[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5902-5907]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            OPIOID ADDICTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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 
include extraneous material on the subject of my 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 of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, for what feels like 
the first time this year, the House got to work on something that would 
genuinely help millions of Americans: addressing the opioid crisis.
  My home State of New Jersey is a perfect example of this epidemic in 
both reach and financial impact. Four of every five new heroin users 
started their drug abuse addictions with a prescription opioid. By one 
estimate, New Jersey is now home to more than 128,000 heroin addicts.

                              {time}  1645

  In the past 10 years, heroin has claimed 5,000 lives in my State, and 
we fall just short of the top 10 in the percent of healthcare costs we 
use on those suffering with opioid addiction.
  Opioids, both heroin and prescription painkillers, are driving the 
national crisis of lethal overdose, with more than 60 percent of these 
deaths attributed to opiate abuse.
  Many have called this an epidemic, and they are absolutely right. It 
deserves our attention, and I applaud the bipartisan work we have done 
this week.
  But while we have taken a few vital steps, there are two very 
important things that I need my colleagues to understand. First, that 
although we have newly and rightly chosen to show those dealing with 
opioid addiction compassion and clemency, the only thing new about the 
addiction epidemic is its face.
  The greatest spikes have been among White, suburban Americans, for 
whom we are opening doors for treatment, rehabilitation, and 
alternatives to incarceration.
  Meanwhile, communities of color have watched families arrested, 
convicted, and imprisoned for decades over nonviolent drug offenses. 
African Americans are three to four times more likely to be arrested 
for drug crimes, and when these offenders go behind bars instead of to 
treatment beds, it breaks families and has lasting, devastating impacts 
on both families and communities.
  We have now begun to take an evidence-based approach to drug abuse, 
one that recognizes that arrest and long prison terms come at great 
cost and zero benefit. It is something that we should have done a long 
time ago.
  But now that we recognize the flawed policies of the past, we need to 
turn a critical eye to the victims of the older paradigm and offer them 
the doors to rehabilitation that we have created for today's offenders.
  There is a second vital step here, Mr. Speaker, without which all of 
our bipartisanship today would be meaningless. We have authorized a 
variety of measures that have the potential to stop the advance of the 
opioid crisis, but without funding and continued review, our work will 
be worthless.
  States and local municipalities need new resources to combat this 
crisis if we are going to make any kind of difference. That is why my 
Democratic colleagues put forward a proposal that will provide $600 
million in new funds specifically to fight opioids and heroin.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted to block that 
proposal, which makes me concerned that they assume that the handful of 
authorizations we have worked on will be enough.
  With 78 Americans dying from opioid overdose every day, the American 
people cannot afford for us to wash our hands of this issue without 
providing the resources necessary to halt this epidemic for all of 
those that are affected. We need to keep pushing forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison), 
the honorable chairman of our Progressive Caucus.
  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I 
also want to lend my voice to hers as I stand here before you to say 
that I was happy to vote for the legislation addressing opioid 
addiction today; sad that Republicans didn't support Democratic 
initiatives, but overall happy with the work that has been done on this 
this week.
  I know many people fighting opioid addiction. It is debilitating. It 
is heartbreaking in the lives that it has ruined. And I think that 
though the steps we took today were positive, we could have taken more.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to reflect upon an issue that is related to 
this, but give a little historic perspective because I think that 
Congress' response to opioid addiction has, I think, in the main, been 
commendable.
  Unfortunately, if it were 20 years ago today, in the mid 1990s, 
perhaps the response of Congress then to crack cocaine was very 
different.
  The response to crack cocaine was massive incarceration. The effect 
of the crack cocaine epidemic was massive blanketing of police in 
certain neighborhoods, front-end loaders in poor neighborhoods.
  I hope that what this more humane, more medical-oriented response to 
drug addiction represents is America learning how to deal with drug 
addiction because I think a more cynical person, not me, might say that 
because crack cocaine was associated with people who were African 
Americans, a more harsh, police-oriented, prison-oriented response was 
warranted and tolerable; and because opioid is more broad and affects 
the majority community as well, that a more reasoned response is 
warranted.
  Thinking about people like Kemba Smith, who got 24 years in prison 
when she was a student at Hampton University. She never touched 1 gram 
of crack cocaine; had a boyfriend who was a drug dealer. He housed some 
drugs in her house. She got convicted, ended up getting 24 years in 
prison.
  Thank goodness President Clinton gave her a commutation, but ruined 
her life.
  We now have about 2.4 million people in prison, many of them for 
nonviolent drug offenses, many who were arrested and given an enormous 
amount of time in the crack cocaine wars of the 1990s.
  I hope that the enlightened approach that we have now, which is not 
marked with helicopters and front-end loaders and all types of 
weaponry, literally militarizing Black neighborhoods across the United 
States back in the 1990s--I am glad that that is not the response we 
have taken this time. I hope it means we have learned something,

