Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007--Motion to Proceed--Resumed

Floor Speech

LILLY LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT OF 2007--MOTION TO PROCEED--Resumed -- (Senate - April 23, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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.

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