[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 2, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H1111-H1114]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Donovan). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2015, the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson 
Coleman) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.


                             General Leave

  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and 
to include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from New Jersey?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, this week, we open Women's History 
Month--an opportunity for us to celebrate the progress women have made 
and the amazing contributions that we are responsible for.
  We have more women in Congress now than ever before. Women are now 
the leading breadwinners or are the only breadwinners in 40 percent of 
households. We have more women who lead major companies and who are in 
prominent positions, like on the Supreme Court. Women today are more 
likely to earn college degrees and to attend graduate school than are 
their male counterparts, and more women are entering traditionally 
male-dominated fields. That progress has been incredibly swift. We are 
talking about gains that have really only happened in the past 60 
years. Still, there are many, many milestones that women have yet to 
reach.
  Even with the most women Congress has ever seen, this body, 
supposedly elected to both represent and reflect the United States, is 
still overwhelmingly 80 percent male, in fact. Women still make 78 
cents for every dollar a man earns, particularly troubling when you 
think about the 40 percent of women I just mentioned who are supporting 
their families. Black women make even less at 64 cents on the dollar 
while Latina women make just 66 cents on the dollar. If this week is 
any indicator, there are still great numbers of people, primarily men, 
who feel we are incapable of making our own decisions about our health 
care.
  We have got a long way to go, Mr. Speaker. Part of the reason we 
can't get all the way there is that we have not passed the Equal Rights 
Amendment. We have been avoiding ensuring protection for women in the 
Constitution for almost 100 years. Quite frankly, there is only so much 
we can do until we offer that basic level of protection.
  Mr. Speaker, the ERA was first drafted and introduced in the 1920s. 
It finally passed in 1972 and was sent to the States for ratification, 
where it received 35 of the 38 approvals that it needed. Unfortunately, 
time ran out. One of the reasons we have yet to solve some of the 
greatest challenges facing our Nation's women is the lack of true 
protection in the Constitution.
  What better way to ensure the right to fair pay for women? What 
better way to ensure equal treatment in the workplace? What better way 
to protect against laws that inherently limit women? What better way to 
protect all of the progress we have made and to ensure that women can 
continue to excel?
  The Equal Rights Amendment would provide the foundation for 
legislation that protects women from discrimination at every level--
legislation that is more necessary now than it has ever been with more 
and more women leading at home and in the workplace.
  We will spend a lot of time in the coming weeks talking about what we 
need to do for women--from the passage of the Fair Pay Act to ensuring 
paid leave for women and men. Yet there is one thing that we should 
have done long ago, and my colleagues are here tonight, on the floor 
with me, to call for action where we have failed before.
  It is now my pleasure to yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. 
Carolyn B. Maloney), the primary sponsor of the ERA bill.
  Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. I thank the gentlewoman for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, 
and the Congressional Progressive Caucus for dedicating this time to 
talk about passing the Equal Rights Amendment--a cause I have fought 
for my entire time in Congress.
  March is Women's History Month, and we have many accomplishments to 
celebrate and to be proud of, but we must remain focused on the 
continued struggle for full equality for women. Without the ERA, this 
goal will not be fully realized, and half of Americans will not realize 
their full potential. All of us, men and women, stand to benefit from 
true gender equality.
  Consider, for instance, some laws that are being proposed across the 
Nation that have disparate negative impacts on women:
  In Illinois, a bill sponsored by men is pending that would deny a 
birth certificate to a newborn of a single mother unless a father is 
listed on the birth certificate. This would make it impossible for a 
single mother to enroll her child in a public school, for her child to 
obtain a driver's license, or for her to collect child support and 
other benefits for the child. The law is silent on single fathers.
  In Kentucky, the State senate has passed a bill sponsored by a man 
that would force all women who are seeking to terminate pregnancies to 
undergo ultrasounds, whether they want to or not, and to have doctors 
describe the images to them. While we cannot know for sure how an ERA 
would affect the outcome of future Supreme Court cases, we have seen 
that its absence leaves women vulnerable to discrimination without 
their having legal recourse.
  These legislative efforts to roll back hard-won progress and to 
curtail rights are directed squarely at women. You will not find 
equivalent examples of bills that roll back or constrain the rights of 
men--and men only. Unfortunately, that noble and empowering declaration 
in our founding document that ``all men are created equal'' left some 
of us out. In fact, it leaves about half the population of America out.
  Many people are actually surprised when they realize that the United 
States Constitution does not mention women. That omission has, 
unfortunately, become a glaring problem when it comes to achieving full 
equality--and not just a problem for women but for families as well--
for everyone. For instance, when women make less than men just because 
they are women, it is an issue that affects their entire families.
  We saw that in the case of Lilly Ledbetter. The Supreme Court found 
that she had been paid less for doing the very same job as her male 
counterparts. This not only meant that, for years, she made less money 
than her male colleagues in order to support her family and to provide 
for her children throughout her working life, but it meant that she 
would also spend her entire retirement being less financially secure.
  Such unfair and unequal treatment should certainly be prohibited 
under our Constitution. Yet the late Supreme

