Senate Republicans voted unanimously Wednesday against a bill that would work to ensure fair pay for women, the Paycheck Fairness Act. The vote was 58-41.

Despite the Senate having majority support, Democrats couldn’t muster the 60 votes they needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

Several Republicans who voted for another women’s rights bill last year, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, opposed this iteration.

Those senators included Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republicans from Maine. The bill would have expanded enforcement of equal pay laws.

Collins argued that the bill would place undue burden on small business, and ‘impose increased costs and restrictions on small businesses in an already difficult economic climate.’

Her statement echoes rhetoric from the US Chamber of Commerce, which has routinely used small business as a defense for opposing all manner of progressive legislation. In fact, Collins even cited the Chamber’s opposition to the bill in her statement.

‘Many business groups oppose this legislation, including the National Federation of Independent Businesses, our nation’s largest small business advocacy group, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,’ Collins said.

Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine also declined to back the expansion of enforcing equal pay for women, even though she’d been supportive of a similar […]