[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3294 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]
S.3294
One Hundred Seventeenth Congress
of the
United States of America
AT THE SECOND SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday,
the third day of January, two thousand and twenty two
An Act
To obtain and direct the placement in the Capitol or on the Capitol
Grounds of a statue to honor Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of
the United States Sandra Day O'Connor and a statue to honor Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. FINDINGS.
(a) Sandra Day O'Connor.--Congress finds the following:
(1) Sandra Day O'Connor was born in 1930 in El Paso, Texas, and
spent her childhood on her family's isolated Arizona cattle ranch.
She lived with her grandmother in El Paso during the school year,
away from her home and parents.
(2) O'Connor matriculated to Stanford University at the age of
16, and combined her undergraduate and law school curricula,
graduating with a bachelor's degree in economics and a law degree
in just 6 years. She was third in her law school class, behind
William Rehnquist, her future colleague on the Supreme Court of the
United States (in this section referred to as the ``Supreme
Court'').
(3) Despite her qualifications, O'Connor could not find work as
an attorney because of bias against women in the law. She ended up
negotiating for an unpaid position in the San Mateo County District
Attorney's office at a shared desk, while her husband, John,
finished at Stanford Law School 1 year later.
(4) O'Connor traveled to Frankfurt, Germany, in 1954 with her
husband John, who had joined the United States Army Judge Advocate
General's Corps, where she was able to find work as a civilian
attorney with the United States Army Quartermaster Corps. In 1957,
O'Connor returned to Arizona and still could not find work with a
traditional law firm due to her gender, so she ``hung out a
shingle'' as a sole practitioner.
(5) In 1965, O'Connor was hired as an Assistant Attorney
General for the State of Arizona.
(6) Active in Republican Party politics and well-received for
her work at the Arizona State Capitol, O'Connor was appointed to an
Arizona State Senate seat in 1969 when the incumbent, also a woman,
was appointed to a Federal position and vacated the office.
(7) In 1970, O'Connor was elected to the Arizona State Senate
and served 2 consecutive terms. In 1972, she was selected as
Majority Leader of the Arizona State Senate, the first time a woman
held such a position in any State.
(8) In 1974, O'Connor ran for office as a trial court judge.
She won and was later appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in
1979.
(9) On August 19, 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated
O'Connor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, to fill
the seat vacated by Associate Justice Potter Stewart. On September
21, 1981, the Senate confirmed O'Connor's nomination by a unanimous
vote, making her the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
(10) O'Connor established herself as a pragmatic, independent
voice on the Supreme Court, casting decisive votes during a time
when the Court was being asked to resolve politically charged
issues.
(11) In the 1982 case of Mississippi University for Women v.
Hogan, O'Connor wrote the majority opinion holding that the State
could not prevent men from enrolling in an all-women's nursing
school, writing that laws discriminating on the basis of sex would
be allowed only if there was an ``exceedingly persuasive
justification'' for them.
(12) O'Connor sought, when possible, to find the middle ground
between her often-divided colleagues, frequently joining the
majority decision but presenting her views in concurring opinions
that eschewed broad constitutional doctrine in favor of resolving
the cases before the Court.
(13) O'Connor put a very public face on the role of the Supreme
Court, domestically and around the world. She became the Court's
most prolific public speaker, traveling to all 50 States and to
countless law schools, libraries, and public events to describe how
the Court works and its role in our constitutional form of
government. She traveled worldwide as an ambassador for the Rule of
Law and the independence of judiciaries everywhere.
(14) After 24 years on the Supreme Court, O'Connor announced
her retirement to care for her ailing husband, who had Alzheimer's
disease. President George W. Bush nominated John Roberts, Jr., for
the vacancy, but before Roberts was confirmed, Chief Justice
Rehnquist passed away, creating a second vacancy. President Bush
personally appealed to O'Connor to remain on the Court so he could
nominate Roberts for the Chief Justice vacancy and have more time
to make a second nomination to the Court. In yet another act of
public service, O'Connor agreed to serve until Samuel Alito was
confirmed to fill her seat on January 31, 2006.
(15) O'Connor began her retirement with 2 goals. One was to
convince more States to adopt merit selection of judges for filling
vacancies in State courts. The second was to educate the public on
the importance of an independent judiciary. Her judicial
independence work led to her awareness of a national civics
education deficit.
(16) In 2009, O'Connor created iCivics.org to educate young
Americans about civics and what it means to be a citizen. That
endeavor grew to become the largest civics education platform in
the country, with over 7,000,000 students annually enrolling in the
programs. Its popularity was due to a captivating online,
interactive gaming approach. The program was free to all and had no
advertising. iCivics played a crucial role in Educating for
American Democracy, a federally funded initiative to improve civics
and history education, which released its reports in March 2021.
