Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 minutes. If I could have the attention of the Senator from Maryland, can the Senator explain to me why there would be reluctance in this body to vote for equal pay for equal work? We voted on this now more than five times in a 40-year period, to knock down the prejudice and discrimination to women, to minorities, to the disabled, and to the elderly. Under the Supreme Court decision, that discrimination can take place in the United States of America today. This legislation can halt it. Can the Senator possibly think about why we should hesitate in taking the action to restore the law to what it was prior to the Supreme Court decision?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 1 minute. If I can ask the Senator from Washington, in this downturn in our economy we find that women have less savings, they are participating less in pension plans, they are subject to more foreclosures in housing. At a time when women are under more pressure, can the Senator possibly explain why there should be reluctance in this body to restore fairness?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from New York.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I believe there is 5 minutes 45 seconds remaining?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 4 minutes to the assistant majority leader.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I am deeply disappointed we were not able to get the required 60 votes. With the majority leader's vote, we would have had 57 votes--57 votes. There is virtually unanimous opposition on the other side of the aisle to restore what had been fairness and decency and equity in our fair pay laws. I think most of us who have been around this institution for some time and who have been involved in the civil rights issue understand if you don't have a remedy, you don't have a right. This debate was about restoring a right to Lilly Ledbetter, her right to be treated fairly in the workplace and the rights of millions of others too. Those who are disabled, elderly, people in our society of various national origins, those of particular religious faiths, and women all are threatened by the underlying Supreme Court decision. That has to be altered. It has to be changed. I welcome the fact that our majority leader has sent a powerful signal by indicating that we will come back and revisit this issue. This issue is about fairness. It is about equity. If we are going to permit discrimination in the workplace, we shouldn't permit it to pay, and the best way to make sure it does not pay is to provide the remedy to ensure it will not. This is an early skirmish in this battle toward true fairness and equity and equitable pay for women and all others in our society. I look forward to working with our colleagues in the ongoing battle. I am very hopeful and optimistic that the next time we will get the votes that are necessary to permit us to take final action on this legislation. Again, I thank the majority leader for his addressing this issue and for his willingness to bring this back to the floor so we can have further debate and discussion on it. And I would like to thank my staff--Charlotte Burrows, Sharon Block, and Portia Wu, who worked very hard on this important legislation. I would also like to thank Michael Myers, Scott Fay, and Kate Dowling from my staff for all of their help.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank our majority leader and our leadership for scheduling a vote on what is known as the Ledbetter legislation tomorrow. We expect that we will have that vote tomorrow evening sometime. I think it is important that the membership understand that we will. It is appropriate today that we have a number of our colleagues speak about the importance of this legislation because today is Equal Pay Day. It has been designated Equal Pay Day. It has been Equal Pay Day for a number of years. What do we mean by Equal Pay Day? We mean equal pay for equal work. That has been a goal of this country going back actually to 1963, when we passed the Equal Pay Act. At that time, the disparity between men and women for doing the same job was 60 cents to the dollar that the men were getting. We have seen that figure close over time, now to 77 cents, but still there is a disparity. As long as we have had a disparity, it has been and is wrong. As a country, we have tried to remove forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice that have existed in our society, and the bigotry and prejudice that exist in terms of pay has been there for some time. Since 1963, the Congress has taken action not only on pay for women but in terms of other groups as well. It has made progress in making sure that African Americans are not going to feel a disparity. We did that in 1964 with Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act under President Johnson. Look at the Senate vote, the ultimate vote, 73 to 27. Republicans and Democrats alike said--the Civil Rights Act was primarily focused on public accommodations provisions but also had another very important provision--we will not permit a disparity and discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, gender, or religion in terms of pay. African Americans and other workers were going to be able to get equal pay. Then, we have the age discrimination. We said, under President Johnson, if individuals are going to be able to do the job, and they happen to be older but yet they have the competency and the skills and they are going to be able to do an equal job, we are going to make sure they are not going to be discriminated against. We have said women will not be discriminated against, minorities will not be discriminated against, and people will not be discriminated against by age. In 1973, we said: Well, what about those who have some disability? We said we are not going to discriminate against those people either. Maybe they have a mental or a physical disability, but if they are able to do the job, and they are qualified to do the job, they ought to get paid for doing the job. That is what we said. We saw that vote was a voice vote, under President Nixon, supported by the administration. Then, we had later provisions: the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was enacted to provide greater kinds of protections for the disabled; additional civil rights protections; and others; the Civil Rights Restoration Act. So the sum total, since 1963, has been a constant drumbeat, a constant march, a constant statement by the Congress and by the administrations by, as we have seen, Democrats and Republicans alike, that said: When it comes to equal pay, it is going to be equal pay for women and for men, it is going to be equal pay for people with disabilities, older workers, African-American workers, Hispanic workers, and others. This chart shows the various groups that, under the EEOC'd laws, have found out they have been discriminated against. This chart shows, as of a year ago, in 2007, the EEOC had received more than 7,000 pay discrimination claims. Here it is for disability cases--as I mentioned earlier, we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act--and for national origin cases--we have protections for that group, those people who come from different kinds of ethnic backgrounds--for age, race, and gender discrimination as well. We see that with regard to race, there have been 2,300 claims; with regard to gender, there have been