[[Page 5903]]

but I hope it also means that we go back and ask ourselves if some of 
the exorbitant sentences that people got, life sentences in some cases, 
10 years, 20 years, we revisit these; we look at mandatory minimums for 
some of these offenders; that we look at how we have exploded massive 
prison rates all around crack, even though, in my opinion, crack and 
powder cocaine are basically the difference between ice and water. They 
are essentially the same chemical.
  We incarcerate one much more severely than the other. One is used 
predominantly by Whites; the other, more Blacks are found in possession 
of it, and the rates of incarceration are dramatically different.
  This Congress corrected a grievous injustice where we punished crack 
cocaine 100 times more severely than we did powder. We changed that to 
18 times more. That is improvement; it is not equality.
  But I hope that today, the way we dealt with opioids, which I 
supported and I voted for--because I do believe that we do need to have 
more of a medical approach to drug addiction than the militarized, 
police-oriented, incarceration-oriented measure that we have used in 
the past--I hope that this new way of dealing with drug addiction is an 
advance in our understanding rather than a reflection of who is being 
hurt.
  I think that if we really want to demonstrate that it is a reflection 
of what we have learned, then we have some unfinished business to 
achieve because there are still a lot of people who are dealing with 
the vestiges of mass incarceration and the war on crack cocaine.
  Let me also just say that I remember being a young criminal defense 
lawyer in Minnesota, and I remember being in court when a courageous 
young judge named Pam Alexander, an African American female, found that 
the difference between powder and crack cocaine sentencing was not 
warranted by the facts or the evidence; in fact, amounted to an equal 
protection violation under the Minnesota constitution.
  To the credit of the Minnesota State Supreme Court, they upheld her 
ruling, but Pam Alexander paid a heavy toll for her courageous judicial 
work because she was nominated to be a Federal district judge. That was 
blocked by people who wanted to maintain the status quo, and she never 
got to be a Federal district court judge.
  Now, she is still a distinguished journalist, to the pride of us all; 
but, you know, just showing that some people went to prison for this 
and others had their careers limited because of their willingness to 
speak up against these equal protection problems.
  So I just hope that today represents advancing our understanding 
rather than just the different treatment that different people 
historically have received in our country.
  I definitely feel that I was proud to vote for the four measures 
today and enjoyed the debate and definitely was--my heart was in sync 
with all of my colleagues when they were talking about some of the very 
horrific problems that people suffer from opioid addiction. I am right 
there with them and my heart is right there with them and my mind is 
right there with them.
  But I cannot get it out of my head about how differently we dealt 
with the crack epidemic. According to the Center for Disease Control, 
Blacks and Whites use crack about the same rate. And yet, there were 
whole jurisdictions in this country where there was literally no White 
person being charged with crack possession, and there were African 
Americans getting 5 years for a few grams, 10 years for a few more, and 
their lives absolutely devastated because of it.
  I mentioned 2.4 million Americans behind bars. Much of this is driven 
by the war on drugs. There are 2.7 million children whose parents are 
behind bars. When your parent goes to prison, it devastates family 
income.
  So I am just going to turn it back over; announce that I am proud of 
the votes that I took in favor of addressing opioid addiction today; 
say that I hope that it was because we learned something about the war 
on drugs; say that we must go, sort of fix some of the overzealousness 
of the war on crack years in the 1990s; and say that I really hope that 
our sympathies don't return only in favor of people who look like us, 
but to all Americans.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota. I 
appreciate the remarks that he has made and the issues that he has 
brought before this body this evening, particularly his illuminating 
for us and reminding us of the disparities of the criminal justice 
system, of the way we dealt with drug addiction in the past.
  But we are in an enlightened period now, as evidenced by the work 
that we did just today; and I hope that we look at the issue of drug 
addiction and those addicted in the same humane manner, even if it is 
not an addiction to just heroin or an addiction to opiates, but it is 
an addiction to a drug that is harmful to their well-being.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn 
B. Maloney).
  Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good 
friend, Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, for hosting this Special 
Order to talk about opioids and drug policies.
  Our country is currently facing a great crisis. According to the 
Centers for Disease Control, 78 Americans die each day from an opioid 
overdose. We are in the midst of an addiction epidemic, an epidemic 
robbing mothers and fathers of their children, and children of their 
future.
  I cannot imagine the torture and hardship that not only those with 
these addictions suffer, but their families and friends as well, seeing 
their loved ones in pain, unable to help them. But that does not have 
to be the case.
  Congress can make a difference. Our actions here can help save lives, 
save people from suffering and having to bury a loved one. But we 
cannot stop this epidemic with just congressional authorization of new 
grant programs, studies, reports. We must fund these needed tools so 
that communities have the resources they so desperately need.
  Today the House passed, and I was proud to support the Comprehensive 
Opioid Abuse Reduction Act, a bipartisan bill creating the 
Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Grant Program. And while I wholeheartedly 
support this new program, we have to make sure we provide the funding 
that is necessary to get the program up and running.
  This new program and any others we enact will be no help without 
funding to support it.
  Since 2000, there has been a 200 percent increase in the rate of 
deaths attributed to opioids. This problem is only getting worse, and 
has been for some time.