(b) Ruth Bader Ginsburg.--Congress finds the following:
(1) Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in 1933 in Brooklyn, New York,
and grew up in a low-income, working-class neighborhood.
(2) Ginsburg graduated from Cornell University in 1954,
finishing first in her class. Following her graduation, Ginsburg
enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1956, entering into a class of
552 men and only 8 other women.
(3) As a law student, Ginsburg became the first female member
of the Harvard Law Review, a prestigious legal journal. She also
cared for her husband, Martin Ginsburg, who had been diagnosed with
cancer, and their young daughter. Ginsburg finished her legal
education at Columbia Law School, where she graduated first in her
class in 1959.
(4) Ginsburg taught at Rutgers University Law School from 1963
to 1972 and at Columbia Law School from 1972 to 1980, where she
became the school's first female tenured professor.
(5) During the 1970s, Ginsburg served as the director of the
Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. In
this position, she led the fight against gender discrimination and
successfully argued 6 landmark cases before the Supreme Court.
(6) Ginsburg won 5 cases on gender discrimination before the
Supreme Court, including the case Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, which
involved a portion of the Social Security Act that favored women
over men, because the Act granted certain benefits to widows, but
not widowers.
(7) In 1980, President Jimmy Carter nominated Ginsburg to a
seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit.
(8) On June 22, 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg
to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, to fill the seat
vacated by Associate Justice Byron White. On August 3, 1993, the
Senate confirmed Ginsburg's nomination to the Supreme Court by a 96
to 3 vote.
(9) Ginsburg became the second female justice to serve on the
Supreme Court, as well as the first Jewish female justice to serve
on the Supreme Court.
(10) As a justice, Ginsburg presented a strong voice in favor
of gender equality, voting rights, the rights of workers, and the
separation of church and state.
(11) In 1996, Ginsburg wrote the Supreme Court's landmark
decision in United States v. Virginia, which held that the State-
supported Virginia Military Institute could not refuse to admit
women.
(12) Ginsburg famously dissented in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire
& Rubber Co., where the plaintiff, a female worker being paid
significantly less than males with her same qualifications, sued
under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e et
seq.), but was denied relief under a statute of limitation issue.
Ginsburg broke with tradition and wrote a high colloquial version
of her dissent to read from the bench. In her dissent, she also
called for Congress to undo this interpretation of the law.
(13) Ginsburg's impactful dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire
& Rubber Co. led to the successful passage of the Lilly Ledbetter
Fair Pay Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-2; 123 Stat. 5), which was the
first piece of legislation signed by President Barack Obama.
(14) Until the 2018 term, Ginsburg had not missed a day of oral
arguments, not even when she was undergoing chemotherapy for
pancreatic cancer, after surgery for colon cancer, or the day after
her husband passed away in 2010.
(15) Ginsburg passed away on September 18, 2020.
SEC. 2. STATUES HONORING JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR AND JUSTICE RUTH
BADER GINSBURG.
(a) Obtaining of Statues.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 2 years after the date of the
enactment of this Act, in consultation with the Committee on House
Administration of the House of Representatives and the Committee on
Rules and Administration of the Senate, and under such terms and
conditions as the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library
considers appropriate, consistent with applicable law, the Joint
Committee shall--
(A) enter into an agreement to obtain a statue honoring
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Sandra Day O'Connor; and
(B) enter into an agreement to obtain a statue honoring
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
(2) Consideration.--In selecting one or more artists to make
the statues obtained under paragraph (1), the Joint Committee of
Congress on the Library shall make the announcement available to,
and consider, artists from a variety of backgrounds, including
artists from underrepresented demographic groups.
(b) Installation.--
(1) In general.--The Architect of the Capitol, under the
direction of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, shall
permanently install each statue obtained under subsection (a) in a
prominent location in the Capitol or on the Capitol Grounds, as
described in section 5102 of title 40, United States Code.
(2) Priority for location.--In determining the location for the
permanent installation of each statue obtained under subsection
(a), the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library shall give
priority to identifying an appropriate location near the Old
Supreme Court Chamber of the United States Capitol.
(c) Funding.--Amounts available in the Capitol Preservation Fund
established under section 803 of the Arizona-Idaho Conservation Act of
1988 (2 U.S.C. 2083) may be used by the Joint Committee of Congress on
the Library for payments for the costs of creating
and installing the statues obtained under subsection (a), without
regard to subsections (b) and (d) of such section, provided that not
more than $500,000 of such amounts may be used for each statue obtained
under subsection (a).
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Vice President of the United States and
President of the Senate.