some 2,400 claims. There are the cases for those with disabilities and the national origin cases. These are cases that were brought because we passed laws over the period of 40 years that said: If you are going to work, and work hard, in the United States of America, and you are going to do effectively the same job as someone else, you should be paid the same. We have not solved all the problems of comparability in this legislation. That is another issue which is enormously important and one we should address, and I hope we will address, in this Congress because it is extremely important. All we are trying to do is deal with the pieces of legislation that I have mentioned and restore a remedy. We can have a right and, as all of us understand, a right is not worth very much if we do not have a remedy. That is what this legislation is all about: to give a remedy to victims of pay discrimination, like Lilly Ledbetter. The remedy is that when workers are given unfair pay for doing effectively comparable work, that they are entitled as a matter of right and a matter of law to fair compensation. It is interesting, in the dissent in the Ledbetter case, the dissent asks for congressional action. We are giving congressional action. That is why I am going to be interested in the arguments of those who are opposed to it. Here a Justice of the Supreme Court invites the Congress to take the action. We are taking the action. What we are effectively doing is restoring the law to what it was prior to the Supreme Court decision--nothing more than that. I will review what exactly this law does here. What this legislation, the Ledbetter legislation, does, is it reverses the Supreme Court's unfair Ledbetter decision. It holds employers accountable for ongoing discrimination. As we pointed out, the Supreme Court held that Lilly Ledbetter should have known she was being discriminated against by her employer on pay, even though the employer controlled the books, controlled all the documents and was not sharing that information with the employees. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court said: Well, she should have found out in any event. If she did not, it is tough luck on her. Tough luck on you. Tough luck on you. Imagine, the Supreme Court of the United States, after all of the legislation and all of the congressional intent in the last 40 years, saying: Tough on you. So the employer holds it in a safe, and Lilly Ledbetter cannot find it. Tough on her. Doesn't have a remedy. Too bad. Go ahead and continue to discriminate. In the United States of America, after what we have gone through in terms of civil rights--the battle to knock down the walls of discrimination over the period of these last 40 years? Tough on you. Is that what we have come to? Is that what the Supreme Court is saying to a hard-working mother who has worked hard, tried to provide for her children, has demonstrated and won award after award for good performance? Tough on you. You could not find it in that sacred safe of the employer. Too bad. You lost your remedies. Too bad. That is what this is all about. What we are doing is restoring congressional intent. So what this legislation does not do: It does not encourage workers to delay the filing of claims. It does not eliminate the statute of limitations in the pay cases. It does not increase the litigation. We have the CBO's analysis. I have referred to it. It does not create new grounds for filing lawsuits. We answered all of these arguments. This is what it does not do. We have given the answers. They are not just my answers, they are the answers of the CBO's independent review. What we are basically doing, and the reason why we are doing it, is to effectively restore the law to what it was previously. As this chart indicates: the lighter green being what the law was previously--that is what we are returning it to--the darker green being what the law was as interpreted by the EEOC, and the orange were the dissenting states. So this is going back to the previous rule. This would be right to do at any time, but it is particularly important now. The reason it is particularly important now is because of the kind of economic conditions we are facing in this country at this time, where families are being squeezed. Working families are being squeezed. The middle class is being squeezed. In that squeeze, no one is getting squeezed harder than the women in our society, particularly working women. Their participation pension and retirement plans is falling. Look at what has happened to women's participation in pensions over the last 6 or 7 years. It has dropped, I think, close to 10 percent. We are finding out that their rates of unemployment are increasing faster than the unemployment figures in terms of men. Their savings are down. Women's savings are down. So they have a greater difficulty in dealing with the economic reversals we are facing at the present time. They have more home foreclosures because their savings have been down. So they are under an incredible squeeze. This chart is an example of how adult women are seeing a sharper rise in their unemployment rate. Their rate is going up 21 percent as compared to 15 percent for men. On earnings, women's earnings are falling faster than men's. So their earnings are going down faster. We are finding out that their unemployment is going up faster and their earnings are going down faster. If you take what happens to different women within the general group, look at women's net worth. Unmarried women have $13,000 less in net savings than unmarried men. Here it is, the difference, as shown on this chart. So in this time of recession and economic stress, these issues become much more acute. This is the right answer at any time, but it is particularly something that can be done now that can make a difference to these working women--something that can be done now: restore a right. That is what this is basically all about. As I mentioned, this is targeted on women, but the application is across the board. It affects other groups in our society. It affects African Americans and Hispanics, and they have been hard hit by the economic downturn. If pay is discriminatory against African Americans and Hispanics--and we saw the pie chart, which shows it is, with thousands of claims every single year--they are going to be denied the remedy. This legislation applies to women. It applies to minorities. It applies to people discriminated against because of their religion. It applies to the disabled. It applies to older workers. Otherwise, they are going to get shortchanged. They are facing the economic realities in a much harsher way now. We have an opportunity to do something about it. The House of Representatives has done something about it. Tomorrow we can do something about it. Show me something, anything, any piece of legislation that can have a better, more positive impact in terms of the income of working women than this vote tomorrow. That is what it is about. Finally, let me give you these figures to demonstrate what this meant to Lilly Ledbetter. This is a reflection of what was actually in the Court's decision. She was making $44,000 a year. She received $5,600 less than the lowest paid male coworker during her last year at Goodyear. The highest paid male coworker was getting $62,000. She had the qualifications and was doing the job the same as her colleague who got $62,000. The lowest paid male worker--whose skills were much less than Lilly