[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 65 (Wednesday, April 23, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3273-S3287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    LILLY LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT OF 2007--MOTION TO PROCEED--Resumed

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time 
until 6 p.m. is equally divided and controlled between the two leaders 
or their designees. Each side will have a full 30 minutes.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I might use.
  Mr. President, our Nation was founded on the basic principle of 
fairness, justice, and equality. Over the years, a continuing march of 
progress has brought these shared ideals to ever more Americans. The 
``Whites only'' signs that were a stain on America are a thing of the 
past. We have opened the door of opportunity to African Americans, 
Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans. Glass ceilings that limited the 
opportunities of women and persons with disabilities are shattered. We 
have improved protections for persons of faith who suffer 
discrimination and intolerance because of their beliefs. Opportunities 
for older workers are greater now than perhaps at any previous time in 
our history. The march of progress represents America at its best. It 
has brought us ever closer to the ideal of Dr. Martin Luther King that 
Americans will one day be measured not by the color of their skin, 
their gender, their national origin, their race, their religion, or 
their disability, but by the content of their character.
  The Senate has been an important part of the progress in guaranteeing 
fairness and opportunity. We passed strong bipartisan laws to protect 
basic civil rights, and we must not turn back the clock again. Time and 
again, the Senate has gone on record in favor of fairness and against 
discrimination, and we have done so by overwhelming majorities. We will 
have an opportunity in a few moments to do so again.

[[Page S3274]]

  This chart shows the record of the Senate in ensuring pay equity for 
those whose skin is a different color, on the basis of age, disability, 
gender, religion, or national origin. Here it is: The Equal Pay Act was 
passed on a voice vote. An overwhelming majority in the Senate, 
Democrats and Republicans, said equal pay, equal work should be the law 
of the land. It was passed in 1963.
  The Civil Rights Act of 1964, title VII, equal pay for equal work, 
passed 73 to 27.
  Age discrimination that says you will not discriminate on the basis 
of age passed the Senate under President Johnson by a voice vote.
  The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 provided the same kind of protections 
for disabled individuals, individuals who have some disability but are 
otherwise qualified to do work. You cannot discriminate against them. 
That was passed on a voice vote under President Nixon. And this was 
repeated in the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, the Americans 
with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
  Look at the Presidents: Kennedy, Johnson, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, 
Bush, Bush. And now in the Senate our Republican friends want to say: 
Oh, no, we are going to permit discrimination against women because 
they did not have adequate notice that the discrimination was taking 
place because the employer did not give them that notice when they gave 
them a paycheck that was unequal to their male counterparts. That was a 
5-to-4 decision.
  We have an opportunity to go back on the right track that Republican 
and Democratic Presidents and Congress led us down. Let's restore the 
fairness, the equity, the decency, and the humanity this Senate of the 
United States has gone on record with regard to equal pay for women, 
disabled, and the elderly in our society. Let's do that. We have a 
chance to do so in just 45 minutes.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask that I be recognized for up to 10 
minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia is 
recognized.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts makes an eloquent and passionate statement, but everyone 
within the sound of my voice needs to understand something. This debate 
today is not about allowing, favoring, or supporting discrimination. It 
is about preserving the Civil Rights Act to which the distinguished 
Senator just referred, because the Civil Rights Act stated clearly that 
if a complaint was filed, it needed to be filed within 180 days of the 
act of discrimination, or as, as current EEOC practice allows, 180 days 
from the date which a reasonable person should have known.
  Let's make sure everyone understands all this. Since 1964, 44 years 
ago, that has been the provision in the statute. No one is trying to 
keep that from happening.
  Secondly, everybody needs to understand this: It is very important to 
people, regardless of whether they are a woman, a man, a Methodist, 
African American, Latino, whatever, if they are discriminated against, 
we need to make sure there is timely evidence so the handling of these 
claims can be completed thoroughly and completely.
  The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act changes the civil rights law provisions 
from 180 days from the time a discriminatory act was made or a 
reasonable person should have known they had been discriminated against 
to 180 days from any ``economic effect.'' This means that someone can 
work for a company for 30 years, go on retirement and pension, get a 
pension check, declare the 180 days just started, and file a complaint 
from 30 years ago.
  We are about having integrity in the system so we have timely 
complaints, we have timely evidence, and the parties who are there can 
quickly be remedied.
  I would like my staff to put up a chart because I would like to 
review the history of the Ledbetter case.
  In 1982, Mrs. Ledbetter filed a complaint for sexual harassment 
against her supervisor. That complaint was settled between her and the 
company, Goodyear, in a timely fashion, and she was satisfied.
  In 1992, Mrs. Ledbetter, under testimony, testified that she became 
aware she was being paid less than her peers, but she filed no 
complaint.
  In 1993, she did not file a complaint.
  In 1994, she did not file a complaint.
  In 1995, Mrs. Ledbetter said:

       I told him at that time that I knew definitely that they 
     were all making a thousand at least more per month than I was 
     and that I would like to get in line.

  But she did not file a complaint.
  In 1996, she did not file a complaint.
  In 1997, she did not file a complaint.
  And then on July 21, 1998, a complaint was filed, shortly after her 
supervisor died. That is the reason for the statute of limitations on 
the complaint to begin with--to ensure you have contemporary and timely 
information and the parties who might have committed the act of 
discrimination are alive and can be held accountable.
  No less than Justice John Paul Stevens, the first time this 
particular provision of statute of limitations was taken to the Court, 
in a 7-to-2 decision in 1977 said the following:

       A discrimination act which has not made the basis for a 
     time charge is merely an unfortunate event in history which 
     has no present legal consequence.

  Some will argue--and I am sure Senator Kennedy will--about hidden, or 
concealed, discrimination, whereby a person might not become aware they 
are being victimized. Essentially, you can rope-a-dope someone and fool 
them. Current EEOC practice clearly states that it is 180 days from the 
time a reasonable person should have known or would have known they 
were discriminated against.
  It is very important for us to understand that we have a case, the 
Ledbetter case, where the individual testified under oath in deposition 
that she was aware she was being underpaid and did not file. We also 
have a person in 1982, a decade before the alleged act, who did file a 
case for sex discrimination. So it was not ignorance of the system, 
ignorance of the law, or ignorance of the court; it was violation of 
the time provided.
  Just to make sure the record is clear, in a deposition of Mrs. 
Ledbetter on July 18, 2000:

       Question: So you had this conversation with Mike Tucker 
     about the 1995 evaluation. You told him then that you wanted 
     to try to get your pay more in line with your peers?
       Mrs. Ledbetter: That is correct.
       Question: How did you know that your peers were earning 
     more?
       Mrs. Ledbetter: Different people I worked for along the way 
     had always told me my pay was extremely low.

  Again in a deposition later on:

       Question: And so you knew in 1992 that you were paid less 
     than your peers.
       Mrs. Ledbetter: Yes, sir.

  Mr. President, I abhor discrimination. I share the reverence of the 
quote of Martin Luther King, a citizen of my home State, quoted by 
Senator Kennedy, that we all yearn for the day that a man will be 
judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin. 
We respect that today. That is why the Civil Rights Act we discuss 
today was passed. That is why, when they passed the Civil Rights Act, 
Congress put in a standard of 180 days from the date of discrimination 
to ensure the evidence was there, the supervisors were there. That way 
an aggrieved person could take action to remedy quickly this situation 
could. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act changes that to a distant time 
in the future when people could have passed away, records could have 
been destroyed, and the ability to prove the allegation would be 
impossible.
  I submit, in an environment in 2008 in the United States of America 
where equity, nondiscrimination, and freedom are available to all 
Americans, that it is this timeliness is important so that anybody who 
is injured and anybody who is aggrieved gets a swift and just action in 
the courts of the United States of America.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I will take 30 seconds.
  We are attempting to restore the law prior to the Supreme Court 
decision. That is all we are trying to do. The law before the Supreme 
Court's decision is that when the paycheck reflects discrimination the 
time to file starts.
  Here is a chart. All light green and dark green. That was the law of 
the

[[Page S3275]]

land. That was the law of the land, Mr. President. That is what our 
bill does. Let's not confuse the facts. We want to go back to what the 
law of the land was--that and only that.
  Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from New York.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kennedy for his brilliant 
leadership on this and so many other issues.
  First, I have to say that I sat and listened to my good friend from 
Georgia, and I noted that Lilly Ledbetter is in the gallery, and I was 
just thinking of having her listen to all of this talk, a lot of it 
sort of legalese and parsing hairs. Just think of who she is--a hard-
working woman from Gadsden, AL, a supervisor in a tire plant working 
just as hard as the men alongside her and every day and every week and 
every year not getting paid the same as they simply because she was a 
woman. It was not because she did a worse job, not because of any other 
reason. She has had to listen first to the Supreme Court and then to 
some of my colleagues parse hairs, and it is just not fair, it is not 
right, and it is un-American.
  Now, let me say this: As a male, this is something that is very 
difficult for men to understand, and yet women, whether they make 
$20,000 or $70,000 or $200,000, they know it and live with it every 
single day. It is not a surprise that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was so upset 
at this decision--a mean decision, a decision that makes people dislike 
the law--that she read her entire dissent from the bench, a highly 
unusual practice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
  Equal pay for equal work is as American as it comes. Equal pay for 
equal work is as American as apple pie. And to have a bunch of lawyers, 
whether they are Senators or Supreme Court Justices, parse hairs and 
deny simple, plain justice is as un-American as can be as well.
  So I hope this body will rise to the occasion. This is not a decision 
where you need a Harvard law degree to understand how backward it is. 
All you have to do is know who Mrs. Ledbetter is and who the millions 
of other American women are who are put in the same position as she is, 
and you know the cry for justice, justice, justice should ring from 
these Halls.
  So I hope we in this body, again, will rise to the occasion. I hope 
this body will do right by Mrs. Ledbetter in her long struggle to right 
this wrong, and to the millions of American women, our wives, our 
daughters, our friends, our relatives, and the many others we all do 
not know who are working hard, by the sweat of their brow, trying to 
support their family, trying to move up the ladder of decency and honor 
and success so that they, too, when they work, will be treated like 
their male counterpart.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts referred to restoring 
the law to pre-2002. The Supreme Court, in 1977, through John Paul 
Stevens' majority opinion, 7 to 2; 1980 and 1986, in all three of those 
rulings they upheld the 180-day provision of the Civil Rights Act of 
the United States of America. That was the law prior to Ledbetter, and 
that is what the court reaffirmed in Ledbetter.
  Mr. President, I yield up to 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator 
from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. I thank the Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. President, I rise today to voice my strong opposition to both the 
substance of H.R. 2831, the so-called Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, as well 
as the process--or more accurately, the lack of process--that has 
brought this matter to the Senate floor today.
  Welcome to ``gotcha politics 2008.'' When we really are intending to 
pass a bill, particularly with our Health, Education, Labor and Pension 
Committee, this is not the way we do it. We sit down, we talk about the 
principle, we list the mechanisms for solving that principle, and we 
work together to come up with a solution. That is not the case on this 
one. There has been a lack of any meaningful legislative process 
regarding this bill.
  Earlier in this session, the Supreme Court upheld a Circuit Court 
decision regarding the limitations period for filing claims under the 
discrimination statutes I have noted. In my view, this decision was 
unquestionably correct and completely consistent with the intent of 
those statutes. However, even for those who might ultimately disagree 
with that view, there can be no debate Congress's subsequent action was 
a slapdash response and a transparent attempt to score political points 
at the expense of responsible legislating.
  No sooner was the ink dry on the decision from the Supreme Court, 
than this legislation was introduced in the House. It was rushed 
through committee without change and rammed through the House on an 
essentially party-line vote just 5 days later. The bill was debated 
under a rule that allowed only 1 hour of debate and no amendments. Does 
that seem a little familiar? Yesterday, we heard a diatribe on the 
Senate floor about how Republicans are holding up everything and 
insisting on these motions to proceed being brought up. Then, after 
cloture was approved 94 to 0 on a veterans bill, we weren't allowed to 
vote on it again anytime that day, and we didn't even go into session 
until 5 o'clock tonight. That was to keep any discussion or any votes 
from happening and to limit any debate on this issue.
  That is not the way the Senate is supposed to operate, but it is the 
way we are operating on this bill, just as they did in the House--not 
going through the normal process of making sure that concerns were 
being solved. That is the only way anything ever makes it through this 
body. A look at the House vote reveals this was not the result of any 
groundswell of unanimity in that body. The margin was razor thin. The 
bill was then sent to the Senate, where by regular order it is supposed 
to come before the appropriate committee for debate and amendments, but 
that hasn't happened. This body has consistently and rightfully taken 
pride in the care and thorough negotiation of its deliberative process.
  Now, despite the deceptive name, this legislation doesn't restore 
anything. Quite to the contrary, it completely destroys a vital 
provision of title VII of the Civil Rights Act that was intentionally 
included by the drafters of that legislation. Employment discrimination 
based on race, sex, age, national origin, religion, or disability is 
intolerable, and the drafters wanted to ensure any claims of sex 
discrimination could be promptly addressed.
  Beyond this consideration, the drafters of those laws also recognized 
two practical realities: First, in the employment context, unaddressed 
claims of discrimination are particularly corrosive. Federal 
discrimination policy must ensure that bias is rooted out and remedied 
as quickly as possible. And, second, it is virtually impossible to 
discover the truth with respect to such claims based on events in the 
distant past. With the passage of time, memories fade, critical 
witnesses become unavailable for one reason or another, and records, 
documents, and other physical evidence are destroyed or otherwise not 
available. Under this bill, that claim can go until the time of 
retirement and then be claimed back to the time of whenever this 
supposed discrimination was, where the witnesses aren't available. But, 
most importantly, the accounting records aren't available anymore. How 
can you go back and figure that amount without the records?