                              {time}  1700

  Our actions are already too late for the 28,000 lives lost just in 
2014.
  The leading cause of accidental death in New York State is now an 
overdose. An estimated 886 lives were lost citywide in 2015. That is 
886 preventable deaths a year just in New York City, 886 individuals 
that could still be here today had we acted sooner.
  Last month, Mayor de Blasio announced a new $5.5 million plan to 
combat deaths caused by overdose, building on the ThriveNYC initiative, 
a program to support those suffering with mental health problems.
  Actually, today, the first lady, Chirlane, was here in Washington 
meeting with the delegation on the Thrive initiative on ways that we 
were working in the city to combat the opioid epidemic.
  Earlier this week, Governor Cuomo of New York launched a statewide 
task force to face the heroin and opioid crisis in the State head-on. 
But our States can't do it alone, and they shouldn't need to. This 
isn't a problem confined to one district, one State, or one section of 
the country. It is a nationwide epidemic that cannot be allowed to 
continue unabated any longer.
  We owe it to all those suffering, those addicted and their families, 
to show we recognize this problem and that we are working for them, not 
only through our efforts, our votes authorizing these new programs 
today, studies, and reports, but through actually putting the necessary 
support behind these efforts and funding them.
  We can and we must work to save lives. But all those votes are for

[[Page 5904]]

naught if we don't actually get these programs off the ground. 
Communities across the country need our help, and the time to act is 
now. We have already lost too many to this epidemic. I am proud of the 
votes on the floor today in support of moving forward to do something 
about it.
  I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership and for yielding.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New 
York.
  Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of 
Texas, the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Bonnie Watson 
Coleman for leading this Special Order and for bringing us together 
around two very important issues, not only this question of opioids, 
but, as well, the question of the rights of women.
  Let me say that this has been a week for news, news coming from the 
most powerful lawmaking body in the Nation. As I heard a Member say in 
the course of the debate on the list of opioids legislation, it is not 
that we needed it, for the record is established through the 
Congressional Record, but that we would want to have those areas that 
are usually filled with media really take hold of what is being done on 
the floor of the United States House of Representatives and, of course, 
the complementary legislation of the other body.
  Over the past 2 days, we passed legislation dealing with pregnant 
women, we passed legislation dealing with teenagers who lost their 
lives because of overdose of prescription drugs, and we passed 
legislation that gave a whole litany under the Judiciary Committee not 
of mandatory minimums and mass incarceration, but how do we bring law 
enforcement and substance abuse counselors together? How do we provide 
training for police officers to use naloxone? How do we ensure that 
there is training or resources for those who are addicted? How do we 
get parental training as it relates to individuals who are addicted and 
their children are addicted? How do we monitor the issuance of 
prescription drugs with the respect for the medical profession that we 
all have in doing their job?
  Because we do realize that this prescription journey started with the 
new approach to pain management that had been studied on an evidence-
based basis that you would heal better if you could allow the pain not 
to be so devastating, then, of course, what happens are many things: 
the amount of prescription is more than you would need; or your 
children get ahold of it, or other people's children; or there is no 
place to dispose of it.
  In this discussion of opioids, I want it to be reflected that the 
Congress came together as Republicans and Democrats focusing on how we 
should address this as a sickness and an addiction and not as 
incarceration and punitive sentencing.
  We followed the beginning, in 2009, where we removed some of the 
disparities between crack cocaine and didn't have it in this large, 
unfair basis where, if you had a little bit of crack you were in prison 
for 400 years, if you had cocaine, you might skip by. We made that 
step. But now it is 2016, and we made a metamorphic change because we 
moved from the idea of mass incarceration to the idea of treatment.
  When I finished the debate on the floor on the most recent Judiciary 