Ledbetter's--was still getting paid more. You cannot get it any clearer than this chart about what the facts are. These are not facts I am making up. These are the facts accepted by the courts, not questioned by the Supreme Court. There it is. The most powerful is listening to Lilly Ledbetter herself. She has testified. Anyone who is interested ought to read her testimony, and can read through the hearings in our committee about this. She explains it in great detail: how she first heard about it, and how she was treated, and what the Supreme Court decided. She has taken a double whammy because not only has she suffered, and will not recover her wages. We have a 2-year limitation on back pay--you can only recover in terms of the 2 years. Her retirement was based upon what she earned and so that has also been lost during this period of time. That was lost, will be lost, continues to be lost. Imagine that. Imagine the unfairness of that. We are not addressing that. We are not dealing with that. We should be, but we are not. That is basically and fundamentally wrong. I mentioned earlier the CBO. The Congressional Budget Office agrees that the Fair Pay Restoration Act will not increase the litigation. The Fair Pay Restoration Act will not establish a new cause of action for claims in pay discrimination. CBO experts said the bill would not significantly affect the number of filings with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What they are basically saying is, what this will do is it will have the law enforced and people will pay attention to it. Many employers are, obviously, good employers, and are playing by the rules. But not all of them are. Those who are not playing by the rules should not be able to exploit people in the workplace on the basis of their gender, race, national origin, religion, disabilities or age. Finally, we have seen--and I have shown this chart previously of the various groups that support this legislation. These are only some of the groups. I have included a more complete list in the Record. We have the groups representing the disabilities community, the American Association of People with Disabilities; elderly people, the AARP feels very strongly about the discrimination against the elderly; the NAACP, for the obvious reasons, not only because of discrimination on the basis of race, but all the forms of discrimination they continue to fight and oppose. We have the auto workers, who see prejudice and discrimination and who are fighting for full rights and equality. We have the National Congress of Black Women and the Religious Action Center, because of the moral issues raised by this. And we have the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce. We will have an opportunity to address this and speak more about it. I cannot think of an issue where it is more an issue of fundamental fairness. Americans try to understand some of the complex issues about which we deal here. They are not always easy to understand and to catch and find their way through. Probably one of the great mysteries is the ERISA law, which was put in by our old friend Jacob Javits. An amusing aspect of that was when Jacob Javits passed on to his eternal reward, he took all the knowledge about ERISA with him. All of us find complexities in trying to deal with that. It has important implications in terms of health and the job market. This is simple. Everyone gets it. The American people understand it, because it is about fairness. If there is one issue Americans understand, it is fairness. They believe that when somebody works, they ought to be adequately paid. Americans don't believe one person ought to be paid a different rate for doing the same job as another person. They don't believe that because their skin is a different color, or because of gender, or because of disability, or because of sexual orientation they should be paid less. They don't believe it. If the person is qualified to do the job, and does the job, they ought to get equal pay. This Senate has gone on record time and time and time and time again over the last 40 years, by overwhelming votes, against pay discrimination. We have our chance tomorrow to restate that commitment. I hope the vote will be overwhelmingly in favor. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome the opportunity to address the Senate on a matter of fundamental fairness to millions of our fellow citizens: to women, working women in our society, and to do it at a time when we know those who are working are hard pressed in the economy. We are all familiar with the anxiety among working families-- working fathers and working mothers. Today I will address what underlies the efforts in which many of us are involved in what we call the Ledbetter case. It is legislation to override a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision named after Lilly Ledbetter, an extraordinary woman who had worked for a tire company for a number of years and had been discriminated against in her pay and had received judgments to make up for the damages she had experienced over a period of years. The Supreme Court then undermined the previous courts and effectively left her without any remedy at all, in effect saying unscrupulous employers could discriminate against an employee, and if they do not get caught within 100 days, they are free and clear and they can continue to discriminate against that individual. That is not only against women, which is the Ledbetter case, but it is also true if they had done the same with regard to African Americans or Latino Americans or if they discriminated against the disabled or if they discriminated on the basis of religion or national origin--all of those cases with a simple 5-to-4 decision, the rights of those workers, people who are working, working hard, are virtually out the window. I wish to take a few minutes to review what this Senate has done with regard to what we will call the equal pay issue over a period of time. It is an extraordinary record. It is a record of progress and fairness. It will be amazing to me when my friends and colleagues on the other side rise to oppose this simple act of fairness and equity this situation demands. For over 40 years, this Senate has gone on record time and again saying that we will not discriminate against our fellow citizens on the basis of pay. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has reached a different conclusion, and we will have the opportunity on Wednesday to change that conclusion and restore the record of the Senate to what it has been over the last 40 years. This chart shows the different laws that have been passed in Congress to establish equal pay for equal work. The Equal Pay Act under President Kennedy was done by a voice vote. It was pointed out at that time that women were getting 60 cents on the dollar. That was wrong. We ought to strive for equal pay for equal work. That legislation was passed at that time. We thought we had made progress on that legislative effort, but we had not made as much progress as we thought. So in 1964, the great Civil Rights Act, known because of the public accommodations provisions, included in title VII a provision that provided equal pay, nondiscrimination on the basis of race, religion, and national origin, signed by President Johnson. It passed 73 to 27. Then we had the Age Discrimination in Employment Act because there were many forms of discrimination in our country on the basis of people's age. We wanted to free