  It is for these reasons that all statutes granting the right to take 
legal action contain a limitation period for commencing such actions. 
These general considerations of discrimination in the workplace led the 
drafters of title VII to intentionally establish a relatively short 
period with respect to such claims. They selected a period of 180 days 
from the discriminatory act, a period that, depending upon the State 
where the claim arises, could extend to 300 days.
  This bill doesn't restore this well-reasoned and plainly intended 
limitation period and policy; it would eliminate it in virtually all 
employment discrimination cases. Under this bill, an individual could 
file a timely charge of discrimination based on an event or act that 
occurred years, even decades before.

[[Page S3276]]

  We are told, however, that such a change is necessary because 
employees may not know they are being discriminated against, or that 
employers will hide the fact from employees in order to prevent the 
timely filing of a claim. These appear on their face to be appealing 
arguments; however, they ignore and they misrepresent the actual state 
of the law. The law already provides remedies in these instances. The 
limitations period for filing employment discrimination claims is not 
nearly as inflexible as the proponents of this bill would lead people 
to believe.
  What about individuals who simply don't know the facts that would 
lead a reasonable person to conclude they have been discriminated 
against? Would they be barred from bringing a claim with the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission? If an employee doesn't know the 
facts, wouldn't their employer just get a free pass on discrimination? 
The EEOC has addressed this directly. Here is what the EEOC's own 
compliance manual says:

       Sometimes a charging party will be unaware of a possible 
     EEO claim at the time of the alleged violation. Under such 
     circumstances, the filing period should be tolled until the 
     individual has, or should have, enough information to support 
     a reasonable suspicion of discrimination.

  Under the well-recognized doctrine of a continuing violation, all 
that the law requires is that there be a single act of discrimination 
within the applicable filing period, and the other context is properly 
swept into the charge from the reasonable time of knowing it.
  Now, this flawed legislation also hides another vast expansion of 
workplace discrimination laws that must not go unmentioned. Since 1968, 
the law has been that the individual who is discriminated against is 
the person with the standing to file a lawsuit. But under this bill, 
any individual affected by application of a discriminatory compensation 
decision or other practice has standing to sue. So now it isn't just at 
retirement or death when the person can bring this up, it is other 
family members or other dependents who can bring it up, long after the 
last paycheck.
  Practitioners we have consulted agree that this incredibly broad 
language would easily cover dependents, such as spouses and children 
benefiting from pension payments and family health care coverage. It 
could also be construed by courts to extend liability long after 
pension payments are completed, if the money is invested in an annuity, 
for example. This is a huge expansion that we have never talked about 
in committee.
  And, before I close, I want to mention my greatest concern in dealing 
with the legislation. If we were really concerned about helping the 
greatest number of workers, we wouldn't be focused on changing the law 
to help improve their chances of a successful lawsuit. Instead, we 
would be extending a helping hand and providing a source for them to 
obtain the training they need to keep their current jobs and work 
toward better ones--the flexibility to move.
  Such a change would come if we were able to convince the majority to 
finish the job we started on the Workforce Investment Act. It is 5 
years overdue for reauthorization, and we passed it through the Senate 
twice, but we have never been able to have a conference committee. This 
legislation would mean 900,000 people a year could have better job 
training. So our inability to get this bill signed into law is a shame.
  Again, I say this has not gone through the proper process here in the 
Senate and it was rushed through the House. I guess some think it is 
always easy to be able to catch a little publicity based on some 
articles in the paper and try to push something along, but if you 
actually want to pass a bill it doesn't work. It has to go through a 
normal process to pass the Senate, and that is what I am sure will 
happen on this bill.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Maryland.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I take this opportunity to thank the 
Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, for his leadership on this 
issue and for the way his staff worked with the women in the Senate to 
overcome what we thought was a flagrant abuse of power.
  In May of last year, the Supreme Court issued a decision called the 
Ledbetter case that was basically sexist and biased. It didn't reflect 
the spirit of the civil rights law on discrimination. It didn't reflect 
the reality of the workplace or the reality of women's lives. The 
Supreme Court overturned the opinions that had been given by the 
appellate court, by precedent, by history, and so on.
  What did the Supreme Court say? That it was OK to discriminate, 
unless you knew 180 days from the time you were discriminated against 
and brought an action or brought this to the attention of your 
employer. Well, it just doesn't work that way. Anyone who knows the 
reality of the workplace knows that you don't know if you are being 
discriminated against.
  What is the reality of the workplace? You can talk about sex at the 
water cooler, you can talk about religion by your computer, you can 
talk politics in the lunchroom, but if you open your mouth about your 
pay and whether you have gotten a raise, you are in trouble. If a woman 
begins to go and ask: Hey, George, what do you get paid, mum's the 
word.

  If, then, Bill gets a raise, the guys are sitting around at the ball 
game downing a few beers and they say: Hey, George, you have done a 
great job, we are going to give you a promotion, how do you know about 
this? The only way you know about it is over time.
  What we are doing in this legislation, led by Senator Kennedy--we 
have a bipartisan bill--is to right the Supreme Court decision. We are 
doing this at the urging of Justice Ginsburg. The Supreme Court 
decision was so bad that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman on the 
Supreme Court, took the unusual step of reading her dissent from the 
bench, and she said:

       In our view the Court does not comprehend or is indifferent 
     to the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay 
     discrimination.

  She said this needed to be fixed by Congress, and Congress has a 
remedy we are voting on today.
  I was appalled to read that not only was the Supreme Court decision 
bad, but now the President has issued a veto threat. He said this bill 
is going to ``impede justice.'' That is baloney. This bill doesn't 
impede justice, it restores justice. It reinstates a fair rule for both 
workers and employers. He said it is going to mess up the process. This 
bill does not slow down the process, it gives people a way of getting 
into the process if you can't bring a claim in more than 6 months after 
you have been hired.
  President Bush also says he wants to veto this because this bill 
would eliminate the statute of limitation in wage discrimination cases. 
That is not true. This bill does not change the 180-day time limit. It 
only changes when the clock starts to run. The bill restarts the clock 
with each time you get a paycheck that discriminates, so each time you 
get a paycheck that discriminates, the 180-day clock starts to run 
again. This is critical. How many people, as I said, know the salary of 
their coworkers? If you are hired at an equal rate with your male 
counterpart but he gets a raise in a few months and you don't, what 
should you do?
  This is what Lilly Ledbetter found. She was a faithful employee at 
the Goodyear Company, Over time and with great risk she had to fight in 
her workplace, she had to fight in her courtroom.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has used 5 minutes.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Now it is time to fight for Lilly Ledbetter and the 150 
million women in her position. The CBS poll on women says the No. 1 
issue they face is equal pay for equal or comparable work. If in fact 
this is not a problem, why does every woman in every poll make this a 
No. 1 issue?
  I ask that we make it a No. 1 issue in the Senate. We are now on a 
vote, as we faced with Anita Hill. I have a terrible feeling that 
tonight the Senate will not get it, but the women will get it and we 
are going to start a revolution as Abigail Adams asked us to do.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I am surprised that my colleagues say 
this is all about publicity. How can it be about publicity when, in 
reality, women make less than men in their everyday jobs? Last week in 
Pittsburg I

[[Page S3277]]

