assert that “the rising costs of living and rising unemployment make middle-class life less affordable,” in Reid’s words.

An April poll of 1,125 employees by the nonpartisan Employment Law Alliance shows that 87 percent of Americans “want their next president to focus on increasing the proportion of the workforce earning at least a living wage.”

That would imply that many people either don’t believe they’re making a living wage or they know someone who they believe is not making a living wage. They see themselves as working class, not middle class. But many economists say that Americans are making more money and living better than they ever have.

How people define themselves is influenced by the signals they receive at work. Are corporate executives explaining to employees the dimensions of business performance and profitability that affect pay? Do employees feel that they and company leadership are pulling in the same direction and making reasonable salaries?

Maybe things really are as bad as the Democrats say. Or maybe problems are being suffered in pockets of the country, as the Republicans say. Setting these definitions and proposing policies around them may well determine who the next president is.

If only Tim Russert were here to help us sort it all out.

One of the most popular ways to describe action—or, more accurately, inaction—on a difficult issue on Capitol Hill is to say that Congress is “kicking the can down the road.”

That could be the outcome for employer verification—an element of immigration policy that must be addressed this year despite political gridlock. The law that enacted the government electronic verification system called E-Verify will expire in November.

But the partisan and interest-group fissures on immigration extend to the question of increasing work-site enforcement. The fault lines that could prevent substantial action were revealed again this week.

Frustrated that Congress did not pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill last year, the Bush administration is trying to prove its enforcement bona fides through the regulatory process. On Monday, June 9, the Department of Homeland Security announced that all federal contractors—more than 200,000 companies—will be required to use E-Verify, an electronic system that checks work eligibility against the Social Security database.

This move upsets many in the business community, especially HR groups like the Society for Human Resource Management. They say that E-Verify is prone to error because there are millions of mistakes in Social Security records. They also assert that it cannot stop identity theft and can’t be ramped up for use by all 7 million U.S. employers. Currently, about 69,000 participate voluntarily.

SHRM and other members of the HR Initiative for a Legal Workforce are promoting a bill authored by Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, that would replace E-Verify—and the I-9 process—with an electronic system based upon an existing child-support enforcement network in which about 90 percent of U.S. employers participate.

Bills that would extend and expand E-Verify get strong support from other Republicans and conservative Democrats.

But Democratic leadership is skeptical of E-Verify. That was apparent at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on employer verification on Tuesday, June 10. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-California and chairwoman of the panel, highlighted several studies that call into question E-Verify’s efficacy.

“Before we move forward on any mandatory [electronic system] to include all employers, we must be careful to ensure all the problems in the existing [electronic system] are addressed before we end up with the same problems, but on a much larger scale,” Lofgren said at the hearing.

It’s a matter of constituent service for someone like Lofgren. If an American citizen or a permanent resident is denied employment, he or she no doubt will place a hostile call to his or her member of Congress.

Another situation that prompts angry communication with members of Congress is any problem with Social Security. A number of Democrats are concerned that foisting employment verification on the Social Security Administration will exacerbate problems the agency is having in dealing with disability claims.

And many Democrats, like Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Michigan, are incensed about what they believe is the Bush administration’s tendency to use E-Verify to arrest suspected illegal workers while letting business owners off the hook.

On the other side, you have conservative Republicans and Democrats who see work-site enforcement as the illegal immigration remedy that their constituents demand. And they advocate E-Verify with gusto.

“We have a system that is almost perfect now,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa and ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee. “We can grow this system. The answer is to use it.”

The author of the original bill to establish E-Verify made a similar point. “E-Verify has never been notified of an incorrect non-confirmation,” said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-California.

At the hearing, one of the witnesses, likely invited by the Republicans on the subcommittee, touted E-Verify.

“I think it’s a great system to work with,” said Glenda Wooten-Ingram, HR director at the Embassy Suites in downtown Washington. 

There are 11 bills introduced in Congress that address employer verification. They range from the Johnson bill to replace it to several bills that would make it permanent and mandatory.

But with all the political discord on the issue, the likely outcome this year is something incremental—like a temporary extension of a voluntary E-Verify. Congress will kick the can down the road.

Last month on a visit to India, I spent a couple days in the state of Kerala, which is the setting for a new movie, Before the Rains.

My attempt to see the film back home in Washington was thwarted when the theater said that the movie was “broken.” I’m not sure what that meant, but it forced me to make another choice.

So, I decided to take in a Sunday matinee of Sex and the City. I knew it was having a big opening weekend because one of the larger theaters in the Washington region was 75 percent full—on a gorgeous afternoon.

Most of the audience was composed of young women in their teens, 20s and 30s. They seemed to be bonding over the romantic and sartorial trials and travails of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends.

As the 2½-hour flick meandered along, I couldn’t help but wonder: What kind of message about women in the workplace is Sex and the City sending?

I know that summer movies are supposed to offer an escape from reality, but that doesn’t mean that they have to be completely divorced from reality.