ourselves of discriminating against the elderly in our country, those who contributed so much to our Nation, so we passed the Age Discrimination Act. There was much support for that effort. It was passed under the Johnson administration by voice vote. We had the Rehabilitation Act that dealt with the disabled. Make no mistake about it, under the current Supreme Court holding, if you have a disabled person who is able to perform a job as well as somebody who does not have that disability, if the employer discriminates against that individual, that individual will be covered by the existing Supreme Court decision, and we may very well see those individuals discriminated against because they are disabled, even though they are able to perform the work, and they are being denied a remedy. We debated those issues back with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and said we were not going to permit that. Then the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988 under President Reagan and the Americans with Disabilities Act restated those goals. Look at the votes: 92 to 6 and 93 to 5. All of this legislation, from early 1963 all the way to 1991, provided the kinds of protections that we are including in this legislation that will be before the Senate on Wednesday, called the Ledbetter legislation, named after Lilly Ledbetter who was discriminated against. Mr. President, I mentioned those pieces of legislation. Look at this chart. Pay discrimination hurts all kinds of American workers. In 2007, EEOC received more than 7,000 pay discrimination charges: on the basis of disability, 480 cases; on the basis of national origin, 760; on the basis of age discrimination, 978; on the basis of race, 2,352; and on the basis of gender, some 2,470. These were individuals who were working hard but finally found out they were being discriminated against--7,000 cases. So we can ask: What had been the law previously when we had those kinds of situations? This chart reflects what the law was. The paycheck accrual rule was the law of the land. That meant if people discriminated against those individuals and the individuals found out about it and brought a case, they were able to gain damages or they were able to get remedies by the EEOC. This was under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. That has been the law of the land, with the exception of three States. That was the law of the land. That is what we want to return to, and we will have the opportunity to return to it. Some will say if we return to it, it will mean a lot of burdensome bureaucracy and expenditures on the employers. Look what CBO says. CBO agrees that ``the Fair Pay Restoration Act would not establish a new cause of action for claims of pay discrimination. . . . CBO expects that the bill would not significantly affect the number of filings with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.'' So this argument that it is going to make it much more cumbersome and much more troublesome and much more expensive is not true. What it will do is provide protections. What are we basically talking about with Lilly Ledbetter? She was a hard-working woman. Here is what Lilly Ledbetter received: $5,000 less than the lowest paid male coworker during her last year at Goodyear. That was $44,000. The lowest paid male was $51,000, and the highest paid male, who did virtually the same job, was paid $62,000. This is a year. She was doing exactly the same as this paid worker; the only difference was she was a woman. What did the courts say, even though she was awarded the damages? You didn't bring the case in the first 180 days. You didn't bring the case and, therefore, you don't have the case at all. How was Lilly Ledbetter supposed to know she had a case? The payroll was kept secret from all the workers. How was she supposed to know? How in the world was she supposed to know? She couldn't know; she didn't know. It took her years to find out that she was the subject of this kind of discrimination, and the Supreme Court says: We don't care; we don't mind if the employers are going to keep that payroll all locked up and keep it secret. Lilly Ledbetter should have known what was in that secret safe of that employer. Come on. Come on. That is a system of justice in the United States of America? They were able to get five votes for that theory over in the Supreme Court of the United States? It defies common sense, of reasonableness and equity for people in this country, and that is what we are striving for. This is all against an extraordinary background of what is happening to working women at the present time. Look at what is happening to working women now. For women who are employed now, their earnings are falling faster. Women who are working now are experiencing unemployment two or three times faster than men in our economy. Their earnings are going down faster than men in our economy. Incidents of foreclosure for women are a good deal higher than men in our economy, and they are, at the present time, still only earning, for the same job, 77 cents out of every dollar. So they are already facing an uphill battle in our economy, the difficult economy we are facing at the present time, and this Supreme Court decision is just going to make it all that more complicated and more difficult. This issue, as I said, is one of fundamental fairness. We have an extraordinary group supporting us in terms of the disability groups--the American Association of People with Disabilities; the elderly groups--the AARP, they know they can experience the same kinds of discrimination; Business and Professional Women; the NAACP--because of what this can mean in discriminating against minorities, Blacks; the auto workers, because we can see the discrimination that could be against other workers; the National Congress of Black Women; the Religious Action Center--there was an excellent letter they sent pointing out the moral issues raised about this; and then the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce--understanding this is plainly simply wrong. It is wrong in our society. It was wrong at any other time. This is an issue that cries out for a remedy. It should not take the Ledbetter legislation--which passed overwhelmingly. It passed with Republican support in the House of Representatives and strong Democratic support. We have a number of our Republican friends and colleagues who are a part of this effort. This is a very simple and fundamental issue: Are we going to permit discrimination against women in the workplace to continue? That is what it is. We have to understand, as a practical matter, employers are going to keep the payroll confidential and secret. They do that. They have done it and will do it in the future. What the Supreme Court says is that is too bad, too bad you don't know, but if you do not do it within 180 days you will lose your rights. They can effectively discriminate against you for the rest of your life if you are working in that company. They can go ahead, completely freely, without any threat of any kind of lawsuit, go ahead and discriminate for the rest of your life, if you are working there. Tell me what the common sense of that proposal is. Where is the justice on that issue? Where is it? We have addressed that issue and similar issues over a long period of time under a variety of Presidents, under Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents--President Nixon, President Reagan, the two Presidents Bush. Look at the vote on these, 91 to 6, and 93 to 5, with virtually similar issues that are presented here. We should not have to spend the time other than having a rollcall on this issue, it is so compelling. We await eagerly those who support the current Supreme Court decision. We await them out here on the floor of the Senate. We awaited them last week to come out and tell us what their rationale is, what their excuse is, what their reasons are for denying fairness and equity in the workplace to millions of our fellow citizens who happen to be women. What is their right? What is their purpose? What is their justification--whether those individuals are disabled, whether they are elderly, whether they are being discriminated against on the basis of religion--we are going to continue to permit that here in the United States when we have the opportunity to overturn it? That is what is going to be before the Senate on Wednesday. It is simple; it is fundamental; it is basic. It is a defining issue of fairness in this country and we will have more to say about this tomorrow and on Wednesday as well. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Reid, I ask unanimous consent that Robert Bruce, a Marine Corps fellow in his office, be granted the privilege of the floor during consideration of S. 1315.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 10:30 a.m., in room 562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing on the National Indian Gaming Commission.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 2 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Focus on Fusion Centers: A Progress Report.''

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 17, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water and Power be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 2 p.m., in room SD366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 10 a.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 3 p.m. to hold a working coffee meeting with His Excellency Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Foreign Minister of the Arab Republic of Egypt.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Senate must act to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and we must do so now. The House has already acted on this bill to restore the basic protection against pay discrimination as part of our Nation's commitment to equal justice and full civil rights for all. Protecting these fundamental rights and ending discrimination in all forms are essential to our success as a nation. Republicans and Democrats worked together to enact our civil rights laws, and the American people want and deserve these protections to be implemented in full. The guarantee of equal pay was first enacted in 1963. When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, he emphasized that protection against pay discrimination is ``basic to democracy,'' and those words are still true today. In the years that followed, Congress passed other strong, bipartisan laws to strengthen the guarantee of equal pay for millions of Americans. Over the years, the Senate has gone on record time and again in favor of fairness and against discrimination. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted after long, difficult, and contentious debate, but the cause of justice eventually prevailed. That landmark legislation included many important protections, including, for the first time, protection against pay discrimination on the job because of race, national origin, gender, and religion. That is title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Public accommodations is another very major part of that legislation. But title VII provided these kinds of protections against discrimination. That legislation passed 73 to 27. We went on record again when the Age Discrimination in Employment Act was passed in 1967, with unanimous support in the Senate. Equal pay for those who are older; you are not going to be able to discriminate against the elderly. It was passed unanimously. The consensus in favor of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which outlaws discrimination based on disability in federally funded programs and activities, was so strong it passed the Senate by a voice vote. All of us are familiar with the fact that if there is going to be a dispute or major differences, people are going to call for a rollcall vote, even if there is going to be only a handful of people against it. In this situation, with regard to fair pay, equal pay, in the areas of those people who are working with the disabled, the guarantee was going to be fair pay. It, effectively, in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, passed the Senate by a voice vote. In 1990, the Senate passed the Americans with Disabilities Act 91 to 6, and it was signed into law by the first President Bush. The first President Bush has stated--and I have heard him eloquently say it was the most important piece of legislation that passed and he signed into law. It had protections against discriminating against those who are disabled individuals. We passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991 by an overwhelming margin of 93 to 5. That was a clear vote in favor of fairness. It too was signed into law by the current President's father. On this chart is the list where the Senate has addressed this issue of equal pay for equal work. Going back to 1963, these are the different Presidents who signed legislation--including President Johnson, President Nixon, President Reagan, President Bush. Look at the overwhelming votes: a clear indication of what the intention has been by this Congress in terms of fairness and justice, and correctly so. Each time we have considered the issue, the Senate has taken the high road. Once again, we must demonstrate that we mean what we say. These important laws established the bedrock principle of equal pay for equal work, and they have made our Nation a stronger and better and fairer land. In these times of economic hardship, working people deserve more than ever the chance to earn a fair day's pay for an honest day's work. Yet, as a result of the Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision--5 to 4: one vote-- last May in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, more American workers will have to endure pay discrimination, without the means to stop it. Let me show what is happening with regard to women at the present time. We have serious economic challenges we are facing today. But look at the overall economic challenges, the downturn in our economy, and how it is playing out in terms of women. Women's earnings are falling faster than men's. We all hear about the falling of purchasing power among working families across this country. We can see it is falling a good deal faster in terms of the decline in median wages in the year 2007 for women. As I mentioned, this legislation also applies in terms of African Americans, the disability community, age discrimination, national origin quotas--all of them. Look what is happening with the current economic crisis. Minorities are hit hardest by the economic downturn. So we have the economic downturn going on, and we have this decision which said the employers are going to be able to discriminate against workers on the basis of race, gender, national origin. It is unbelievable that a Supreme Court of the United States, 5 to 4, would overturn 5 to 6 major pieces of legislation that were decided overwhelmingly