Committee bill authored by Mr. Sensenbrenner working with Mr. 
Goodlatte, Mr. Conyers, many Members, and me, I indicated that we 
missed a period of history of the crack cocaine users. Many of them are 
languishing in prisons. So I am hopeful about this bipartisan spirit, 
as we look to sentencing reduction through H.R. 3713, for something 
miraculous, because it includes retroactivity. Many of those crack 
cocaine users are nonviolent. We will have the ability as this 
legislation works its way through Congress to include them in the 
scheme of treatment and the restoration part of what we are trying to 
do in the lives of people who are sick and addicted.
  I had someone come to me who said: Don't forget the meth users. We 
know that meth was an epidemic--and still is--and how destructive it is 
to one's physical look and body.
  So I am delighted to join my colleagues here to say that we did have 
a newsworthy great week and that we were taking a look at opioids in a 
different manner, that we are taking a look and working with physicians 
and the medical profession to be able to ensure that they do their work 
and that we find a way to provide a monitoring situation so that we can 
stem the tide of this horrific, horrible, and destructive drug 
addiction that destroys the lives of so many young people.
  I close by saying that some years ago, my late mother was in the 
hospital. We know how we treat our parents--but our mothers. I was 
flying back and forth from this House checking and determining what her 
condition was. She had so many moments where she was on the brink but 
she came on back.
  One of the moments that I came to the hospital, there was erratic 
behavior. It wasn't my mother. That is the issue that we want. We want 
people to be explained to as to what is going on. It was a treatment 
that was dealing with trying to ease her pain.
  I had to ask them: What is she using?
  Percocet.
  The first time that I heard that word was 6 years ago--or even later, 
beyond 6 years. That was 2010, so it was even earlier than that. I 
didn't know the ramifications of Percocet. I am a lawyer and not a 
doctor. But I realize that whatever it was, the cure was worse than the 
disease, and I asked them to take my mother off the Percocet and for me 
never to see that again.
  Now, how many families do that?
  She did get off of it. Thank God, she healed and walked out of that 
hospital. That wasn't the time that she passed. She lived for another 
day.
  But we need, in this opioid discussion, as we are moving against mass 
incarceration, to explain to families and physicians to talk about what 
these painkillers can do. Because, in essence, they are sometimes so 
toxic that they, in many instances, easily cause addiction, as I have 
heard many parents say about their youngsters who had athletic 
injuries.
  So I thank the Congresswoman for yielding to me because I think this 
week has been a magnificent week when we have opened the door and 
kicked the can not down the road, but we have kicked it to open the 
door to say to all of us in America that it is okay. Addiction can be 
cured. But we are going to work alongside of you so that you can openly 
seek that cure to relieve yourself of addiction, and we are not going 
to direct you down the path of incarceration and mandatory minimums. I 
want that for those who are languishing and who have been sentenced on 
crack cocaine, and I am looking forward to working so that legislation 
covers that aspect of those who are still incarcerated.
  With that, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me, and I thank 
the gentlewoman for her leadership.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for always 
sharing with us in our Special Order Hour her wisdom, experience, 
unique observations, recommendations, and proposals. I thank the 
gentlewoman very much.
  Mr. Speaker, let me add just one more thought to this topic.
  This week we demonstrated that bipartisanship is still possible on 
issues that matter to the American people. We need to take that same 
spirit and apply it to the countless other issues that have always been 
bipartisan. Restoring the Voting Rights Act, for one; addressing the 
significant dangers of a virus, in this instance, of the Zika virus is 
another illustration; and passing a budget that creates jobs and grows 
paychecks for American workers.
  As we now shift topics here, Mr. Speaker, there is another issue that 
this body has been avoiding for decades. A few months ago, I joined my 
colleagues on the floor of the House to urge the passage of the Equal 
Rights Amendment. We are here again, Mr. Speaker, and we will keep 
coming back until it is done.
  We have been avoiding ensuring protection for women in the 
Constitution