Only one of the four protagonists, Miranda, has a demanding job. The Manhattan attorney talks about the difficulties of balancing motherhood and work. But rather than elevate her, the challenges turn her into a shrew.

As she flits about writing books and the occasional magazine piece, Carrie never seems to be bothered by pesky deadlines. She spends most of her time pining away for Big and admiring shoes that she wouldn’t be able to afford in real life.

Charlotte is a full-time mom. When she’s not looking after her daughter, Lilly, in their massive Fifth Avenue condo, she’s jogging in Central Park. The lifestyle is financed by her lawyer husband.

And Samantha has moved to Los Angeles to build her public relations career around her boyfriend/meal ticket Smith Jarrod. Samantha laments that she utters the Hollywood hunk’s name more than her own in a typical day. Well, Samantha, that’s how the PR world works. The client comes first. 

One premise of Sex seems to be that happiness revolves around finding a rich husband or boyfriend. That’s an attitude right out of the 1950s.

At one of their frequent brunches, Carrie and her friends should discuss why these turn-of-the-century hipsters can’t manage to be as progressive as Mary Richards, the iconic television producer portrayed by Mary Tyler Moore in the eponymous 1970s hit sitcom.

Mary relished “making it on her own” and carving a career niche amongst the chauvinists at WJM-TV in Minneapolis. She has a lot more in common with many in the Washington movie theater audience than Carrie Bradshaw does.

It’s likely that a number of the Washington women were headed to jobs on Monday morning that involved writing or influencing legislation. That’s hard work in the crucible of the nation’s capital. They don’t have time to shop over the lunch hour—if they take lunch at all.

Perhaps some of them deal with measures that will increase workplace flexibility and allow more women to exercise Miranda’s choice to have a career and a family. Flexibility is an increasingly hot issue that is drawing bipartisan support.

Democrats have introduced bills that would compel companies to discuss with employees work schedule modifications that could help them manage demands at home. Republicans have introduced a bill that would allow workers to take overtime compensation in the form of paid time off.

You won’t find these issues mentioned in Sex and the City, because the film was written by Hollywood scribes rather than policy wonks. If the latter had put it together, it would have been blander than it already is.

As I was leaving the theater in a throng of galpals, it occurred to me that there was one important question Sex and the City doesn’t answer: How does Carrie pay for her wardrobe?

One of the first stories I covered for Workforce Management was the nomination of John Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court. My piece focused on how the conservative Roberts was likely to be an ally of business on the nation’s highest judicial body.

Corporate hopes were raised even higher when Roberts was tapped to be chief justice after the death of William Rehnquist. Adding to the excitement was the fact that Samuel Alito Jr., a staunch conservative, would replace the moderate Sandra Day O’Connor.

But a funny thing happened on the way to judicial nirvana for the business community. The conservative Roberts court began to act conservatively—according to the traditional definition of the word. By and large, being conservative means being opposed to drastic change and avoiding activism.

What this means is that the Supreme Court under Roberts looks at a statute, its legislative history and past rulings when making decisions.

“They don’t legislate from the bench, but rather they follow precedent,” says Ted Meyer, a Jones Day partner in Houston. “This is typical of a fairly conservative court. They follow the law.”

The results are sometimes favorable for employers. In the most controversial of the Roberts court employment law rulings, the justices split 5-4 along ideological lines to enforce a strict 180-day statute of limitations on pay discrimination suits. Roberts and Alito joined on a decision based on a strict interpretation of the law, a conservative trait.

But the Roberts court has also issued rulings that make it easier for employees to pursue retaliation claims. In its latest decision, a 7-2 majority held that a Civil War-era law encompasses retaliation even though it does not explicitly address such claims.

Known as Section 1981, it was established following the abolition of slavery to ensure that African-Americans were treated fairly in contracts. The law has a much longer statute of limitations than Title VII, a more restrictive provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Section 1981 also provides unlimited damages.

Title VII caps damages, requires plaintiffs to file their cases within months of a discriminatory act and establishes a dispute resolution procedure through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The decision “allows an employment law plaintiff to do an end run around Title VII,” says Joel Rice, who is of counsel to Fisher & Phillips in Chicago. “It’s beneficial to employees but not entirely surprising given the trend of the law in this area.”

Federal courts have been allowing the simultaneous filing of Title VII and Section 1981 cases for many years. So the court affirmed the practice and thus adhered to the principle of stare decisis, a conservative practice.

But in this case, it could wind up costing employers. “The longer limitations periods and uncapped damages available under Section 1981 represent a significant incentive for plaintiffs’ lawyers to use when crafting litigation strategies,” says Gerald L. Maatman Jr., a partner at Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago.

What these results mean is that business cannot count on the Roberts court to bail it out. Companies have to understand that striking back against a worker who alleges discrimination is even worse than the original mistreatment.

Using a little common sense is more likely to result in a favorable outcome in court—or avoiding court altogether—than counting on the appointment of conservative justices to the Supreme Court.