by this body over a 30-year period which say we want equal pay for equal work. The list goes on. We know, basically, women make 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. That is existing. These are the current data of the U.S. census in 2007. So this is the current situation, generally. What we are trying to do is change this; to get equal pay for equal work. But inherently, this is where we are in 2007, and unless we change this, it is going to continue or probably even grow worse. It is reflected, as we would expect, in family income. This chart shows we are talking about equal pay for women, and this legislation also applies to African Americans and national origin. Here we have African-American men receiving 21 percent less pay than White men. We find the same for Latinos. They are affected by this decision as well. Latinos receive 72 cents for every dollar earned by White workers. This shows the distinction, the annual distinction, about $8,000 a year. This has been true. So we know we are facing a difficult economic time. We also know the people who suffer the most are the people--whether it is women, whether it is African Americans, whether it is Latino, whether it is disability or whether it is elderly, all those groups are affected by the Ledbetter decision, and in the face of 30 years of this Congress saying time and time and time again, in a bipartisan way, we are going to insist on equality of pay for equal work. That is the issue. That had been the law. This legislation we are talking about with Ledbetter, we are trying to go back to what the law was. This chart indicates--the light green is what we would go back to, and the dark green is where the EEOC held the same as we are proposing in this legislation. This had worked and worked effectively. That is why the CBO said this isn't any further additional burden on industry or business. We are going to hear that argument. We have the CBO study which says that, because basically most employers want to do the right thing. They understand it, they respect it, and they want to do the right thing. So they are not going to be penalized; it will be others who will be penalized. On this final point, as I mentioned the different groups affected, this shows pay discrimination hurts all kinds of Americans. This orange depicts the disabled, this is national origin, 760. These are cases of pay discrimination charges, including 2,470 in terms of the gender; and on race, 2,352; on age discrimination, 978. So this is 7,000--these are the cases that are brought. Most estimates are it is in the hundreds of thousands of actual cases that are out there that people don't know about. Lilly Ledbetter didn't know about the fact that she was being shortchanged for years and years and years because people keep the payroll secret. Finally, she hears from others who are working and who are doing comparable work, and she gradually puts it together that she has been shortchanged. Sure enough, she had been shortchanged for years and years and years. The local jury made the decision to pay the damages and the Supreme Court overruled it and said: You are out of luck, Lilly Ledbetter. You should have brought your case within 180 days of the time you were employed. Even though you didn't know about it, you still should have brought it. Even if you didn't know about it, tough luck. You have no remedies. No remedies. No remedies. It has been going on for years. None. That is fundamentally and basically wrong, and that is what we are changing. We have very strong support for this legislation. We have the support of various groups, including the American Association of People With Disabilities; the AARP, obviously, because of discrimination of the elderly; Business and Professional Women, the NAACP, United Auto Workers, National Congress of Black Women, the Religious Action Center, U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce. They understand it and see it. The list goes on. I will include a more complete list with my remarks for the Record. Many people give speeches on fairness and the need to help people in these tough economic times. An important way we can do so is by proving we still stand strongly against pay discrimination, that we would not allow the rights workers thought they had to be undone by misguided court decisions. Fair treatment for all employees is especially important now. As I mentioned, our faltering economy is hitting working families hard. There were 230,000 jobs lost in the first 3 months of this year. Unemployment rates climbed. Over 1 million working men and women have joined the unemployed since this past year. Few doubt that we are now in a serious recession. It has been particularly hard on women and minorities and on workers--particularly hard. Of the 80,000 jobs that were lost in this last month, 50,000 were construction workers. The unemployment rate among women has risen sharply in the past year. Minorities are suffering more. Unemployment for African Americans is now well over 9 percent, almost twice the national average. The impact of unfair pay practices is staggering. Today, as I mentioned, women still earn 23 percent less than men; African Americans, 21 percent less than White men; and Latinos earn 72 cents for every dollar paid to White workers. In fact, the financial security of all working men and women is undermined by this recession. Workers are suffering already, and millions increasingly find their paychecks do not go far enough. They don't deserve to bear the additional burden of discrimination in their pay. The cost of this discrimination becomes more and more intolerable over time. Lilly Ledbetter lost tens of thousands of dollars over the course of her career because every paycheck made the burden of the discrimination even greater. There is no doubt that the Supreme Court's decision in the Ledbetter case has left employees without one of the fundamental protections against pay discrimination that Congress intended them to have. The Court decision undermined their ability to hold employers accountable for such discrimination by imposing serious and unnecessary obstacles to ending the discrimination against them. Under the Ledbetter case, the time limit for filing of pay discrimination claim begins to run, as I mentioned, when an employer decides to discriminate--not when the worker finds out about the discriminatory paycheck. Employers who conceal their illegal action for 180 days are free to discriminate. They can pay women less than men. They can pay African Americans less than Whites. They can pay older Americans less than younger ones and pay religious minorities and persons with disabilities less than other workers. These employees can never, ever obtain relief. Paycheck after paycheck can keep implementing the discrimination, and workers have no way to hold employers accountable. Clearly, the decision has opened up a flagrant loophole in our civil rights, and the Congress cannot let it stand. Under this bill, the 180- day clock restarts with every discriminatory paycheck, so employees can challenge ongoing discrimination, even if their employer successfully hides its true motives at first. Lilly Ledbetter was one of the few women supervisors at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Gadsen, AL. She worked at the plant for almost two decades, constantly fighting to prove that women could do a job traditionally done by men. She endured insults from her male supervisors. She was told