attended an equal pay forum and found young children carrying handmade 
signs about justice: Gussie, a young girl, said, ``I will work for 
justice;'' Sofia, another young girl, said, ``I will work for 
justice;'' Leo, who wanted to join in with these young ladies, said, 
``I will work for change and for justice.'' The children planned to 
walk around and collect 23 cents on street corners, begging for an 
amount of change that represents the difference between what men and 
women get paid.
  This young generation of Americans wants to know that they are going 
to grow up in a world where they are going to get equal pay for equal 
work.
  Women, on average, make 77 cents per every dollar their male 
counterparts make and stand to lose $250,000 dollars in income over 
their lifetime. We are talking about real dollars. The pay gap follows 
women into retirement. A single woman in retirement, making less pay in 
her career, could receive $8,000 dollars less in retirement income 
annually than a man--this is an issue of justice.
  I appreciate that the Senator from Massachusetts has led the charge 
on this. I want to remind my colleagues that we had a similar Supreme 
Court decision on identity theft, which passed by a 9-0 vote, that 
limited a victim's ability to recover when it is held that the statute 
of limitations begins at the time of the initial violation, rather than 
when the victim discovers the injury. It was the same issue. You did 
not know that your identity had been stolen, but the courts maintained 
a very narrow definition of how long you had to recover. What did we 
do? We acted. Congress extended the statute of limitations to two years 
after the individual knew their identity had been stolen or 5 years 
after the violation. That is what Congress did. We corrected that. That 
is what we need to do to give equal justice to women so they can have 
equal pay.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has used 2 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  If I could have the attention of the Senator from Maryland, can the 
Senator explain to me why there would be reluctance in this body to 
vote for equal pay for equal work? We voted on this now more than five 
times in a 40-year period, to knock down the prejudice and 
discrimination to women, to minorities, to the disabled, and to the 
elderly. Under the Supreme Court decision, that discrimination can take 
place in the United States of America today. This legislation can halt 
it. Can the Senator possibly think about why we should hesitate in 
taking the action to restore the law to what it was prior to the 
Supreme Court decision?
  Ms. MIKULSKI. First, I believe in this matter the Senate would be out 
of touch with the American people. The American people want fairness, 
they want justice, and they believe women should be paid equal pay for 
equal or comparable work.
  I also believe, though, there is opposition to the bill because 
people make profits off of discrimination. If you pay women less, you 
make more.
  Also I believe when they talk about when the law was passed--the 
workplace has changed. There are now more women in the workplace than 
there were when the original laws were passed. But as the Senator from 
Washington State said, my gosh, this adds up to real money. You know, 
20 cents an hour that we make less than the guy next to us--unless we 
are in the Senate; we do have equal pay here--this, over a lifetime, 
adds up to over a quarter of a million or a million dollars. When we 
look at its impact on Social Security, it is tremendous. Then if we 
look at its impact on a 401(k), if you have one, it adds up.
  I believe discrimination is profitable, but I think it is time that 
justice is done.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 1 minute.
  If I can ask the Senator from Washington, in this downturn in our 
economy we find that women have less savings, they are participating 
less in pension plans, they are subject to more foreclosures in 
housing. At a time when women are under more pressure, can the Senator 
possibly explain why there should be reluctance in this body to restore 
fairness?
  Ms. CANTWELL. It is quite simple to correct this issue today. We are 
asking that more women be a part of the math and science and 
engineering workforce, be part of the information technology age. But 
if they cannot ask how much their male counterparts are making and find 
out later that they are only making 77 cents per every dollar their 
male counterparts make, that is not fair.
  We could correct that by now by not only allowing people to come 
forward at the first instance of unequal pay--but every instance.
  It is critical that we address this simple correction. This body has 
corrected other Supreme Court decisions on these same statute of 
limitations issues. This is the least we can do.
  I see my colleague from New York has come to the floor. We ought to 
get this bill passed and get on to her legislation that is even more 
robust--to make sure that employers are treating women fairly and 
giving them information. This is basic. We should pass it and make sure 
we send this to the President's desk.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time of the Senator has 
expired. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I owe the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts an answer to the rhetorical questions he has asked. 
Everybody within the sound of my voice should understand we are not 
debating whether anybody in here believes in discrimination. We have 
voted over and over in this body for 44 years. We have the Equal Pay 
Act, as the Senator had on his chart there. That passed the Senate on 
voice vote. That is not the issue. The issue in this case is the 
tolling provisions of the 1967 Civil Rights Act, Title VII, which dealt 
with discrimination in wages based on race, religion, sex, or national 
origin. I will debate what tolling period is appropriate, but I am not 
going to stand here and allow this to be described as a debate over one 
side being for discrimination and another being against it. We are for 
the timely reporting of claimants and the ability of people to be 
remedied expeditiously if they have been discriminated against.
  How much time is left on our side?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 13 minutes.
  Mr. ISAKSON. I yield the distinguished Senator from Utah, Senator 
Hatch, 11 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah is 
recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the bill that 
would overturn the Supreme Court's ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear 
Tire. At the outset, let me be perfectly clear about the basis for my 
opposition to the so-called Fair Pay Restoration Act. I know of no one 
on either side of the aisle in this Senate who condones any form of 
unlawful employment discrimination, including pay discrimination.
  Indeed, all forms of unlawful employment discrimination under Title 
VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, including pay discrimination, should 
be confronted promptly, efficiently, fairly and forthrightly, 
consistent with the enforcement scheme provided for by the Congress 
which enacted that law.
  Yet, once again we open debate on another of the magnificently 
misnamed and misleading bills--the so-called Fair Pay Act which its 
proponents claim will ``restore'' the intent of Congress in enacting 
the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
  In fact, this bill does not restore anything, certainly not the 
rights of individuals under the Civil Rights Act and clearly not the 
statute of limitations set by Congress for the timely filing of 
unlawful employment discrimination charges, including pay 
discrimination charges, with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission, the EEOC, or similar State agencies.
  In fact, Congress fully intended the charge-filing period to be 180 
days, or 300 days where there are similar State agencies, so as to 
encourage prompt, effective investigation, conciliation, and resolution 
of pay discrimination charges and charges of other forms of unlawful 
employment discrimination.
  It was for that reason that Congress carefully chose and designed the 
current enforcement scheme, which has been consistently upheld by the 
Supreme Court for over 40 years.
  Over that time, Congress and the courts have wisely and consistently 
encouraged cooperation and voluntary

[[Page S3278]]

compliance, in the first instance, by the parties themselves and with 
the timely assistance of the EEOC or similar State agencies, as the 
preferred method for addressing alleged unlawful employment 
discrimination.
  Where voluntary compliance and conciliation are unsuccessful, title 
VII provides for vigorous enforcement by the private parties and the 
EEOC through litigation.
  In other words, voluntary compliance and conciliation first, 
litigation thereafter whenever necessary.
  So, in fact, the so-called Fair Pay Act does not restore the intent 
of Congress or the original statute of limitations for the filing of 
pay discrimination charges, and neither does it restore lost rights 
under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
  In fact, this bill dramatically expands the charge filing beyond all 
recognition and expectations of the Congress which passed the 1964 
Civil Rights Act. If this bill were to become law there would be no 
statute of limitations, no time limit for the filing of alleged pay 
discrimination charges. Not 180 days, not 300 days, not years or even 
decades, as in the Ledbetter case, or even after the employee has long 
since retired and is receiving pension checks.
  This bill not only expands the statute of limitations for filing 
charges of alleged unlawful pay discrimination, it also expands the 
class of individuals who can file such charges. And, beyond reversing 
the Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision, which was an intentional 
discrimination case, this bill expands the time for filing the type of 
unintentional, disparate impact, or adverse impact, charges involving 
pay practices which are facially neutral but could have some type of 
unintended consequences adverse to women or other protected groups.
  As to the expansion of charge filing under the 1964 Civil Rights Act 
to individuals outside the protected groups, the so-called Fair Pay Act 
would eliminate the existing requirement that to have standing there 
must be an employer-employee or employer-applicant relationship. This 
bill expands the standing to sue requirements to include individuals 
affected by application of a discriminatory compensation decision or 
other practice. This language would appear to include spouse and other 
relatives, as well as anyone else affected indirectly.
  I am not imagining this. In fact, when questioned about whether such 
a radical expansion of the law's standing requirements was intended by 
the bill's proponents, they responded that it was their intention to do 
so.
  Thus, under this bill, not only could employees and retirees file 
charges of pay discrimination at any time, years or decades after the 
current statute of limitations, but so too could anyone affected by 
alleged pay discrimination file charges, presumably even after the 
employee is dead since the relatives or others were affected.
  Let's also be candid about the type of pay discrimination alleged. 
The Ledbetter case involved only claims of intentional discrimination 
or disparate treatment of individuals in a protected group. This bill 
would apply also to unintentional discrimination--so-called disparate 
impact, or adverse impact, discrimination. Those are cases where the 
pay practices are neural and non-discriminatory on their face, but 
through statistical analysis such pay practices may have an unintended, 
attenuated disparate impact on a protected group, such as women. 
Indeed, the challenged pay practices may not have been intentionally 
discriminatory treatment, or even have had a disparate impact at the 
time of their enactment, but sometime later a social scientist or 
statistician may assert that the pay practices subsequently may have 
had an adverse impact on one group or another.
  Thus, in fact this bill goes well beyond simply reversing the Supreme 
Court's decision in Ledbetter as its proponents claim.
  I am also convinced that the so-called Fair Pay Act which we are 
debating today would turn the system of enforcement established by 
Congress in 1964 on its head in a way that is most unfair.
  At the heart of title VII and every other employment 
nondiscrimination statute--indeed, at the heart of every civil law 
enacted in this country--there is a statute of limitations within which 
claims and charges must be brought. Actions brought outside those 
statutory time periods are time barred.
  The Supreme Court has consistently held in a long line of well-
settled and well-recognized case law that under title VII the statutory 
period for filing a charge begins to run when the alleged 
discriminatory decision is made and communicated, not when the 
complaining party feels the consequences of that decision.
  Proponents of this act are, in essence, permitting an open-ended 
period for filing charges of pay discrimination with every paycheck and 
every decision that contributed to current pay, or even with receipt of 
pension or other retirement checks. The so-called Fair Pay Act would 
result in a litigation ``gotcha'' strategy, or a ``litigation first and 
ask questions later'' enforcement scheme which is directly contrary to 
congressional intent in enacting title VII.
  The current statutory charge-filing period for allegations of 
employment discrimination, including pay discrimination, did not 
suddenly pop up under the current Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision.
  In fact, the Supreme Court has long upheld that the current statute 
of limitations for filing charges under title VII. In an often quoted 
passage from the 1974 Supreme Court decision American Pipe v. Utah, the 
title VII statutory limitation on the filing of charges beyond the 180- 
or 300-day period ``promote(s) justice by preventing surprises through 
the revival of claims that have been allowed to slumber until evidence 
has been lost, memories have faded, and witnesses have disappeared.''
  In its 1979 decision in United States v. Kubrick, the Supreme Court 
said that the charge-filing period under title VII is ``balanced'' and 
``fair'' to both employers and employees.
  The current 180- or 300-day charge filing period allows the employer 
and the EEOC (1) to investigate the pay discrimination charge: (2) to 
seek compromise, conciliation, settlement and fair resolution of the 
charge; and (3) to allow both parties to prepare for litigation, if 
necessary, by gathering and preserving evidence for trial where 
resolution is not possible outside of litigation.
  Now let's look at how the current system would change under the so-
called Fair Pay Act.
  The plaintiff's charges of pay discrimination could be brought years, 
decades, or even after the plaintiff's retirement from the company, or 
as I have stated earlier, by charges filed by relatives or other 
affected parties even after the employee's death. The employer's 
ability to defend its actions or decisions will have dissipated. 
Managers and decision-makers may no longer be available. Business units 
may have been reorganized, dissolved, or sold, and operations may have 
changed or been eliminated. Relevant documents and records which are 
not required to be preserved by law might have been disposed of, or are 
otherwise unavailable. In effect, as the Supreme Court stated in 
defending the current charge-filing period under title VII, unless an 
employer receives prompt notice of allegations of employment 
discrimination it will have no ``opportunity to gather and preserve the 
evidence with which to sustain (itself). . . .''
  I am convinced that the only beneficiaries of the so-called Fair Pay 
Act--the only ones who will see an increase in pay--are the trial 
lawyers.
  So, if the so-called Fair Pay Act:
  (1) does not restore lost rights under the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 
other employment non-discrimination statutes it amends, but greatly 
expands them;
  (2) does not restore the statute of limitations under title VII but 
eliminates any statute of limitations creating open-ended, unlimited 
liability;
  (3) does not further the intent of Congress in title VII of the 1964 
Civil Rights Act to encourage prompt investigation, conciliation and 
resolution of unlawful discriminatory pay practices; and
  (4) does not result in increased pay except for the plaintiff's trial 
lawyers who will gain an unfair advantage when the employer's witnesses 
are unavailable, memories have faded, records are long gone, and the 
jury trial becomes a ``he said, she said'' based solely on the word of 
a corporation against that of an individual plaintiff;

[[Page S3279]]