[[Page 5905]]

for almost 100 years, and with enduring biases and discrimination 
against women, there is no better time than now.
  The ERA would give Congress the constitutional grounds to pass 
legislation that gives women victimized by gender-based violence 
recourse in Federal court and restoring elements of the Violence 
Against Women Act that have been deemed invalid by the Supreme Court. 
The ERA would give women a stronger legal platform from which to 
protest gender bias discrimination at work, giving cases like Betty 
Dukes' 2011 suit against Walmart the standing they would need. When you 
prove statistically lower pay and slower promotion, the biases are 
obvious and shouldn't be allowed to continue just because they haven't 
been specifically expressed. The ERA would keep women from being forced 
out of work during pregnancy, a protection that currently does not 
exist.
  Those are just a few of its benefits.
  For a long time, the push for the ERA has been viewed from a single 
perspective. But it is time for a coalition of women of every 
ethnicity, every religion, every nationality, and every race to stand 
united in the call for the ERA because it is for all of us. There are 
unique issues that every minority group faces, but they are all 
compounded when you add the gender to that plate. We can and we must 
work together to level the gender playing field, and the ERA is the 
best route to that goal.
  Mr. Speaker, I now yield to a fierce fighter for women and the ERA, 
the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).
  Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I truly want to 
thank Bonnie Watson Coleman for hosting this Special Order to talk 
about the Equal Rights Amendment. I can't think of anything that is 
more important than protecting the rights of half the population of 
America.
  We in Congress and in our country have helped other countries win 
their independence and craft their constitutions. One of the things we 
worked to place in that constitution is equality of treatment for all 
people. We have seen that countries that treat women well have less 
terrorism, less turmoil, and more economic stability, and that adds to 
the peace of the world. Yet we don't have women in the Constitution of 
the United States of America.