[[Page H1112]]

Court Justice Antonin Scalia famously told an interviewer for the 
California Lawyer Magazine that he believed that the Constitution does 
not outlaw this kind of discrimination because, in his view, the 14th 
Amendment does not apply to women.
  The 14th Amendment reads that no State shall ``deny to any person . . 
. the equal protection of the laws.''
  To most people, that would seem to be pretty simple and 
straightforward; but Justice Scalia argued that the word ``person'' 
should not apply to women. In his view, when it was written, it was 
only meant to apply to the recently emancipated slaves.
  The problem here is that there is ambiguity about whether or not 
gender discrimination is explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. The 
only solution to this challenge is to plainly include women in the 
Constitution. So between the State and congressional legislators who 
believe it is permissible to roll back hard-won rights and to pass 
legislation that unfairly and unequally burdens women--and the 
idiosyncratic views of Supreme Court Justices who declare women are not 
people--it is essential to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in a brief 
amendment that simply reads:
  ``Women shall have equal rights in the United States and every place 
subject to its jurisdiction. Equality of rights under the law shall not 
be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account 
of sex.''

                              {time}  1830

  Let's put women in the Constitution at long last.
  Research shows that 75 to 90 percent of Americans mistakenly believe 
that the ERA has already passed and that men and women are equal under 
the law. In 2012, a poll asked: Do you think the Constitution should 
guarantee equal rights for men and women? And 91 percent said yes, 
including 86 percent of Republicans.
  The way things stand now, the Supreme Court has ruled that the 
Constitution provides strict guidelines against discrimination based on 
race and national origin, but it is silent on issues of gender 
discrimination.
  When it comes to gender discrimination, the Court has applied a 
lesser standard that makes it easier to get away with discriminating 
against women. Plain old common sense and your basic sense of fairness 
should tell you that the same strict scrutiny, protection against 
discrimination based on race and national origin, should also apply to 
discrimination based on sex.
  So the ERA would establish unequivocally, once and for all, that 
women are entitled to equal treatment under the law. Equal treatment 
means equal treatment. Equal means equal for all, women included. The 
ERA would, once and for all, provide clear, constitutional guidance on 
gender equity issues. The ERA would lend the force of the Constitution 
to existing prohibitions against sex discrimination in the workplace or 
schools. The ERA would stop bias in wages, benefits, hiring practices, 
and other conditions of employment.
  If America wants to be a world leader in the promotion of human 
rights, it needs to lead by example on women's rights. Sadly, in this 
area, America is exceptional only in a bad way.
  The U.S. stands out as one of the few nations that does not even 
address gender equality in its Constitution. As the world's leading 
democracy, we are falling behind on women's equality. At a time when we 
seek to champion democracy around the world, we must guarantee equality 
here at home. It is time for the United States to secure equal rights 
for women across our Nation by ratifying the ERA.
  Progress can all too easily be rolled back. Laws can be repealed, and 
judicial attitudes can shift, turning women into second class citizens. 
It seems like I spend a majority of my time here in Congress just 
fighting to hold on to what we already have, trying to keep it from 
being rolled back. An ERA would protect the progress made on women's 
rights from any shifting political trends.
  Women are still not receiving equal pay for equal work. According to 
the U.S. Census Bureau, women still earn 78 cents for every dollar 
earned by a man, and this has contributed to older women being the 
largest segment of poverty in our great Nation. Because when you are 
paid less, your pension is less, your 401(k) is less, your Social 
Security is less, and that happens to have profound effects on women.
  Just this past week there was an article in The Wall Street Journal 
that talked about the largest group of people that are growing in the 
workforce are older women, and this is because they cannot afford to 
retire. They have to continue working because of the discrimination in 
pay and because of having taken times when they weren't in the 
workforce to take care of a sick parent or to nurse and raise a child.
  Sex and pregnancy discrimination persists in the workforce. 
Governmental programs, such as Social Security, still unequally provide 
benefits to men and women.
  An ERA would be a woman's best defense against harmful practices that 
punish her simply because she is a woman. We cannot keep fighting 
discrimination against women one battle at a time, constantly playing 
defense. Passing the ERA will put women on equal footing in the legal 
system of all 50 States, particularly in areas where women have 
historically been treated as second class citizens.
  We have 186 bipartisan cosponsors of H.J. Res. 52 in the House, which 
I proudly introduced with Representative Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming--
just 32 shy of a majority. It reflects the strength of the belief that 
women should be included in the Constitution and guaranteed equal 
treatment under the law.
  It is time to stop making excuses. Women and like-minded men have to 
demand that Congress and State governments get this done. Equal means 
equal.
  I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I thank her from the bottom 
of my heart for really organizing this important Special Order.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for being 
with us this evening.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Graham).
  Ms. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, first I want to thank Congresswoman Watson 
Coleman for holding this special session and bringing attention to the 
Equal Rights Amendment.
  When I was born in 1963, we lived in a different world. It was legal 
to openly discriminate against hiring women; it was legal to 
discriminate against women in lending and credit; it was legal to pay 
women substantially less than men; and it was legal to fire a woman 
just for becoming pregnant.
  Fortunately, when I was born, things were beginning to change. Women 
were fighting for and gaining greater equality.
  Today, women are better protected from those forms of discrimination. 
We have made great strides, but we haven't yet been able to recognize 
our equality in the Constitution. There is nothing more sacred, nothing 
more important to America than our Constitution.
  I support the Equal Rights Amendment because I grew up in a changing 
world, but I want my daughter and the next generation to grow up in a 
changed world. I want my daughter to live in a country where her and 
every woman's equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or 
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
  To illustrate why I believe we should and still can ratify the Equal 
Rights Amendment, I want to specifically speak about the history of the 
ERA in my home State of Florida.
  Our House of Representatives voted for ratification of the ERA three 
separate times--in 1972, 1975, and 1979--but our Senate remained more 
divided on the issue.
  Bill Cotterell, a columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat, recently 
opined:

       It was still a very different world, where a Member of the 
     legislature walked around with a toy pig under his arm, 
     proudly proclaiming himself a male chauvinist.

  It was a different world, one still changing, but I am proud to say 
there were men who stood up for the women of our State in the State 
senate. One of them was my father, Bob Graham, who bucked his own 
Democratic Party leadership to support the ERA, a move that helped earn 
him the title of a doghouse Democrat.
  After repeated failures in the Senate, some thought the ERA was dead, 
but it resurfaced in Florida in 1982. That summer, just a few weeks 
remaining before

[[Page H1113]]

the ratification deadline, more than 10,000 men and women marched on 
our State capitol in support of the amendment.
  Hearing their call and supporting their cause, my father, who had 
moved out of the doghouse into the Governor's mansion, called our 
legislature into special session. For the fourth time, the House voted 
in favor of the amendment, but unfortunately the senate blocked 
ratification. That was 34 years ago.

  And today I believe our State is better than that. I believe, given 
another chance to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, Democrats and 
Republicans in Florida could be united to support equality for women.
  I am proud to have grown up in a changing world, but it is time for 
our daughters and the next generation of women to grow up in a changed 
world. It is time to recognize their equality in our Constitution.
  I thank the Congresswoman for bringing attention to this issue and 
for all that you do on behalf of women.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Speier), the sponsor of legislation that would 
retroactively lift the deadline for the ratification of the ERA.
  Ms. SPEIER. I thank the gentlewoman from New Jersey for bringing us 
together tonight to talk about one of the most fundamental issues 
facing women in this country. I would hope that we would do these 
Special Orders on a monthly basis or maybe even more frequently to kind 
of beat the drum about how important it is for us to address this 
issue.
  Today we see everything we need to see to convince us of the need to 
ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and put women's equality into the 
Constitution. We have a pay gap that has not closed where women are 
making 79 cents for every dollar that men make. For African American 
women that is 63 cents, and for Latina women it is 54 cents for every 
dollar earned by a man.
  In fact, women in this country have to work until April 15 of the 
following year--tax day, ironically--to make as much money as their 
male counterparts. We can't afford that. We can't afford that in a 
country that speaks of equality.
  Meanwhile, we have a Congress and State legislators who are focused 
like a laser beam on attacking women's health. We just spent 5 hours 
today in a hearing of a special committee designed specifically to 
attack women's health. Since the start of 2016--merely 2 months ago, 
and for the last 2 months--there have been more than 201 anti-choice 
bills introduced in State legislatures across this country, efforts to 
undermine a woman's right to choose.
  We have a Supreme Court seat at stake and issues of gender equality 
hanging in the balance. It is important to quote what the late Justice 
Scalia said about discrimination against women. He was a constitutional 
expert, an originalist, and he said the following:
  ``Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the 
basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.''
  When I read that quotation by Justice Scalia--may he rest in peace--I 
had shivers up and down my spine because it was so direct. It was so 
clear. It makes the point that the Constitution of this country does 
not prohibit discrimination based on sex, even though the vast majority 
of Americans believe it is already in the Constitution.
  Ninety-six percent of U.S. adults believe that male and female 
citizens should have equal rights, and 72 percent mistakenly believe it 
is already in the Constitution. As Justice Scalia pointed out, it is 
not.
  So what does that mean?
  That means that every single woman in this country can be subject to 
discrimination and not have a legal foot to stand on.
  Probably one of the most obvious cases is the case of Peggy Young. 
Peggy Young worked for United Parcel Service for 10 years. She was a 
good worker, a hard worker. And then, lo and behold, she gets pregnant. 
She gets pregnant. She goes to her supervisor and she says: I am 
pregnant.
  He says: Okay. Go to your doctor and find out what accommodations you 
will require.