  Then what does the bill do?
  I believe this bill undermines one of the bedrock principles of all 
Judeo-Christian jurisprudence--the statute of limitations. Frankly, I 
may be mistaken, but I know of no other civil statute that allows an 
unlimited, open-ended time for filing an action. Criminal statutes, of 
course, may be open-ended in bringing indictments for such felony 
crimes as murder, but even criminal misdemeanors generally have a 
statutory period within which prosecutions must be brought.
  For all these reasons, I suggest that this largely political vote on 
this misnamed and misunderstood bill is one that is designed to place 
opponents of the bill in a false light of being unsympathetic to 
victims of pay discrimination. That is simply untrue.
  I urge a ``no'' vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to this 
bill.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I have always supported efforts to 
ensure fair pay and fair process. I would support a longer statute of 
limitation for gender discrimination in the workplace, but the bill 
before us eliminates any statute of limitation. A reasonable statute 
might be 1 or 2 years after the discovery of the inequity. The purpose 
of statutes of limitation is to ensure that witnesses are available and 
defendants have records to defend themselves fairly. That is the reason 
that statutes of limitation are an integral part of our legal system.
  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I rise today to offer my support for 
protecting American workers from willful pay discrimination. To show my 
support, I will support cloture on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 
2007, H.R. 2831. I appreciate Chairman Kennedy and the bipartisan 
coalition he has built around this legislation to ensure equal pay for 
equal work.
  Every employee deserves to earn the same pay for doing the same work.
  Our country was founded on the principle that all men and women are 
created equal.
  Our workers should be paid equally for doing the same job.
  As President Kennedy stated when he signed the original Equal Pay Act 
in 1963, protecting American workers against pay discrimination is 
``basic to democracy''. We owe our workers the same protection today 
that President Kennedy did in the 1960s.
  Despite our obligation to this issue, our work is far from complete. 
Forty-five years after he signed that historic piece of bipartisan 
legislation, American women still only make 77 cents for every dollar a 
man makes for doing the same work. African-American workers make 18 
percent less than white workers for doing the same work and Latinos 
make 28 percent less for doing the same work. Unfortunately for all of 
us, American Indians make even less for doing the same work.
  Congress cannot ignore this kind of discrimination. We have a duty to 
support this bill and speak out against pay discrimination.
  This bill will merely restore the law to what it was before the 
Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter. This bill merely states that a 
pay discrimination claim accrues when a pay decision is made, when an 
employee is subject to that decision, or at any time they are injured 
by it.
  Lilly Ledbetter had worked at Goodyear for 19 years when she 
discovered she was being paid significantly less than her male 
counterparts for doing the exact same work. A jury agreed and awarded 
her $223,776 in back pay, and over $3 million in punitive damages. The 
United States Supreme Court however, interpreted the law to take away 
her jury award, saying that the 180-day filing limit had begun way back 
when her very first paycheck showed lesser pay, nearly 18 years 
earlier. So because too much time had elapsed the Court said, her claim 
was invalid. Despite Goodyear's willful wage discrimination, the Court 
offered her no protection. In fact, it reversed the protection the jury 
awarded her.
  We are here today to undo this wrongheaded decision and clarify this 
law to make it fair to American workers.
  Opponents will argue that this bill will lead to a flood of 
litigation, benefiting nobody but trial attorneys. They forget, 
however, that this bill merely returns the law to how the vast majority 
of States, including the great State of Montana, interpreted it before 
the Ledbetter decision. This bill will only change the way courts 
interpret the law in 7 States.
  Opponents will also argue that this bill will punish businesses for 
acts of discrimination in some cases, decades ago, before management 
and corporate culture changed. The argument is hollow, however, because 
the bill contains a provision to limit claims filed to a 2-year 
maximum. In the spirit of negotiation, proponents had to limit 
potential awards. Take Lilly Ledbetter's case, for example. If this law 
would have been in effect for her, 16 out of the 18 years that she 
suffered pay discrimination would still go unpunished.
  This bill is not perfect. We still have a long ways to go to protect 
American workers from pay discrimination. But this bill is a step in 
the right direction and the time is now. The House of Representatives 
passed this important bill last July, and It is time for this body to 
do the same. President Kennedy was absolutely right to support the 
Equal Pay Act in 1963. Forty-five years later, this bill will ensure 
that we turn the clock forward, not backward, on pay discrimination.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this important 
legislation.
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, yesterday was Equal Pay Day in America. It 
is befitting that it was on a Tuesday because Tuesday is the day on 
which women's wages catch up to men's wages from the previous week. It 
is most unfortunate that women continue to be discriminated against by 
employers, in particular those who routinely pay lower wages for jobs 
that are dominated by women.
  However, today my colleagues in the Senate will have an opportunity 
to begin the process to restore the intent of Congress as it relates to 
the fundamental fairness to millions of workers. We will have a chance 
to override a decision by the Supreme Court last June, in the case of 
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. In this case, the Court, 
in a 5-to-4 ruling, reversed a longstanding interpretation, used by 
nine Federal circuits and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 
EEOC, under which the statute of limitations for pay discrimination 
begins to run each time an employee receives a paycheck or other form 
of compensation. Instead, the Court ruled that the 180-day statute of 
limitations on filing a discrimination claim with the EEOC begins to 
run when the original discriminatory decision is made and conveyed to 
the employee, regardless of whether the pay discrimination continues 
beyond the 180-day period. This is an unfair and unjust ruling. For 
employees who are prohibited from having access to data reflecting the 
wages of other employees, it is impossible for them to ascertain 
whether they have been a victim of wage discrimination--let alone, to 
know from the original time of the discriminatory act. In many cases, 
employees may not know until years later that they have been 
discriminated against on the basis of pay.
  I urge my colleagues to support cloture on the motion to proceed to 
this important legislation, and to support enactment of this bill. The 
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007 will restore the interpretation 
that the statute of limitations begins to run each time an employee 
receives a paycheck or other form of compensation reflecting the 
discrimination, otherwise known as the ``paycheck accrual'' rule. It 
would ensure that employees who can prove pay discrimination based on 
race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability will 
not be forever barred from seeking redress because they did not learn 
that they were victims of pay discrimination within 6 months after the 
discrimination first occurred.
  Although women still only earn 77 cents for every $1 earned by men, 
we should not be moving backwards. It is simple, this legislation will 
restore an employee's right to seek restitution against wage 
discrimination at the time the employee discovers it. In addition, it 
is important to note that this legislation is not just about gender pay 
discrimination. In 2007, EEOC received more than 7,000 pay 
discrimination charges. While some are on the basis of gender, others 
are on the basis of race, disability, national origin, and age.
  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to do what is right and support 
cloture and passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

[[Page S3280]]

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Fair Pay 
Restoration Act, which is currently before the Senate.
  On May 29, 2007, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case 
of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc. After her retirement 
from Goodyear in 1998, Lilly Ledbetter filed a sex discrimination case 
against her employer. Ms. Ledbetter claimed that she had been paid 
significantly less than her male counterparts during her work as one of 
the few female supervisors at Goodyear. Unfortunately, due to a company 
policy that prohibited employees from discussing their pay, Ms. 
Ledbetter couldn't confirm the discrimination until she received an 
anonymous note that detailed the salaries of three of the male 
managers. This note confirmed that Ms. Ledbetter had been paid 20 
+percent to 40 percent less than the male managers throughout her 
employment with Goodyear. A jury found that this pay discrepancy was 
based, at least in part, on sex discrimination.
  Ms. Ledbetter is an example of an employee who has done all that is 
expected of her. By all reports, she performed her job admirably, the 
same work being performed by her male counterparts. She raised concerns 
about her pay level and eventually brought suit against her employer.
  Through this process came the Supreme Court decision which limits an 
employee's right to collect backpay to 180 days after the issuance of a 
discriminatory paycheck. This is true even if the employee was unaware 
of the discrimination or, as in the case of Ms. Ledbetter, was unable 
to discover proof of such discrimination through the deliberate efforts 
of her employer.
  The Fair Pay Restoration Act is a return to the rational, reasonable 
approach that had been applied by Federal circuit courts in most 
States, including my home State of New Mexico, prior to the Ledbetter 
decision. Under the previous rule, an employee could bring a claim 
within 180 days of the last discriminatory paycheck. This bill would 
also implement a limitation on backpay claims to 2 years, providing 
businesses a protection against claims that are allowed to accumulate 
over years and encouraging employees to act with all due diligence in 
pursuing discrimination claims. The Congressional Budget Office has 
determined that the Fair Pay Act is unlikely to increase the number of 
claims brought in discrimination cases.
  We must work to ensure that the courts remain a source of redress for 
employees many of whom are fighting much larger and better financed 
employers. Employees should not face unreasonable obstacles in their 
efforts to pursue a discrimination claim and to seek appropriate 
remedies. By placing an undue burden on employees to quickly prove 
discrimination, the Ledbetter decision has negatively altered the use 
of the courts as a remedy for discriminatory conduct by employers. 
Employers who are more successful at hampering their employees' efforts 
to prove discrimination and delay are now afforded more protection than 
those employers who treat their employees justly under the law. The 
Fair Pay Restoration Act seeks to restore this equity and to ensure 
that employees and employers have full and equal access to the courts.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of the Fair Pay 
Restoration Act, legislation that protects American workers from pay 
discrimination, and I am glad the Senate is debating it.
  This bill is designed to overrule an incorrect court decision that 
cut off one woman's efforts to seek recourse for pay discrimination she 
experienced at the hands of her employer. As one of the few female 
supervisors at her company's plant, Lilly Ledbetter was paid 
substantially less than male employees in the same position who 
performed the same duties. This information about unequal pay was kept 
confidential. It was only after Ms. Ledbetter received an anonymous 
note revealing the higher salaries of other managers who were male that 
Ms. Ledbetter recognized that she was being paid less because she was a 
woman. Ms. Ledbetter's case went to trial and a jury awarded her full 
damages and back pay.
  Last year, in a sharply divided opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that 
Ms. Ledbetter had filed her lawsuit too long after her employer 
originally decided to give her unequal pay. Under title VII of the 
Civil Rights Act of 1964, an individual must file a complaint of wage 
discrimination within 180 days of the alleged unlawful employment 
practice. Before the Ledbetter decision, each time an employee received 
a new paycheck, the 180-day clock was restarted because every paycheck 
was considered a new unlawful practice.
  The Supreme Court changed this longstanding rule. It held that an 
employee must file a complaint within 180 days from when the original 
pay decision was made. Ms. Ledbetter found out about the decision to 
pay her less than her male colleagues well after 180 days from when the 
company had made the decision. Under the Supreme Court's decision, Ms. 
Ledbetter was just too late to get back what she had worked for. It did 
not matter that she only discovered that she was being paid less than 
her male counterparts many years after the inequality in pay had begun. 
And it did not matter that there was no way for her to find out she was 
being paid less until someone told her that was the case.
  Mr. President, to put it simply, the Supreme Court got it wrong. It 
ignored the position of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and 
the decisions of the vast majority of lower courts that the issuance of 
each new paycheck constitutes a new act of discrimination. It ignored 
the fact that Congress had not sought to change this longstanding 
interpretation of the law.
  The decision also ignores the workplace reality for millions of 
American workers just like Ms. Ledbetter. Workers often have no idea 
when they are not being compensated fairly because their companies do 
not disclose their employee's salaries. Because of the secrecy 
surrounding salaries, pay discrimination is one of the most difficult 
forms of discrimination to identify. Unlike a decision not to promote 
or hire, discrimination on the basis of pay can remain hidden for 
years. The Supreme Court's decision leaves victims of pay 
discrimination who do not learn about the discrimination within 6 
months of its occurrence with no ability to seek justice. In the wake 
of this decision, employers can discriminate against employees by 
unfairly paying them less than what they are due, and as long as the 
employee does not learn about the discrimination and file a complaint 
within 6 months, the employer gets off scot free.

