[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 150 (Wednesday, November 17, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7928-S7929]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                PAYCHECK FAIRNESS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3772, which the 
clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 561, S. 3772, a bill to 
     amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide more 
     effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the 
     payment of wages on the basis of sex, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 561, S. 3772, the Paycheck Fairness 
     Act.
         Harry Reid, Patrick J. Leahy, John F. Kerry, Carl Levin, 
           Jack Reed, Bernard Sanders, Benjamin L. Cardin, Frank 
           R. Lautenberg, Ron Wyden, Tom Harkin, Amy Klobuchar, 
           Sherrod Brown, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Christopher J. 
           Dodd, Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to proceed to S. 3772, a bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards 
Act of 1938 to provide more effective remedies to victims of 
discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, and for 
other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 58, nays 41, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 249 Leg.]

                                YEAS--58

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Coons
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Manchin
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--41

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Nelson (NE)
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Murkowski
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 58, the nays are 
41. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am very disappointed that the Paycheck 
Fairness Act was filibustered today.
  The Paycheck Fairness Act passed the House on January 9, 2009, by a 
vote of 256-163 and Senate passage is long overdue.
  This critical legislation will strengthen the Equal Pay Act and close 
the loopholes that have allowed employers to avoid responsibility for 
discriminatory pay.
  Although the wage gap between men and women has narrowed since the 
passage of the landmark Equal Pay Act in 1963, gender-based wage 
discrimination remains a problem for women in the workforce.
  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women only make 77 cents for 
every dollar earned by a man. The Institute of Women's Policy Research 
found that this wage disparity will cost women anywhere from $400,000 
to $2 million over a lifetime in lost wages. Today an average college-
educated woman working full time earns as much as $15,000 less than a 
college-educated male. Working families lose $200 billion in income per 
year due to the wage gap between men and women.
  Pay discrimination is hurting our middle class families and hurting 
our economy. Loopholes created by the courts and weak sanctions in the 
law have allowed many employers to avoid liability for engaging in 
gender-based pay discrimination.
  That is why the Paycheck Fairness Act is so important.
  The bill closes loopholes that have allowed employers to justify pay 
discrimination and prohibits employers from retaliating against 
employees who share salary information with their co-workers. It puts 
gender-based discrimination sanctions on equal footing with other forms 
of wage discrimination--such as race, disability or age--by allowing 
women to sue for compensatory and punitive damages. And it also 
requires the Department of Labor to enhance outreach and training 
efforts to work with employers in order to eliminate pay disparities.
  One of the 111th Congress's most important achievements was passing 
the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Restoration Act. That legislation, which 
is now law, ensures that women who have been the victims of pay 
discrimination get their day in court and can challenge employers that 
willingly pay them less for the same work.
  The Equal Pay Restoration Act honors the legacy of Lilly Ledbetter, a 
supervisor at a Goodyear Tire Plant in Alabama, who after 19 years of 
service discovered she had earned 20 to 40 percent less than her male 
counterparts for doing the exact same job.
  Today we had another important opportunity to honor the legacy of 
women like Lilly Ledbetter by passing this legislation.
  But instead of standing up for equal economic opportunity for women, 
Republicans said no, and filibustered this important bill.
  I am very disappointed by this outcome, but I want my colleagues to 
know that we will not give up this fight.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise today to express my 
disappointment in the failure of the Senate to invoke cloture on the 
Paycheck Fairness Act. After our triumph 2 years ago in advancing 
gender equality through the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the first piece of 
legislation signed by President Obama, the Paycheck Fairness Act would 
have been another step towards ending gender discrimination in the 
workplace.
  Four decades after the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women still 
earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. 
That equates to almost $11,000 less per year. In Rhode Island, women on 
average make approximately $36,500 where men make $49,000. For full-
time, college educated Rhode Island workers over 25 years old, women 
make an average of $55,000, while men average $70,000. This is simply 
unacceptable and shows that the

[[Page S7929]]

remedies provided by current law are not adequate. Those who dismiss 
the disparity as a consequence of women's ``choice of work'' ignore the 
fact that the wage gap exists even in highly skilled industries such as 
aerospace engineering and network systems and data communications 
analysis.
  The Paycheck Fairness Act would have required employers seeking to 
pay women less money than their male counterparts to justify the 
difference with legitimate business factors. It would also have allowed 
women to compare their wages to those of their colleagues in the same 
county, not just their own office, providing a larger and fairer pool 
of comparative examples. And the bill would have allowed women to 
receive punitive and compensatory damages equal to those in cases of 
race-based discrimination. We owe it to the hard-working women of the 
United States, especially in these difficult economic times, when every 
penny of every paycheck counts, to continue to fight for equality.
  I commend the bill's original sponsor, Secretary Clinton, as well as 
Senator Dodd and Senator Mikulski, who have worked so hard to bring 
attention to the issue of gender discrimination in the workplace. I 
will continue to fight alongside my colleagues for the passage of the 
Paycheck Fairness Act.

                          ____________________