                              {time}  1845

  She went to her doctor, and her doctor said: Well, you can do 
anything except you can't lift more than 10 pounds.
  So she came back to her supervisor and said: I can do anything except 
I can't lift more than 10 pounds.
  He said: Oh, my gosh, that is a terrible liability.
  For all intents and purposes, she was fired from her job. She was 
told she will have to take a leave of absence, that she will not be 
paid, and that she would not be eligible for health benefits. So her 
entire pregnancy she had no prenatal care and no health insurance.
  Now, what makes this story particularly insidious is that during that 
same timeframe, men at the United Parcel Service who had heart disease, 
heart attacks, had had a DUI, or had diabetes were asked to go to their 
doctors and find out what accommodations they should propose. Some of 
them came back with the exact same accommodation: that they could not 
lift more than 10 pounds.
  What did United Parcel Service do? United Parcel Service accommodated 
them. That is profound discrimination.
  But guess what. Peggy Young filed a lawsuit. It went all the way to 
the Supreme Court, and it got remanded. It got remanded in part because 
not only did she have to prove that there was discrimination, which 
clearly there was; she had to prove that it was intentional 
discrimination by United Parcel Service, and she couldn't prove that.
  Now, in all the other forms of discrimination, whether it is based on 
race or religion, you only have to prove that there was discrimination, 
not that there was intentional acts of discrimination. So that is why 
it is so important that we get this in the Constitution.
  We have a new generation of women who are more independent, more able 
to support themselves, and more politically empowered than ever. I just 
read an article that shows single women are now our most potent 
political force in this country. Single women--whether they are single 
never been married, single divorced, single separated, single--are our 
most potent electoral force. They deserve the right to full legal 
equality under our Constitution. How can this body, of all bodies, not 
recognize the importance of equality among men and women?
  So I have introduced H.J. Res. 51. It is very simple.
  The ERA was introduced first in 1923 by Alice Paul, and introduced 
every Congress since then, and then it was introduced and actually 
passed the House and passed the Senate. It then had to be ratified by 
three-quarters of the States. Unfortunately, when that was drafted, in 
the preamble they put a timeline. It was ratified by 35 States, but not 
38. So it came back to Congress, and they amended the preamble and 
extended the length of time in which the ERA could be passed by other 
States. And then nothing happened.
  What this resolution does--and it would only require a majority of 
the Members of this body to pass it--is basically use the precedent and 
take the preamble and the time deadline and just strike it.
  There is no need for a deadline in a constitutional amendment. Most 
constitutional amendments have not been subject to a deadline. There is 
precedent that they were willing to change it as it relates to the ERA, 
and I say let's make it yet another precedent and just take the 
timeline out of it. That would give us the opportunity to get three 
more States to pass the ERA, to ratify it.
  We already know in Virginia it has been passed by the senate, and we 
are waiting for action in the house. As my good friend from Florida 
said, in Florida they could pass it, conceivably, now.
  So why not do what is fundamentally right? Why not do what is so 
simple? Twenty-four simple words, that is all the ERA is. It is on one 
page, and it is simply: ``Equality of rights under the law shall not be 
denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of 
sex.''
  The time has come, Members, and I applaud my good colleague from New 
Jersey for bringing us together. We

[[Page H1114]]

should do it again. I enjoy working with you on any number of issues.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman, 
and I want to say tonight that we definitely will be coming back here 
again on a Special Order hour and addressing this issue. We will just 
continue to do it until we can see some movement. I thank you for that.
  Mr. Speaker, the women tonight, the Members of the House, have spoken 
so eloquently and so compellingly on this issue and the urgency with 
which we need to take this issue up. But the women of this Nation, they 
are very strong and intelligent and capable citizens as well.
  As our laws in our society have given women a turn at bat, we have 
stepped up to the plate, and we have proven time and again that we can 
do what men do just as well as they do it, and often even better.
  Although expectations and stereotypes are changing, women are still 
lacking in equal footing. Last year the United States fell to 28th 
place in the annual world equality rankings, behind even Rwanda and the 
Philippines. We are one of only a few nations that fails to 
specifically affirm the legal equality of men and women in our 
governing documents, a failure we would hold any other nation 
accountable for.
  The ERA is the biggest and most basic step we can take to ensure 
equality for every woman. We need it, and we need it now. So let us 
work together to give women equal rights once and for all.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________