  The financial impact of a late filing is felt for years, even into 
retirement. Even a small disparity in pay can add up to thousands of 
dollars over multiple years. This is because other forms of 
compensation such as raises, overtime payments, retirement benefits, 
and even Social Security payments are calculated according to an 
employee's base pay. Thus, the Supreme Court's decision harms American 
workers even after their careers are over.
  The Fair Pay Restoration Act reestablishes a reasonable timeframe for 
filing pay discrimination claims. It returns us to where we were before 
the Court's decision, with the time limit for filing pay discrimination 
claims beginning when a new paycheck is received, rather than when an 
employer first decides to discriminate. Under this legislation, as long 
as workers file their claims within 180 days of a discriminatory 
paycheck, their complaints will be considered.
  This bill also maintains the current limits on the amount employers 
owe once they have been found to have committed a discriminatory act. 
Current law limits backpay awards to 2 years before the worker filed a 
job discrimination claim. This bill retains this 2-year limit, and 
therefore does not make employers pay for salary inequalities that 
occurred many years ago. Workers thus have no reason to delay filing a 
claim. Doing so would only make proving their cases harder, especially 
because the burden of proof is on the employee, not the employer.
  Opponents say that this bill will burden employers by requiring them 
to defend themselves in costly litigation. This is simply not the case. 
Most employers want to do right by their employees, and most employers 
pay their employees fair and equal wages. This legislation will only 
affect those employers who underpay and discriminate against their 
workers, hoping that employees, like Ms. Ledbetter, won't find out in 
time. The Congressional Budget

[[Page S3281]]

Office has also reported that restoring the law to where it was before 
the Ledbetter decision will not significantly affect the number of 
filings made with the EEOC, nor will it significantly increase the 
costs to the Commission or to the Federal courts.
  Yesterday, individuals from across the country observed Equal Pay 
Day, a day which reminds us as a nation that a woman is still paid 77 
cents for every dollar earned by a man. This disparity is all too real. 
Ending it will require commitment, and we can show that commitment by 
passing this bill. The last thing American women need is a Supreme 
Court decision that prevents them from seeking compensation from 
employers who have engaged in outright discrimination.
  In addition to passing the Fair Pay Restoration Act, Congress needs 
to do more to ensure all of America's citizens receive equal pay for 
equal work. Wage discrimination costs families thousands of dollars 
each year. This is hard-earned money that working women and men simply 
cannot afford to lose. We should pass the Fair Pay Act introduced by 
Senator Tom Harkin and the Paycheck Fairness Act introduced by Senator 
Hillary Rodham Clinton. Senator Harkin's legislation would amend the 
Fair Labor Standards Act to prohibit wage discrimination on account of 
sex, race, or national origin. Senator Clinton's legislation would 
strengthen penalties for employers who violate the Equal Pay Act and 
require the Department of Labor to provide training to employers to 
help eliminate pay disparities. I can think of no better way to 
commemorate Equal Pay Day than to pass these three pieces of 
legislation now.

  Wage discrimination is not just a women's issue. Individuals and 
organizations from every part of our country, of different political 
beliefs and racial backgrounds, men and women, older Americans, 
religious groups, and individuals with disabilities have come out in 
support of the Fair Pay Restoration Act. These supporters understand 
that this legislation not only assists female workers who are trying to 
fight discrimination based on their sex. Because the Ledbetter decision 
established a general rule for all title VII employment discrimination 
claims, they know that this legislation is needed to restore the 
ability of employees across the Nation to redress discrimination based 
on factors such as race, national origin, age, religion, and 
disability.
  Congress has repeatedly passed landmark bipartisan legislation to 
eliminate discrimination in the workplace. These laws include the Equal 
Pay Act of 1963, title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age 
Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Americans with 
Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Indeed, we 
have made great progress in securing equal pay rights, but we must 
continue to defend these rights. Justice Ginsburg, in her sharply 
worded dissent in the Ledbetter decision, called on Congress to do 
something to rectify the inequity that the Supreme Court's decision 
left to our country. The Fair Pay Restoration Act is our answer to 
Justice Ginsburg's call.
  Lilly Ledbetter turned 70 years old this month. For almost two 
decades, Ms. Ledbetter worked hard for a company that discriminated 
against her by not paying her what it was legally required to pay. The 
Supreme Court, in its decision last year, ended Ms. Ledbetter's long 
quest for justice. She can no longer recover what was rightfully hers. 
Since the Ledbetter decision, other workers have already had their 
cases dismissed. These unjust outcomes will continue to mount until 
Congress acts. Each case is a new injustice, and it is an avoidable 
injustice because Congress can take steps right now to reverse the 
Supreme Court's erroneous decision.
  Passing the Fair Pay Restoration Act is an essential step in the 
right direction--a step toward the day when the basic right of American 
workers to equal pay for equal work will be realized. I urge my 
colleagues to stand up for the rights of women and all American workers 
by voting for this vital legislation.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, our country has lost 230,000 jobs in just 
the first 3 months of this year. The unemployment rate has gone up to 
5.1 percent. In Ohio, unemployment hovers around 6 percent.
  Women are also disproportionately at risk in the current foreclosure 
crisis, since women are 32 percent more likely than men to have 
subprime mortgages. Existing pay disparities for women exacerbate the 
economic strain on women and on households run by women, since women 
earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. Women have 
significantly fewer savings to fall back on in a time of economic 
hardship. Nonmarried women have a net worth 48 percent lower than 
nonmarried men, and women are less likely than men to participate in 
employer-sponsored retirement savings programs.
  These facts make this bill--the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration 
Act--all the more timely. Lilly Ledbetter was one of just a handful of 
female supervisors in the Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, AL. For 
years, she endured insults from her male bosses because she was a woman 
in a traditionally male job. She worked 12-hour shifts--which often 
stretched to 18 hours or more when another supervisor was absent. But 
she did not know she was being paid less than men until later in her 
career. She had no way of knowing how much her coworkers made.
  Late in her career with the company, Lilly got an anonymous note in 
her mailbox informing her that Goodyear paid her male counterparts 20 
to 40 percent more than she earned for doing the same job. She then 
filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She 
also filed a lawsuit. In court, a jury found that Goodyear 
discriminated against Lilly Ledbetter. The jury awarded Ms. Ledbetter 
full damages, but the Supreme Court said she was entitled to nothing 
because she was too late in filing her claim.
  The Court's Ledbetter decision reversed decades of precedent in the 
courts of appeals. It also overturned the policy of the EEOC under both 
Democratic and Republican administrations. The Bush EEOC was on the 
side of Lilly Ledbetter until the Solicitor General took over for the 
Bush administration. The Ledbetter decision leaves workers powerless to 
hold their employers accountable for their unlawful, unjust conduct. 
Employers who can hide discrimination from their workers for just 180 
days get free rein to continue to discriminate.
  The Fair Pay Act, of which I am a proud cosponsor, will allow workers 
to file a pay discrimination claim within 180 days of a discriminatory 
paycheck. It only makes sense that as long as the discrimination 
continues, a worker's ability to challenge it should continue also. 
This legislation would simply restore the law to what it was in almost 
every State in the country the day before the Ledbetter decision. We 
know it is workable and fair--it was the law of the land for decades.
  Now, some in this Chamber will say this will result in more 
litigation. That is wrong. The Fair Pay Act restores the law to what it 
was before the Supreme Court decision. In fact, the Congressional 
Budget Office says the bill will not establish a new cause of action 
for claims of pay discrimination. Restore the Fair Pay Act. I urge my 
colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I want to express my strong support 
for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007. I want to thank Senator 
Kennedy for his leadership on this issue and on so many civil rights 
issues throughout his Senate career.
  Earlier this week, we observed Equal Pay Day. Equal Pay Day is the 
day up until which a woman had to work past the end of 2007 to make as 
much money as a man made in 2007 alone. That means that a woman has to 
work almost 16 months to make what a man makes in 12.
  Every day in this country, women get up and go to work, just like 
men. Women--who make up nearly 50 percent of the American workforce--
put in 8, 10, 12 or more hours every day. And just like men, women go 
home each night to families that rely on the money they earn. In the 
millions of households led by single mothers, these women's paychecks 
are the only source of income.
  But there is one day that looks very different for men and women--
payday.
  A woman makes only 77 cents for every dollar that a man makes. These

[[Page S3282]]

inequalities cut across educational divides. In my State of New Jersey, 
a college-educated woman makes only 72 cents for every dollar a 
college-educated man makes.
  This wage gap costs working families $200 billion in income every 
year. And the strain on working families is only getting worse in 
today's struggling economy, which is hitting women especially hard. In 
2007, women's wages fell 3 percent, while men's wages fell one-half of 
1 percent. Unemployment for women also rose faster than for men during 
the past year.
  Yet last year, the Supreme Court reached a decision that made it even 
harder for women.
  After spending almost 20 years working long hours as a supervisor at 
a Goodyear plant in Alabama, Lilly Ledbetter discovered that she was 
making 20 percent less than the lowest paid male supervisor.
  A jury awarded her back pay and damages, but the Supreme Court said 
that she filed her lawsuit against her employer too late. The Supreme 
Court said that she could not sue her employer more than 180 days after 
the discrimination first began.
  That simply does not make sense. Every time a worker receives a 
discriminatory paycheck, the employer is discriminating against the 
worker. So every paycheck should start a new clock for challenging that 
discrimination.
  That was the rule in all but four States up until the day that 
Ledbetter was decided. I am proud to say it was the rule in New Jersey. 
And it should be the rule again.
  It is important to recognize that, although Ledbetter involved gender 
discrimination, its implications are much more far-reaching. The 
Ledbetter decision will have the same effect on cases brought for 
discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, disability, 
and age. In all of these cases, victims of pay discrimination will be 
without recourse as long as their employers can get away with it for 
180 days.
  The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would simply restore the pre-
Ledbetter rule that every paycheck is an act of ongoing discrimination. 
It would not create any new right or remedy.
  I am proud to be a cosponsor of the Senate version of this bill, and 
I support it wholeheartedly. I hope that my colleagues will join me in 
voting for this important civil rights law. It is the right thing to do 
for America's working families.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, yesterday was Equal Pay Day. Equal Pay 
Day is the day that marks the extra months into the next year that a 
woman needs to work in order to receive pay equal to what a man would 
make for the equivalent job in only 12 months. Yes, Mr. President, as 
astonishing as it is, in the year 2008, it takes nearly 4 extra months 
for a woman to bring home the same amount of money as her male 
counterpart. According to the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor 
Statistics, women earn, on average, only 77 cents for every dollar 
earned by men in comparable jobs. What a truly unthinkable, and frankly 
disgraceful, circumstance--one that we must do everything within our 
power to change.
  And today we can take a small but very significant step to make sure 
that Americans have the legal opportunity to challenge pay 
discrimination by supporting the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Before I 
begin, let me thank Senator Kennedy for his efforts to ensure that we 
don't just stand by doing nothing, following an ill-advised Supreme 
Court ruling that takes us a step back in time by making it 
extraordinarily difficult for victims of pay discrimination to sue 
their employers.
  This Congress must not stand by while the Court forces an 
unreasonable reading of the law. Through this decision, it tosses aside 
its own precedent and weakens protection provided by the Civil Rights 
Act to rule in favor of an employer that had underpaid a female 
employee for years. That is why I call on all of my colleagues, on a 
bipartisan basis, to stand together today to send a clear signal that 
pay discrimination is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by voting 
to move forward to debate the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
  This legislation overturns the Court's decision in Ledbetter v. 
Goodyear Tire. The Court held employees who are subjected to pay 
discrimination must bring a complaint within 6 months of the 
discriminatory compensation decision, meaning the day the employer 
decides to pay her less, and that each paycheck that is lower because 
of such discrimination does not restart the clock. Under this decision 
it doesn't matter if the discrimination is still ongoing today or if 
the worker initially had no way of knowing that others were being paid 
more for the same work just because of age, race, gender or disability. 
Most inexplicably, the majority insisted it did not matter that 
Goodyear was still paying her far less than her male counterparts when 
she filed her complaint. Mr. President, if you asked anyone on the 
street, they would tell you that this decision simply defies common 
sense. In fact, it is so clearly contrary to Americans' sense of right 
and wrong that everyone should be outraged.
  Lilly Ledbetter, a loyal employee for 19 years, discovered she was 
being paid significantly less than the men in her same job. At first, 
her salary was in line with that of her male colleagues, but over time 
she got smaller raises creating a significant pay gap. How was she to 
know that this discrimination was happening? Hardworking Americans do 
not have the time to sit around talking about their salaries. It is 
clearly not her fault she didn't discover this inequity sooner.
  In closing, it is disturbing that the Court chose to gut a key part 
of the Civil Rights Act that has protected hardworking Americans from 
pay discrimination for the past 40 years. It is our duty to send a 
message to employers that this type of discrimination is unacceptable. 
Fortunately, Congress can amend the law to undo this damaging decision. 
And, it should do so without delay.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I strongly support passage of H.R. 2831, the 
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. We must continue to ensure that workers 
are protected from pay discrimination and treated fairly in the 
workplace.
  As an original cosponsor of the Senate companion of this legislation, 
I am pleased that this bipartisan bill seeks to address and correct the 
Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision from last spring that required 
employees to file a pay discrimination claim within 180 days of when 
their employer initially decided to discriminate, even if the 
discrimination continues after the 180-day period. The Ledbetter 
decision overturned longstanding precedent in courts of appeals across 
the country and the policy of the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
  H.R. 2831 returns the law to the pre-Ledbetter precedent and would 
make clear that each discriminatory paycheck, not just the first pay-
setting decision, will restart the 180-day period. This allows workers 
to demonstrate and detect a pattern or cumulative series of employer 
decisions or acts showing ongoing pay discrimination. As Justice 
Ginsburg noted in her Ledbetter dissent, such a law is ``more in tune 
with the realities of the workplace.'' The Supreme Court majority 
failed to recognize these realties, including that pay disparities 
typically occur incrementally and develop slowly over time, and they 
are not easily identifiable and are often kept hidden by employers. 
Many employees generally do not have knowledge of their fellow 
coworkers' salaries or how decisions on pay are made.
  Yesterday was Equal Pay Day, an opportunity to recognize the progress 
we have made as a nation on ensuring fairness, justice, and equality in 
the workplace. But there are barriers still to be overcome to close the 
pay gap and make certain that an individual's gender, race, and age are 
not an impediment to their economic and employment growth. The Lilly 
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is one step forward in the direction of ensuring 
this growth and I urge my colleagues to support it.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, Lilly Ledbetter was the only female manager 
working alongside 15 men at a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, AL. One 
day, she learned that, for no good reason, she had been receiving 
hundreds of dollars less per month than her male colleagues--even those 
with far less seniority.
  Unfortunately, the wrongs done to Lilly Ledbetter are familiar to far 
too