                              {time}  1715

  I think it is long past due, and it doesn't cost any money. It just 
is an equality statement in a Constitution giving protection to half 
the population.
  I have come to this Congress and reintroduced the Equal Rights 
Amendment. We know that it passed in the 1970s. It fell three States 
short of ratification. You need 38 States, and 35 ratified it. It has 
already passed in this country before, and there is huge support. 
Currently, we have over 187 bipartisan cosponsors that have joined 
Bonnie and me in this effort.
  There is an old Chinese saying that women hold up half the sky. But 
what most women are concerned about is how they are treated while they 
are on the Earth. We want to be treated fairly on the Earth. The 
exclusion of women--half the population--from the Constitution has dire 
consequences.
  Last month we commemorated Equal Pay Day, or more appropriately, 
``Unequal Pay Day,'' when the average woman's salary catches up with an 
average man's earning from the previous year. To put it simply, women 
have to work 3\1/2\ months more than a male colleague doing the same 
job with the same pay to reach his equal pay.
  Now, I can say we have made progress. When I first entered the 
workforce, we were at 59 cents to the dollar. We have made progress. We 
are now at 79 cents to the dollar. But economists say that, if we 
continue at the same rate, it will be the year 2025 before anything 
near equality is reached in equality of pay.
  Given that fact, the economic state of women in the United States is 
unequal, unfair, and unacceptable if we want to ensure financial 
stability of American families and protect economic growth.
  It is very interesting. One study was done by Heidi Hartmann, who is 
a MacArthur Award-winning economist. She stated that, if you just paid 
women equally, you would eliminate half the poverty in the United 
States.
  So everybody talks about job programs and everything else. Just pay 
women fairly and you would eliminate half the poverty in our country. 
That is an easy way to address opportunity and fair treatment.
  This unfairness of 79 cents to the dollar is also much, much more 
unfair when it goes to women of color. The pay gap is even larger. The 
pay gap has narrowed slightly over the years, but its impact is perhaps 
more detrimental today than ever before because women are participating 
in the workforce in record numbers.
  Increasingly, women are sometimes absolutely necessary for the income 
of the family, and some are single parents, as I am. I am a widow. When 
you treat a woman fairly, you are treating her husband fairly and her 
children fairly. With more women in the workforce because they have to 
work, bringing home a full, fair paycheck becomes more and more 
important.
  I recently asked the Joint Economic Committee democratic staff to 
study the effects of the gender gap, not just the 79 cents to the 
dollar, but what does it mean over a lifetime. This report, which was 
probably the most comprehensive, in-depth report on the subject to 
date, looked at the pay gap by age, race, State, and congressional 
districts.
  What it showed is that, over the span of a lifetime, it compounded. 
Women are 75 percent more likely to live in poverty in their old age 
than their male counterparts. The unequal pay in the paycheck 
translates into lower pensions, lower Social Security, lower savings, 
and just less cash in the pocketbook.
  They say that, in 1 year over the lifetime of a woman, the average is 
that you lose over $500,000 in pay. That is just the pay. Then you have 
to compound it into all of the savings aspects that all of us rely on 
in our older age.
  We found that the gender gap varies widely by race, age, and State. 
Working mothers--this is so interesting. For a country that says we 
honor the family, we honor the mothers and the fathers, if you become a 
mother--and many economists have written the same thing--you pay a 
penalty in the form of depressed wages when compared to working fathers 
and women without children.
  Women that become mothers, the study showed that they are paid less--
they call it the ``mommy penalty''--yet, men that become fathers are 
paid more. Men that become fathers are paid not only more than women, 
but they are paid more than men without children. So it is interesting.
  And the statistics are that men with children make 15 percent more 
than men without children and significantly more than women. Over a 
career, this disparity widens for women, making them more likely to 
live in poverty. Older women are the largest segment of poverty in our 
country.
  Women cannot support their families or fully participate in the 
economy when they are consistently paid less than men doing comparable 
work. This is bad for everyone. As you go through it, you wonder why 
does the gender gap persist and what can we do about it.
  In the past 30 years, the gender gap has been stuck at 79 cents to 
the dollar. After controlling for the complex factors that contribute 
to the gender gap, which could be leaving work to take care of 
children, taking care of an elderly parent, or other reasons, there is 
a 40 percent gap which many economists attribute to discrimination. 
Without the ERA, there is little to do. There is no recourse to fight 
gender discrimination when it does exist.
  The late Justice Antonin Scalia agreed and famously said, ``Certainly 
the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. 
The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.''
  I believe that Justice Scalia, who Ruth Bader Ginsburg called her 
closest friend on the Court, was doing the women's movement and like-
minded

