It's a good day

Today President Obama signed his first piece of legislation, the "Lilly Ledbetter" Fair Pay Act.

For those of you who don't know Lilly's story, for years she was paid much less than her male colleagues for doing the same work. Even worse, she had trained many of these men. Experts calculated that over the years Lilly lost more than $200,000 in earnings, plus social security and pension monies.

And so, Lilly went to court. The Supreme Court.

Unfortunately in 2007, the George Bush-led justices ruled against Lilly. While they found she had indeed experienced gender discrimination, she was not entitled to damages because she hadn't filed her lawsuit within 180 days of that first short paycheck.

Truth be told, Lilly didn't discover the discrimination for more than 10 years.

And the truth is, even in the 21st century, women make 77 cents on the dollar.

As the President this morning put his pen to important paper, he took note of the historic importance of this legislation. He signed the bill not only for Lilly, but for the tens of hundreds of thousands who came before her.

It's a good day.