[[Page S3283]]

many women who work every bit as hard as men do but take home a smaller 
paycheck.
  We must continue to fight to guarantee equal pay for women everywhere 
and justice for those women who are discriminated against.
  It is disgraceful that women still make just 77 cents for every 
dollar earned by men. In fact, yesterday marked Equal Pay Day--the 
symbolic day on which a woman's average pay catches up to a man's 
average earnings from the previous year. Think of all the hours of work 
done since January 1--those are hours that women have worked just to 
bring home the same amount of money as a man. It is equivalent to 
months of working with no pay--something I am sure the bosses doling 
out unequal paychecks wouldn't stand.
  Unequal pay for women is an injustice whose poison works on multiple 
levels. Women aren't just paid less for doing the same work--they are 
also given a none-too-subtle message that their thoughts and efforts 
are less valued just because of their gender.
  I have two wonderful daughters, Alex and Vanessa. Alex is a filmmaker 
and Vanessa is a doctor. If it weren't for the women who came and 
marched before them, they wouldn't have had the access to high school 
and college sports that made such a difference in their development. 
But that cause isn't yet complete. The progress isn't yet perfected. We 
are fighting today so that they are never told that a man deserves a 
penny more for doing the same hard work they have done.
  In the face of injustice, Lilly Ledbetter and many women like her 
have had the courage to stand up to sexist bosses, demand her legal 
right to equal pay for equal work, and say ``enough is enough.'' The 
trial was difficult, but Lilly stood strong--and the jury awarded her a 
large legal settlement.
  Then Lilly's case ran head-on into a group of men--and one woman--
above whose heads she could not appeal: the U.S. Supreme Court. The 
Court's 5-to-4 ruling went against common sense and most people's sense 
of basic fairness. They ruled that the Equal Rights Act of 1964 
requires an employee to file a discrimination claim within 180 days of 
a boss's decision to discriminate--rather than 180 days from the last 
discriminatory paycheck. Amazingly, Lilly Ledbetter didn't just lose 
her settlement and her standing to seek justice--she also lost future 
retirement benefits which will now be awarded according to decades of 
discriminatory pay.
  The ruling goes against common sense and the practical realities of 
the workplace. It goes against our basic sense of fairness. People 
often don't know what their colleagues are being paid and thus don't 
find out for some time that they are being discriminated against. Many 
never find out at all that they have been discriminated against for a 
lifetime—and many who do choose to stay quiet rather than rock 
the boat, confront their bosses, or be perceived as angry when they 
have every right to be.

  As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, ``In our view, the court does 
not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women 
can be victims of pay discrimination.'' The Court's only woman took the 
rare and defiant step of delivering her eloquent dissent out loud.
  Five male Justices denied justice to thousands of women who could now 
be denied legal standing in similar cases, not because these women 
hadn't been discriminated against but because too much time had passed 
between the moment when their bosses started discriminating against 
them and the moment they either found out about it or took action to 
stop it. In effect, it rewards bosses for stringing out their deceit.
  One of these five male Justices was Samuel Alito--against whose hasty 
confirmation I waged a lonely filibuster battle for which I was widely 
criticized back in 2006. Back then, I worried and warned that Alito 
would create a 5-to-4 majority to deny hard-working Americans their day 
in court. Which is exactly what happened to Lilly Ledbetter. I don't 
regret my filibuster one bit--it was an important statement drawing a 
line in the sand against this administration's radical judicial 
nominees. I just wish we could have won that fight.
  Would Sandra Day O'Connor, the woman Alito replaced, have voted this 
way? I strongly suspect not. And so, with Sam Alito's decisive vote, 
our judicial branch struck a major blow against justice, against fair 
treatment for all, and against women's rights. The good news is that 
Congress still makes the laws--and we have the opportunity to make 
clear the intent of our fair pay laws and ensure that female victims of 
pay discrimination have their day in court.
  The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act clarifies what the Court ought to 
have known--that the laws against pay discrimination apply to every 
paycheck a worker receives--not to the moment a boss begins 
discriminating. A person only gets 180 days to file a discrimination 
claim--and the clock should be reset to zero every time a 
discriminatory paycheck goes out. We should make it easier for 
discrimination to be rooted out not harder.
  Businesses have nothing to fear from this bill--unless they are 
acting disgracefully, in which case they should be afraid--they should 
be very afraid. But employers will not be asked to make up for salary 
difference from decades ago--current law, rightly or wrongly, limits 
backpay awards to 2 years before the worker filed a job discrimination 
claim. This bill wouldn't change that limit.
  We should and must do whatever we can to chip away at discrepancies 
that still exist in pay between men and women. When the Equal Pay Act 
of 1963 passed, women were making 59 cents a dollar. Forty five years 
later, that number is 77 cents. In other words, women are narrowing the 
gap by less than half a penny a year. We must do better.
  If I am lucky enough to have them, I don't want my future 
granddaughters and great-granddaughters to wait another 45 years for 
equal wages.
  In so many ways, discriminatory pay contributes to our worst 
shortcomings as a society. It discriminates against children in 
poverty--who are far more likely than other children to be raised by 
single mothers. It also discriminates against women of color--who are 
more likely to live in households without a male income-earner.
  Each paycheck and each discriminatory raise compounds injustice upon 
injustice. Unfortunately, the pay gap runs across industries and 
education levels. This isn't something that fixes itself at higher 
levels of income. Comparing men and women with comparable education, 
work title, and experience, over the course of their lives, women with 
a high school diploma earn $700,000 less. Women with a college diploma 
earn $1.2 million less. And women with advanced degrees earn $2 million 
less over time.
  To our enduring shame, it was once true that American slaves were 
treated as three-fifths of a human being. But it remains true today 
that women are paid as just three-quarters of a man.
  We can't unravel or erase hateful attitudes toward women in a single 
day or with a single vote. But we have a bill before us today that will 
restore women's right to seek equal justice under the law. We should 
pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act today and do all that we can to 
live according to the truth that, while self-evident to Thomas 
Jefferson, remains elusive to employers everywhere: that all of us are 
created equal.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, America has come a long way in addressing 
discrimination in the workplace since the days my ancestors faced ``No 
Irish Need Apply'' signs. Yet discrimination today still exists. Even 
now, women still earn on average 77 cents for every dollar a man earns 
performing the same work. This is not fair. And with a record 70.2 
million women in the workforce, this wage discrimination hurts American 
families across the country.
  Since passage of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, working 
women have been able to challenge discriminatory pay. Most appellate 
courts, including the Third Circuit that incorporates Delaware, and the 
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission operated under a rule that 
gives workers a reasonable time limit to file complaints and receive a 
fair hearing in our country's courtrooms.
  Last year, the Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber

[[Page S3284]]

