At home, Rep. Martha Roby (R-Montgomery) is preparing for a primary in which she faces allegations that she is insufficiently conservative. In Washington last week, a right-leaning think tank singled her out for her conservatism.
Roby, in her fourth term representing the 2nd Congressional District in the Montgomery area and the Wiregrass, was one of four Republican women in the House of Representatives selected to participate in a panel sponsored by The Heritage Foundation to discuss empowering women through conservative policy.
Roby talked about the Working Families Flexibility Act, a bill she sponsored that would give workers in the private sector the same right enjoyed by government workers to take time off instead off overtime pay.
“If you want to coach your child’s soccer team, or you want to take a mission trip in the summer, and your work is such that you compile overtime hours and you’d rather use that time for paid leave instead of cash payments for overtime if you work in the public sector, you can currently do this,” she said.
But the Fair Labor Standards Act does not allow companies to offer the same flexibility to workers. Roby’s bill would grant that right if the employee chose it and if the employer wanted to offer it as an option.
“There’s no mandates here,” she said. “This is completely voluntary. … This is about making life work.”
The bill passed the House last May on a largely party-line 229-197 vote. But the Senate has not acted.
“We’re continuing to wait on the Senate, as we are on a lot of things, to get things done,” she said. “I talk at home about [how] we pass many great conservative bills in the House of Representatives that are way too important, to go to the Senate to die.”
Participating on the panel with Roby were House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Reps. Mia Love (R-Utah) and Ann Wagner (R-Mo.).
Roby addressed a number of topics related to how women can contribute to developing conservative solutions to America’s problems:
— On what it is like to run for Congress as a woman: Roby said it never occurred to her that seeking office as a woman was remarkable. “I was fortunate enough to grow up in a home where my father told me every single day, ‘Martha you can be anything you want to be.’ To the point where my sister and I took it for granted.” She said Congress needs more conservative women. “When you ask for the doors to open, you have to have the courage to walk through them,” she added.
— On whether women bring different priorities to Congress: Roby said Republican women remind their male colleagues that the GOP conference has great talent from people of all backgrounds and all walks of life. At the same time, she added, all issues are important to women. “We all have issues that we are interested in focusing on,” she said. “But at the end of the day, we care about the same things as our male counterparts do, as conservative Republicans making sure that we’re pushing policy that is helpful to the American people.”
— On national security: Roby said women have an instinctive understanding of threats to their families. “We know that women care about national security,” she said. “It’s in our DNA as caregivers, as mama bears, to be concerned every day about the safety of our families and our communities.” Roby added that her district has a large military footprint, with Maxwell Air Force Base and Fort Rucker. She also said she is proud that a plant in Troy, Alabama, builds the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAD, that is deployed on the Korean peninsula.
“So the men and women of Alabama’s 2nd District certainly have skin in the game,” she said.
Here’s the video from the forum:
(Image: The Heritage Foundation/YouTube)
Brendan Kirby is senior political reporter at LifeZette.com and a Yellowhammer contributor. He also is the author of “Wicked Mobile.” Follow him on Twitter.
