[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.
____________________