Co., ignored the basic reality of how--and indeed, when--workers 
discover that they have been the victim of paycheck discrimination. The 
Court ruled that employees must sue within 180 days of the employer's 
pay decision. That Supreme Court's ruling, in the words of Justice 
Ginsberg, is at best a ``cramped interpretation'' of title VII and at 
worst reverses the hard-won gains women have made in the workplace.
  As a practical matter, employees often do not know what their peers 
earn, the amount of annual raises, or how wages are determined. Given 
the typical confidentiality rules covering pay issues, the Supreme 
Court's ruling means that women will in many instances be shut out from 
recovering what they are owed after years of unfair pay. This 
interpretation makes title VII of the Civil Rights Act an empty 
promise.
  The Supreme Court's decision will hurt Americans from all walks of 
life. It perpetuates inequality by allowing workers to receive lower 
pay because of their age, gender, religion, ethnicity, or disability. 
It threatens to stop and reverse the steady progress we have made 
toward job equality by letting employers off the hook for prolonged 
discrimination. The House took the first step toward correcting this 
injustice when it passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007. The 
Senate now has the opportunity, and an obligation, to do the same. I am 
a cosponsor and strong supporter of this bill, which would simply 
clarify and restore the rule the country operated under before the 
Supreme Court's decision. That rule was strong and simple--each 
separate paycheck based on a previous discriminatory decision is itself 
an unlawful employment practice.
  Mr. President, this Fair Pay Restoration Act isn't a radical change 
of direction. It is really nothing new. We know the consequences of the 
act because for years American businesses and their workers operated 
under the standards it restores. It will not open the floodgates for 
litigation or force employers to fork out exorbitant sums of money--it 
will just restore the rules of the game before the Court changed them. 
It gives Americans who are doing the same job as someone else--but for 
lower pay--access to courts and equality.
  In today's economy, coping with a recession and a housing crisis, 
American workers need our help. The basic social compact that built our 
economy, that created our middle class, that provided opportunities for 
millions--that compact is breaking down. This is one small step to 
restore some fairness.
  Mr. President, equal work should mean equal pay. I urge my colleagues 
to join me and restore that principle.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Supreme Court's recent decision in 
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire struck a severe blow to the rights of 
working women in our country. More than 40 years ago, Congress acted to 
prevent discrimination in the workplace based on an employee's sex, 
race, color, national origin or religion. The Ledbetter decision is yet 
another example of the Supreme Court misinterpreting congressional 
intent and denying justice to a victim of discrimination.
  For nearly two decades, Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at Goodyear 
Tire, was paid significantly less than her male counterparts. 
Nonetheless, a thin majority of Justices on the Supreme Court found 
that she was ineligible for title VII protection against discriminatory 
pay because she did not file her claim within 180 days of Goodyear's 
repeatedly discriminatory pay decisions.
  The Supreme Court's ruling sent the message to employers that wage 
discrimination cannot be punished as long as it is kept under wraps. At 
a time when one third of private sector employers have rules 
prohibiting employees from discussing their pay with each other, the 
Court's decision ignores a reality of the workplace--pay discrimination 
is often intentionally concealed. Ms. Ledbetter only found out that she 
was earning as much as $15,000 less per year than a male coworker with 
the same job and seniority when an anonymous letter appeared on her 
desk weeks before her retirement. By the time she retired in 1997, Ms. 
Ledbetter's monthly salary, despite receiving several performance based 
awards, was almost $600 less than the lowest paid male manager and 
$1,500 less than the highest paid male manager.
  Congress passed title VII of the Civil Rights Act to protect 
employees like Lilly Ledbetter from discrimination because of their 
sex, race, color, national origin or religion--however the Supreme 
Court's cramped interpretation guts the purpose and intent of the 
bipartisan and historic effort to root out discrimination. Ms. 
Ledbetter argued that her claim fell within the 180 day window provided 
under title VII for filing claims because she suffered continuing 
effects from her employer's discrimination. After filing a complaint 
with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a Federal jury found 
that she was owed almost $225,000 in back pay. However, five Justices 
of the Supreme Court overturned the jury's decision, holding that Ms. 
Ledbetter was not protected under the law because she filed suit more 
than 180 days after her employer's discriminatory act.
  This Supreme Court decision contradicts both the spirit and clear 
intent of title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which was created to 
protect workers from discriminatory pay. The Court's 5-to-4 decision 
undercuts enforcement against discrimination based on sex, race, color, 
religion, and national origin. In Justice Ginsburg's dissent, she wrote 
that the Court's decision ``is totally at odds with the robust 
protection against workplace discrimination Congress intended Title VII 
to secure.''
  This October, my wife Marcelle and I will host Vermont's 12th annual 
Women's Economic Opportunity Conference, a chance for women to come 
together to learn new career skills. Thousands of women in my State 
have used these skills to advance their careers. It is a shame that 
despite such initiatives and years of hard work, women continue to 
suffer pay discrimination. I commend the Vermont Legislature for 
passing laws requiring equal pay for equal work and barring employers 
from retaliating against employees for disclosing the amount of their 
wages. Unfortunately, not all States offer these protections.
  For all of the gains that women have made in the past century, there 
remains a troubling constant--women continue to earn less than men--on 
average, only 77 cents on the dollar. Discriminatory pay not only 
affects women it affects their children, their families, and all of us 
who believe in the words inscribed on the Vermont marble of the Supreme 
Court building ``Equal Justice Under Law.''
  The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would correct the unfortunate and 
cramped ruling of the Supreme Court which denied Ms. Ledbetter equal 
justice. It would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to clarify that an 
unlawful employment practice occurs not only when that discriminatory 
decision first goes into effect but each time an individual is affected 
by it, such as each time compensation is paid.
  The House of Representatives passed this bill in a bipartisan vote 
last summer. It also has bipartisan support here in the Senate, but 
unfortunately some Republicans have objected to even considering the 
bill. I hope their filibuster can be broken so that we can clarify that 
discrimination against hard-working men and women in their own 
workplaces is not the American way. The law and our justice system 
should protect working people when it happens. Our bill underscores 
this vital American principle against efforts to devalue it.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I wish to speak about an issue of economic 
fairness that affects the very dignity and the security of millions of 
Americans: the right to equal pay for equal work. Before I begin, let 
me thank the chairman of the HELP Committee for his leadership on this 
important issue. The Fair Pay Restoration Act goes a long way toward 
ensuring that right. In a perfect world, of course, we could take that 
right for granted; we could take it for granted that the value of work 
lies in a job well done, not in the race or gender of the person who is 
doing it. But we don't live in that world. We know that, even now, 
employers can cheat their employees out of equal pay, and equal work.
  That is what happened to Lilly Ledbetter. For almost two decades, 
from 1979 to 1998, she was a hardworking supervisor at a Goodyear tire 
plant in Gadsden, AL. And it is telling

[[Page S3285]]

that she suffered from two types of discrimination at the same time. On 
the one hand, there was sexual harassment, from the manager who said to 
her face that women shouldn't work in a tire factory, to the supervisor 
who tried to use performance evaluations to extort sex. And on the 
other hand, there was pay discrimination: by the end of her career, as 
the salaries of her male coworkers were raised higher and faster than 
hers, she was making some $6,700 less per year than the lowest paid man 
in the same position.
  Now, the two kinds of discrimination faced by Ms. Ledbetter have a 
good deal in common. Morally, they both amount to a kind of theft: the 
theft of dignity in work and the theft of the wages she fairly earned. 
Both send a clear message: that women don't belong in the workplace. 
But there is a clear difference between sexual harassment and pay 
discrimination. The former is blatant. The latter far too often stays 
insidiously hidden.
  In fact, Lilly Ledbetter didn't even know she was being paid unfairly 
until long after the discrimination began, when an anonymous coworker 
gave her proof. Otherwise, she might be in the dark to this very day. 
And that is hardly surprising. How many of you know exactly how much 
your coworkers make? What would happen if you asked? At some companies, 
you could be fired.
  Armed with proof of pay discrimination, Ms. Ledbetter asked the 
courts for her fair share. And they agreed with her: she had been 
discriminated against; she had been cheated; and she was entitled to 
her back pay.
  Regrettably, the Supreme Court ruled against her, and took it all 
away. Yes, she had been discriminated against--but she had missed a 
very important technicality. She only had 180 days--6 months--to file 
her lawsuit. And the clock started running on the day Goodyear chose to 
discriminate against her. Never mind that she had no idea she was even 
the victim of pay discrimination until years later--figure it out in 
180 days, or you are out of luck for a lifetime.
  One can clearly see how this ruling harms so many Americans beyond 
Ms. Ledbetter. In setting an extremely difficult, arbitrary, and unfair 
hurdle, it stands in the way of many Americans fighting against 
discrimination. It flatly contradicts standard practice of the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission and flies in the face of years of 
legal precedent and clear congressional intent. As Justice Ginsburg put 
it in her strong dissent, the Court's Ledbetter ruling ignores the 
facts of discrimination in the real world: ``Pay disparities often 
occur in small increments; cause to suspect that discrimination is at 
work develops only over time. Comparative pay information, moreover, is 
often hidden from the employee's view . . . Small initial discrepancies 
may not be seen as meet for a federal case, particularly when the 
employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse 
to making waves.''
  ``The ball,'' Ginsburg concluded, ``is in Congress's court . . . The 
legislature may act to correct this Court's parsimonious reading.''
  That is precisely what we are here to do today. If the Fair Pay 
Restoration Act passes, employees will have a fair time limit to sue 
for pay discrimination. They will still have 180 days, but the clock 
will start with each discriminatory paycheck, not with the original 
decision to discriminate. After all, each unfair paycheck is in itself 
a decision to discriminate--it is ongoing discrimination. And if this 
legislation passes, employees like Ms. Ledbetter will no longer be 
blocked from seeking redress, through no fault of their own, except a 
failure to be more suspicious.
  Mr. President, millions of Americans depend on the right to equal pay 
for equal work: to earn a livelihood, to feed their families, and to 
secure the dignity of their labor. We ought to make it easier for 
Americans to exercise that right, not harder. We ought to get unfair 
roadblocks, hurdles, and technicalities out of their way. We ought to 
pass this bill.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from New York.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I think it is important we go back to 
the facts and remind ourselves in this Chamber about the person, the 
real live woman, for whom this legislation is named, Lilly Ledbetter.
  She was a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Gadsden, 
AL, from 1979 until her retirement in 1998. For most of those years, 
she worked as an area manager, a position normally occupied by men.
  Now, initially, Lilly Ledbetter's salary was in line with the 
salaries of men performing substantially similar work. Over time, 
however, her pay slipped in comparison. And it was slipping in 
comparison with men who had equal or less seniority. By the end of 
1997, Lilly Ledbetter was the only woman working as an area manager, 
and the pay discrepancies between her and her 15 male counterparts were 
stark.
  She was paid $3,727 a month. The lowest paid male area manager 
received $4,286 a month and the highest $5,236. In other words, 
Goodyear paid her male counterparts 25 to 40 percent more than she 
earned for doing the same job.
  Now, when she discovered this, which she had not for years, because 
it is somewhat difficult, if not impossible, to obtain information 
about the salaries of your counterparts--and lots of times why would 
you ask? You are doing the same job; you show up at the same time; you 
have the same duties. Who would imagine that you would be paid less 
than the younger man who came on the job a year or two before, or the 
older man with whom you had worked for years?
  So when she discovered that, she rightly sought to enforce her 
rights, and a jury agreed, a jury of her peers, that she had suffered 
discrimination on the basis of her gender.
  And the district court awarded her $220,000 in backpay, and more than 
$3 million in punitive damages. The court of appeals reversed that, 
claiming she had not filed her charge of discrimination in a timely 
manner. The Supreme Court agreed.
  Now Lilly Ledbetter is retired from her job. Nothing we do today will 
have any impact on her, but she has tirelessly campaigned across this 
country for basic fairness. We thought we had ended discrimination in 
the workplace against women when the Equal Pay Act was passed all those 
years ago.
  In fact, yesterday was the day we commemorated the passage of the 
Equal Pay Act, but clearly we have not finished the business of 
guaranteeing equality in the workplace; fair and equal pay to those who 
do the same job. Nearly a century after women earned the right to vote, 
women still make 77 cents to every man's dollar.
  The affect of the recession we are in right now in many parts of our 
country is affecting women worse than their male counterparts. This is 
not about the women themselves, it is about their families. I came from 
Indianapolis, where I was introduced at an event by a young single mom. 
I meet young single moms all over America who work hard for themselves 
and their children. So when they are discriminated against in the 
workplace, they bring less home to take care of those children whom 
they are responsible for. We can talk about what needs to be done, and 
there are, I am sure, all kinds of legal reasons it does not make sense 
to end discrimination; that it does not make sense finally to have our 
laws enforced. But this is the law we had until the Supreme Court 
changed it. Until the Supreme Court said: No, wait a minute, you are 
supposed to actually know you are being discriminated against to 
dispute the conditions in the workplace, and file whatever action, make 
whatever complaint you can at that moment.
  Well, Lilly Ledbetter acted as soon as she knew. She did not know 
until that information was made available to her. I am hoping this 
Chamber will stand up for fundamental fairness for women in the 
workplace. I am hoping you will stand up and vote to make it clear that 
women who get up every single day and go to work deserve to be paid 
equally to their male counterparts.
  That is all Lilly Ledbetter wanted. That is what we should deliver 
today.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I believe there is 5 minutes 45 seconds 
remaining?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 4 minutes 45 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 4 minutes to the assistant majority leader.

[[Page S3286]]

  Mr. DURBIN. I thank Senator Kennedy, Senator Mikulski, and many 
others for bringing this measure before the Senate.
  You remember when we debated Supreme Court Justices, and do you 
recall their testimony; you saw it on television. I can recall Justice 
Roberts, the Chief Justice, he told us he was similar to an umpire in 
baseball; all he did was call balls and strikes. He was not going to 
write the law or change the law, he was going to apply the law to the 
facts. Well, lo and behold, as soon as Justice Roberts and Justice 
Alito, the new Justices on the Supreme Court, arrived, they took a 
precedent, a law that had been followed for years by the Supreme Court 
and turned it upside down.
  Lilly Ledbetter, 19 years serving as a manager in this Goodyear Tire 
facility in Gadsden, AL, was the only female manager in a group of 15; 
all the rest were men. It was not until she was about to retire that 
someone said to her: Incidentally, you are not being paid as much as 
the men who are doing the same job.
  She did not realize it. How would she? Employers do not go around 
publishing how much they pay their employees in the newspaper, and they 
certainly do not post it on the bulletin board. So she had no way of 
knowing until the last minute. She filed a discrimination claim and 
said: I did the work, I deserve the pay.
  It went all the way up to the Supreme Court, to new Supreme Court 
Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. You know what they said? Your 
problem, Lilly Ledbetter, is you should have discovered how much they 
were paying the other employees at the time the initial discrimination 
began. That is physically impossible. They held her to a standard she 
could not live up to. They knew what they were doing. They were 
throwing out her case of wage discrimination and thousands of others. 
Those Justices were not calling balls and strikes, they were making new 
rules; and the rules were fundamentally unfair.
  We have a chance today to straighten that out. I hope we have 
bipartisan support for it. We should be against pay discrimination for 
women, men, disabled, minorities. Every American deserves to be treated 
fairly.
  The Chicago Tribune, not always a paragon of liberal ideas, said this 
about the Ledbetter decision by the Supreme Court:

       The majority's sterile reading of the statute ignores the 
     realities on the ground. A woman who is fired on the basis of 
     sex knows she has been fired. But a woman who suffers pay 
     discrimination may not discover it until years later, because 
     employers often keep pay scales confidential. The 
     consequences of the ruling will be to let a lot of 
     discrimination go unpunished.