[[Page 5906]]

men who care about women a favor by making this crystal clear.
  He was a strict constitutionalist. He went by the Constitution. His 
statement made it very clear: Women are not in the Constitution; 
therefore, I, as a Justice, and others would not protect them.
  We need to correct this. It is something that we could join hands and 
make happen. If we don't explicitly protect women in the Constitution, 
there can be no expectation for equality in the workforce, government, 
sports, or academia. There is no remedy for discrimination against 
women in the court.
  There have been some celebrated Supreme Court decisions that the 
dissent has said that this will be reversed in later years, and I 
believe it will. But they decided against women on the point that women 
aren't in the Constitution. Well, let's change that. That is something 
we can do in this House: pass a bill that puts women in the 
Constitution of our great country.
  Leaving women out of the Constitution and legally defenseless harms 
all of us in other areas of our lives. The progress women have made can 
too easily be rolled back, laws can be repealed, and judicial attitudes 
can shift. Something as fundamental as equality of opportunity and 
rights should not be at the whim of who is on the Court, who is in the 
legislature, or any other law that could be put in place to roll rights 
back.
  I would say that equality for women is a fundamental right that the 
vast majority of this country supports. I polled it once, and 99 
percent of the people in America said, yes, people should have equal 
rights, and, yes, they should have equality of opportunity.
  Yet, this fundamental aspect for half of the population of America--
and it is an important half of the population. Every man had a mother. 
Women are there working in the home, in the society, and in the 
communities.
  As we help and support and empower women, we empower our country and 
empower our economy. We can't compete and win in this world economy 
without using the strength of all of our people. That means not just 
talented men, but talented women, also.
  Ninety percent of the country actually thinks the Constitution 
already fully protects women because it seems so much like a no-
brainer. If you asked anyone in this body, they would say ``Of course 
women should be treated equally,'' ``Of course I want my daughters and 
my sons to have equal opportunity.''
  Properly valuing women is the right thing to do for our daughters, 
sisters, mothers, and grandmothers. It is also the closest thing to a 
silver bullet to stimulate the economy. If you just paid women equally, 
you would move so much more money into the economy that would have to 
be consumed and spent in the economy.
  I want to really thank the like-minded men and women who support the 
opportunity and the goal for women to be treated fairly. I believe this 
is an issue that we could all agree on. It is a fundamental right. I 
think that people believe in opportunity. This is one way to make sure 
that all of our citizens have the same opportunity.
  I want to thank Bonnie for bringing this issue to the floor. She 
brings it to the floor once a month. That shows a persistence and a 
commitment that I want to follow and want to support.
  I can't think of anything more important that we could spend our time 
on as a Nation or as individuals than helping people have the equal 
treatment and the equal opportunity that they so justly deserve in this 
great country.
  I just want to close by saying I wake up every morning and I say a 
prayer and I kiss the ground and thank God that I was born an American. 
There is no question in my mind that we are the greatest country on 
Earth. We treat our people the best. It is amazing.
  We just did a report that came out of the President's Office of 
Economic Advisers that shows that our economy is leading the world. The 
only thing that is hurting our economy is the suffering other economies 
that are pulling us down. We are a great country. But one of the 
reasons that we are so great is that we always strive to be better.
  I can't think of doing anything more important or better than 
treating all of our citizens equally and allowing them to have the same 
equal opportunity under our great flag and under our great 
Constitution. It is long past due to put women in the Constitution.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in helping to make this dream of 
equality a reality in the great country of the United States of 
America.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman 
from New York. I welcome our partnership on this endeavor. We committed 
to one another that we are going to continue to raise the issue of the 
ERA on a monthly basis so that people will be reawakened to just how 
significant and important this is.
  I was very struck by the information that she shared with us with 
regard to the unequal pay as it relates to women versus men. While we 
cited sort of the general knowledge or norm that is associated with the 
ERA and with unequal pay, we recognize that there is an even greater 
disparity when it comes to African American women and Latin women to 
the tune of 63 cents on the dollar and 54 cents on the dollar.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), 
who is also a fierce fighter for equality for all people.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, as I listened to Congresswoman Maloney, 
I heard her mention the Constitution and the importance of the Equal 
Rights Amendment and I am reminded of the constitutional amendment that 
was needed in 1920 to allow women the right to vote.
  If you took a broad assessment of the American people, they might 
allude to women have the right to vote. But what I would offer to say 
to them is that every time we wanted to be sure of a right given to a 
left-out group, we had to add to the Bill of Rights.