the plant didn't need women. Yet she persevered and gave the company a fair day's work. She had children and both she and her husband were working hard to support them. She had no idea Goodyear was not living up to its responsibility to pay her fairly. For almost two decades, the company discriminated against her by using discriminatory evaluations to pay her less than her male colleagues who performed exactly the same duties. Many of those male colleagues had less seniority and experience than she had, but they were still paid more than she was for identical work. The jury saw the injustice of Goodyear's mistreatment of Ms. Ledbetter and awarded her full damages. Five members of the Supreme Court ignored that injustice and ruled Ms. Ledbetter was entitled to nothing at all--nothing at all--because she filed her claim too late. The Court's decision gives countless employers a free hand to conceal and continue illegal discrimination and leaves workers powerless to stop it. The bipartisan Fair Pay Restoration Act will restore the clear intent of Congress when we passed the important laws I mentioned earlier. It would restore the fair and reasonable rule that applied in the vast majority of the country until May 29 of last year. If we pass this bill, we can go back to the longstanding rule that the clock begins to run for filing a pay discrimination claim on the day a worker receives a discriminatory paycheck, rather than the day the employer first decides to discriminate. By enacting this law, we will restore a rule that reflects how pay discrimination actually occurs in the workplace, and it will give all workers a fair means to stop ongoing discrimination and obtain fair compensation for the discrimination they have endured. By doing so, we will also be helping to prevent employers from engaging in such discrimination in the first place. There is nothing radical about the changes this bill will make. It simply restores the law employers and workers had lived with for many years, until last May 29, the date of the Supreme Court's distressing decision. I urge my colleagues to join me in restoring the full strength of the antipay discrimination laws we have enacted in the past. Let's take a clear stand for all working men and women and pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this list of supporters be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today I strongly support Senator Salazar's resolution designating this week, the third week in April, as the ``Week of the Young Child.'' I hope the resolution represents a new commitment by all of us in Congress to strengthen the services young children need to become full and productive members of our society in the years ahead. Last year's reauthorization of the Head Start Act was a significant step in the right direction to assure access to quality early childhood education. The act expanded coverage to families just above the poverty line and provided additional flexibility to assist more poor families as they make the transition to work and struggle to keep up with the rising cost of living in today's new economy. We also renewed our commitment to underserved populations, such as Native Americans and migrant and seasonal farm worker families, and worked to ensure that every teacher in every Head Start classroom is highly qualified. In addition, the reauthorization established an Early Childhood Education Advisory Council to assess the needs children in of early childhood programs and develop a comprehensive plan for improving the quality of services provided. That effort will improve professional development, upgrade standards, enhance connections among programs, and improve data collection. States ready to take on the challenge of implementing these needed improvements qualify for inventive grants to get that work underway. Together these reforms strengthen our commitment to provide both quality childcare, and quality early learning opportunities for the Nation's youth. But there is still much more to be done. The research is clear--high quality early education makes a profound difference in the lives of children, especially at-risk children. In fact, many experts believe that 85 percent of a child's intellect is established before a child reaches the age of five. Unless we begin to educate at-risk children before they reach kindergarten, we may lose them forever. Students who start school behind tend to stay behind, and early childhood education makes all the difference. Those who have access to high quality early childhood education are 30 percent more likely to graduate from high school, twice as likely to go on to college, and are 40 percent less likely to need expensive special education programs or be held back a grade. But the positive benefits extend beyond the classroom. Early childhood education helps to break the devastating cycle of crime and poverty. Nobel Laureate James Heckman's study of at-risk boys who receive quality early education shows that less than 10 percent of the boys who participated would be convicted of a crime and less than 2 percent would end up on welfare--rates significantly lower than those who did not receive such education. Quality early education programs are supportive of young children in ways that enable them to become productive members of society. By cultivating educated, law abiding members of society we help to guarantee our national competitiveness, the stability of our economy and the fabric of our communities for the years ahead. Early childhood education creates better students, better workers and better citizens. We must invest in such education for sake of our students and our national well being. We know the best way to ensure that our students receive quality early education is by giving them a highly qualified teacher. Yet, early childhood educators continue to be overworked and undervalued in our society. Prekindergarten teachers get paid on average less than half what an elementary school teacher gets paid. The Bureau of Labor statistics estimates that the average salary of a pre- school teacher is $21,730--closer to the salaries of school bus drivers, at $22,890, than any other group of educators, all with median salaries over $44,000. Inadequate wages make it nearly impossible to recruit and retain qualified early childhood educators. The number of childcare providers with bachelor's degrees declines year after year, and neither their wages nor the high rates of turnover are acceptable. We must make it a national priority to guarantee that early childhood educators are paid and supported in a manner that reflects their valuable contributions to our Nation's future. We have come a long way in assuring that our Nation's young children have access to the supports and services they need, but our mission is far from complete. This is no time for complaining. We must continue to expand our support for our nation's youngest children, for they truly are America's future. Let's use this ``Week of the Young Child'' to emphasize that vital point for communities across our great country.