  Those who vote against this effort to bring the bill to the floor 
will allow a lot of discrimination to go unpunished in America.
  We owe the workers of America, the women of America, all workers a 
lot more. I encourage colleagues to support Senator Kennedy and the 
motion to invoke cloture.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. ISAKSON. How much time remains on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). There is 2 minutes 5 seconds.
  Mr. ISAKSON. I yield myself the remainder of the time.
  Madam President, with all due respect to the Senator from Illinois, 
as was said earlier, in this case, in each and every year from 1992 to 
1997, Ms. Ledbetter testified that she knew she was being discriminated 
against but didn't file a claim.
  Secondly, this is not about restoring the Civil Rights Act to its 
state before Ledbetter was decided last year. This is about amending 
title VII of the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 in terms of its 
statute of limitations.
  The fact is that every one of us in this body is for precisely the 
same thing: Discrimination against no one for race, sex, color, creed, 
national origin; equal pay for everyone. As the distinguished Senator 
from Massachusetts showed in his chart, we have over and over again 
reaffirmed this. This is not about the issue of discrimination. This is 
about the rule of law, the Civil Rights Act as it was passed in 1964 
and amended in 1967, and its statute of limitations that has been 
upheld by the Supreme Court--not once, not twice, not three times, but 
four separate opinions in 1977, 1980, 1989, and 2002. Ledbetter simply 
reaffirmed these cases.
  If we have a problem, let's address it in committee. Let's fix it 
after open debate. Let's not eviscerate the committee process and bring 
a flawed bill to the floor of the Senate.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against the motion to invoke cloture on 
the motion to proceed and yield back the remainder of my time.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield the remainder of my time to the 
Senator from Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized for 1 
minute 30 seconds.
  Mr. OBAMA. Madam President, today too many women are still earning 
less than men for doing the same work, making it harder not just for 
those women but for the families they help support to make ends meet. 
It is harder for single moms to climb out of poverty, harder for 
elderly women to afford their retirement. That kind of pay 
discrimination is wrong and has no place in the United States of 
America.
  This evening, we have a chance to do something about it. Passing this 
bill is an important step in closing the pay gap, something I helped to 
do in Illinois and something I have fought to do since I arrived in the 
Senate. I have cosponsored legislation to ensure women receive equal 
pay for equal work and to require employers to disclose their pay 
scales for various kinds of jobs. It is this information which will 
allow women to determine whether they are being discriminated against, 
information they often lack now.
  In addition to passing this bill, we need to strengthen enforcement 
of existing laws. In the end, closing the pay gap is essential, but it 
is not going to be enough to make sure that women and girls have an 
equal shot at the American dream, which is why we are also going to 
have to work on issues such as sick leave and prohibiting 
discrimination against caregivers. If you work hard and do a good job, 
you should be rewarded, no matter what you look like, where you come 
from, or what gender you are. That is what this bill is about. That is 
why I am supporting this legislation and urge my colleagues to do the 
same.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired under time reserved for 
Senators Isakson and Kennedy.
  The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield myself leader time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I remind my colleagues that if we 
invoke cloture on this bill, we will actually be moving off the 
veterans bill. Let me repeat that. A vote to proceed to the Ledbetter 
bill is a vote to proceed away from the veterans bill. This is really 
highly ironic because my side was taking a pounding Monday and Tuesday 
for allegedly holding up, if you will, the veterans bill. Of course, 
that was not the case. We have ended up, in order to accommodate the 
schedules of those who are frequently not here--and understandably not 
here because they are running for President--we had the Senate, in 
effect, not in session until 5 o'clock this afternoon. While Americans 
are waiting for Congress to do something about the economy, jobs, and 
gas prices, our friends on the other side decided to close shop in 
order to accommodate the uncertainties of the campaign trail. Finding 
solutions for the concerns of all our constituents should be our top 
priority, not just accommodating the travel schedules of two of our 
Members.
  The proper course of action is clear. We should vote to stay on the 
veterans bill and finish our work on behalf of American veterans. The 
best way to do that is to vote against cloture on the motion to proceed 
to the matter before us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, first of all, for all Members, we are 
close to having agreement on the veterans bill when we get to it. Let 
me just say initially, I really like my counterpart, the Republican 
leader. But I have trouble understanding how he could stand on the 
floor and say that when we have been trying to do legislation on the 
veterans bill since last Thursday and

[[Page S3287]]

we have been prevented from doing that.
  Understand, there is nothing we could do, unless by unanimous 
consent, to change this vote. It occurs automatically an hour after we 
come in. There is no secret. We have two Senators running for President 
of the United States--three, as a matter of fact. I am only concerned 
about two of them. Their schedules were very difficult recently. They 
could be here at 6 o'clock. So I made the suggestion, which I thought 
was reasonable--we haven't been able to legislate on the veterans bill 
since last Thursday; how about doing it on Wednesday, until 5 o'clock. 
That would be 6 hours more than we have done since last Thursday. There 
was a refusal to allow us to do that. To have my friend, the Republican 
leader, come here and say we haven't done anything today because we had 
a vote scheduled at their convenience--he didn't use the names, but 
Senators Clinton and Obama--that is absolutely without any foundation. 
I have trouble understanding how my friend would have the gall to stand 
on the floor and make the comment he did, but he did.
  Now to the issue at hand, Lilly Ledbetter. Put your mind to this. We 
have a woman who is working. She has worked for 20 years and worked 
hard, very hard, and after 20 years she comes to the realization that 
people are making a lot more money than she. They are men, and they are 
doing the same work as she is. That is what this is all about. As a 
foundation, understand that for a woman to make the same amount of 
money as a man in our country--that is, how much a man makes in our 
country for 1 year--for similar work, she must work not only that whole 
year but an additional 113 days. In fact, women who work full time earn 
about 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man who does the same work.
  That is why yesterday, April 23, which was the 113th day of the year, 
was Equal Pay Day, to illustrate how women are treated unfairly in the 
workplace in America. I can think of no better way for us to honor 
Equal Pay Day than to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
  She was a manager at a Goodyear factory in Gadsden, AL. She worked 
there for 20 years. She was the only woman among 16 men at her same 
management level. She was paid at various times 20 percent less than 
some of her male colleagues doing the same work and as much as 40 
percent less than other colleagues doing the same work. That included 
fellow workers who had a lot less seniority than she had. They got paid 
more because they were men.
  At most jobsites, especially office work, salary is not a topic that 
you discuss. It is private. It wasn't until Ledbetter had been with the 
company for 20 years, as I have indicated, that Mrs. Ledbetter became 
aware of the disparity in her paycheck, and only then because someone 
anonymously tipped her off.
  After she learned, after 20 years, that people were being paid more 
money than she was for doing the same work, she became concerned, and 
she did what we should do in a situation like that. She went to talk to 
a lawyer. She had been cheated for 20 years. A jury that was called in 
that court listened to what she had to say. They found she had been 
discriminated against. Why? Because she was a woman. The jury awarded 
her appropriate damages.
  Her employer appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. No way are we 
going to let this happen. They overturned the lower court's verdict, 
claiming she was entitled to nothing because she waited too long. The 
statute of limitations had run. The Supreme Court upheld that decision. 
They upheld the reversal of the decision that she had gotten, the award 
by the jury that she had gotten. The Supreme Court held that the 180-
day filing deadline for discrimination cases like hers should be 
calculated from the day of Ms. Ledbetter's first discriminatory 
paycheck. So using that faulty logic, this woman is only protected if, 
after the first 6 months, she had filed a lawsuit. Well, she didn't 
know. The ruling reversed the position that most courts had previously 
held--contrary to what my good friend Senator Isakson said--that each 
discriminatory paycheck represents a new case of discrimination and 
therefore the 180-day filing period applies to each subsequent 
paycheck.
  The practical result of the Supreme Court decision is that women like 
Lilly Ledbetter must sue for discrimination no later than 6 months 
after their employment begins, 6 months after her first paycheck. The 
Supreme Court's ruling puts unfair conditions on legitimate 
discrimination claims, and it applies not only to millions of women in 
the workforce but also to those discriminated against on the basis of 
race, religion, age, or disability.
  As Justice Ginsburg said--and rarely from the Supreme Court does one 
of the Justices read their opinion; she did that--she noted in her 
strong and compelling dissent that the Supreme Court's ruling is wrong 
because it overlooks the realities of the workplace and the realities 
of the world. Think about that. She had worked there 20 years. She had 
been cheated for 20 years. They are telling her she should have filed 
her lawsuit 19\1/2\ years ago.
  Many employers explicitly or implicitly prohibit employees from 
discussing their salary with coworkers. Could Ms. Ledbetter be expected 
to have known the salaries of her male colleagues after just 6 months 
on the job? Of course not. And even if a new employee is aware of a 
discrepancy in pay, many choose not to make waves, preferring to hang 
on to their job, preferring to quietly build job security. But over the 
years, these initial discrepancies, which may start out small, will 
often widen considerably--in her case, to as much as 40 percent when 
compared to a man.
  The Supreme Court's ruling ignores basic facts. As long as 
discrimination continues, an employee's right to challenge 
discrimination should continue as well. That is why the legislation now 
before us is so important. We can talk about court cases and hearings 
before the committee and doing things in regular order. Let's have some 
regular order of fairness. That is what this legislation is all about.

  This legislation would restore the previously accepted interpretation 
of law: that each and every discriminatory paycheck constitutes a new 
act of discrimination and that restarts the 180-day clock.
  By supporting this motion to proceed and voting in favor of this 
legislation, we have the opportunity to correct this important 
injustice for millions of women and millions of others who work hard 
but are unfairly deprived of compensation they deserve.
  Some on the Republican side argue that this legislation would lead to 
a flood of litigation. Obviously, we know the Republicans are not 
excited about trial lawyers. We know their first attack to take care of 
the housing crisis was to lower taxes and do something about 
litigation. So it is no surprise they are concerned about litigation, 
even though they are wrong.
  That argument has no basis in fact. The Congressional Budget Office 
has researched this issue and found no reason--no reason--to believe it 
would increase the number of discrimination cases.
  Furthermore, this legislation maintains the current law's 2-year 
limit on back pay. Employers would not be liable for salary differences 
that occurred in years past. In her case, Ledbetter could sue, but she 
could only get 2 of the 20 years she had been cheated. That is what 
this legislation does. How much fairer could it be?
  The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest Court in our country. But in 
this case, they simply got it wrong. I am sad to report, in my opinion, 
many times they have done the same thing since Justices Roberts and 
Alito have joined that Court.
  Many of us have spoken against recent Supreme Court nominees for fear 
they would not uphold our Nation's proud tradition of civil rights and 
equal rights in law. This faulty judgment on the part of the Court, in 
a 5-to-4 decision, lends credence to our concerns that we must support 
judges with a reliable history of support for the values of equality 
that we cherish.
  There is no reason for the Fair Pay Act to be a partisan issue.
  I urge my Republican colleagues to join us in sending a strong and 
powerful message that in America, discrimination will never be 
tolerated and justice will always be blind. But no matter the result 
today, that message--and our commitment to those enduring values--will 
continue.




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