                              {time}  1730

  The Bill of Rights includes the Fifth Amendment, which is the 
protection of our property and due process. It includes the 13th, 14th, 
and 15th Amendments, which codify, constitutionally, the wrongness of 
slavery and the concept of equal protection under the law. But in all 
of that, it has not protected women in their rightful place in this 
society to have a legal basis to object to unequal pay. It did not 
provide the cover for Lilly Ledbetter, who went to protest the fact 
that she was paid less and was not given any respect by the employer 
who felt that there were no laws that protected her.
  I believe that, in all of my tenure in Congress, I have supported the 
Equal Rights Amendment legislation. So I just answer today, for those 
who may be querying ``here they come again'' or ``they already have a 
Bill of Rights'' or ``they have the amendment allowing them to vote,'' 
yes, we have sectors of rights--the right to vote--and maybe we join in 
and have the right to due process.
  What the Equal Rights Amendment does is it pierces the veil of 
governmental leadership and governance, and it says to the 50 States: 
you must adhere to the Constitution as it is related to women and that, 
with every aspect of governmental action that impacts women, without 
discrimination against men, you must put them on an equal footing.
  We have title VII and we have title IX; but, Mr. Speaker, in spite of 
those statutes, women are still discriminated against because you can't 
section off their rights and expect all of their rights to be 
protected. Discrimination under title VII fits one box, and title IX, 
with athletics, fits another box. Then, for some reason, we have all of 
these different aspects that seem either not to prevail under lawsuits 
under title VII or not to prevail under lawsuits under title IX, but 
women are still discriminated against.
  If there were an amendment that would cover all aspects of governance 
that States had to adhere to, that counties had to adhere to, that 
cities had to adhere to, and that, certainly, the Federal Government 
had to adhere to, because the Constitution is the Constitution of the 
United States for all people, then we would see the lifting of those 
issues that impact women

[[Page 5907]]

and that are not clarified through the statutory process.
  I rise today again to support the movement of this bill through the 
Judiciary Committee, to the floor of the House, and, ultimately, 
through the Senate. For my colleagues, many of you know that there is a 
constitutional process that would engage the States. Then, ultimately, 
that would become an amendment to the United States Constitution. What 
better process of engaging the people of the United States in 
determining whether they want and recognize the importance of an Equal 
Rights Amendment than the process of amending the Constitution of the 
United States.
  I finish by saying we are doing what is right, and I am hoping that 
its conclusion will be in short order on behalf of the women and the 
men and the families of this great United States of America.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for joining 
us in this discussion as well.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been almost a century; so the time for the ERA is 
right now.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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