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today marks the 125th anniversary of The National Crittenton Foundation, the nationwide organization that supports empowerment, self-sufficiency, and an end to cycles of destructive behavior and relationships by at-risk girls and young women. The organization began as the National Florence Crittenton Mission, founded in 1883 by 19th century philanthropist Charles Crittenton of New York City a year after his daughter Florence died at the age of 5. His goal was to assist girls and young women in trouble, and in the years that followed, Florence Crittenton Homes became famous in communities across the United States and in foreign countries as well. One of the leading members of the Foundation today is the Crittenton Women's Union in Boston, which began as a Florence Crittenton Home in the city in 1896. It was launched by a pioneering group of women activists who wanted it to be a ``big sister'' to ``unfortunate New England girls'' young unmarried mothers in need of shelter and moral guidance. In the years that followed these two organizations joined forces and combined with other organizations to create the Crittenton Women's Union, which today empowers low-income women in our city by providing safe housing, caring support services, education, and workforce development programs. In addition to using its on-the-ground experience to shape public policy and achieve social change, Crittenton Women's Union is also Massachusetts' largest provider of transitional housing for homeless mothers and their children and the founder of New England's first transitional home for victims of domestic violence. The organization continues its innovative approach to today's compelling social problems through its focus on workforce development and post-secondary school training to enable women to become economically self-sufficient. Its services are further strengthened by its unique partnership with the National Crittenton Foundation, which gathers valuable insights from its nationwide network of frontline agencies and provides a forum to share best practices and shape national policies to benefit all young women and girls at risk. Today, 125 years after Charles Crittenton began his historic work as a an agent for positive change for young women and girls, Crittenton Women's Union and the National Crittenton foundation remain true to his vision. I welcome this opportunity to commend the Foundation and its extraordinary members on this special anniversary for their continuing vision and commitment to their goals in Massachusetts and throughout the Nation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is important for Congress to do more to guarantee graduate students the right to organize and to bargain over their wages and working conditions as teaching and research assistants, so I am introducing legislation today to do so. More than ever in modern education, teaching and research assistants are in classrooms every day, educating students in colleges and universities across the country. Their numbers are increasing as the number of full time faculty dwindles. Often, teaching and research assistants are now doing the same job as junior faculty members. In fact, the classroom is a workplace for these scholars. It's where they earn the money they need to pay to put food on their tables and a roof over their heads. They deserve the right to stand together and make their voice heard in their workplace. Like other employees, they should have the right to join a union and improve their working conditions. Obviously, better wages and working conditions for them also means better education for their students. In 2004, however, a decision by the National Labor Relations Board changed the law and denied fundamental workplace rights and protections for teaching and research assistants. This ruling stopped an active organizing movement in its tracks and deprived thousands of teaching and research assistants of their right to organize and bargain over their wages and working conditions. It is hardly the only bad decision by the National Labor Relations Board under the Bush administration, which has been the most anti- worker, anti-labor, anti-union NLRB in history. The Board has let workers down at every turn. It has blocked efforts to gain union representation, undermined workers' attempts to improve their pay and benefits, and exposed them to penalties for seeking to improve their working conditions. The National Labor Relations Board is supposed to protect the rights of American workers, but it is failing teaching and research assistants, just as it has failed so many others. By passing the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act, Congress will give these workers back the rights that the National Labor Relations Board has taken away. This legislation amends the definition of employee under the National Labor Relations Act to explicitly include teaching and research assistants at private universities and colleges and restores the law to where it was before the Bush board's anti-worker decision. This bill is a significant step forward in restoring workers' rights, and I urge my colleagues to join in supporting this important legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is important for Congress to do more to guarantee graduate students the right to organize and to bargain over their wages and working conditions as teaching and research assistants, so I am introducing legislation today to do so. More than ever in modern education, teaching and research assistants are in classrooms every day, educating students in colleges and universities across the country. Their numbers are increasing as the number of full time faculty dwindles. Often, teaching and research assistants are now doing the same job as junior faculty members. In fact, the classroom is a workplace for these scholars. It's where they earn the money they need to pay to put food on their tables and a roof over their heads. They deserve the right to stand together and make their voice heard in their workplace. Like other employees, they should have the right to join a union and improve their working conditions. Obviously, better wages and working conditions for them also means better education for their students. In 2004, however, a decision by the National Labor Relations Board changed the law and denied fundamental workplace rights and protections for teaching and research assistants. This ruling stopped an active organizing movement in its tracks and deprived thousands of teaching and research assistants of their right to organize and bargain over their wages and working conditions. It is hardly the only bad decision by the National Labor Relations Board under the Bush administration, which has been the most anti- worker, anti-labor, anti-union NLRB in history. The Board has let workers down at every turn. It has blocked efforts to gain union representation, undermined workers' attempts to improve their pay and benefits, and exposed them to penalties for seeking to improve their working conditions. The National Labor Relations Board is supposed to protect the rights of American workers, but it is failing teaching and research assistants, just as it has failed so many others. By passing the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act, Congress will give these workers back the rights that the National Labor Relations Board has taken away. This legislation amends the definition of employee under the National Labor Relations Act to explicitly include teaching and research assistants at private universities and colleges and restores the law to where it was before the Bush board's anti-worker decision. This bill is a significant step forward in restoring workers' rights, and I urge my colleagues to join in supporting this important legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.