Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, this week, families across our country are preparing to celebrate Mother's Day and recognize the hard work that women do to support their families and build a brighter future in their communities.

Here in Congress, we should be working to help moms back in Washington State and across the country. Unfortunately, instead of looking for ways to support women, President Trump has been pushing an ideological agenda that undermines their health, reproductive rights and freedoms, and economic security.

When it comes to healthcare, President Trump is working to sabotage the care moms and their families rely on. He changed Federal rules to let insurance companies sell junk coverage that does not cover maternity care, and he is arguing in court to strike down protections for women and people with preexisting conditions in all plans insurers sell.

Instead of supporting the Title X Family Planning Program, which has a history of bipartisan support and a tremendous track record helping women get critical, low-cost family planning and preventive healthcare services, President Trump is chipping away at it and working to strip title X grants from Planned Parenthood, which serves tens of thousands of women in my home State of Washington each year and millions more nationwide, including mothers like Shannon.

Shannon first went to Planned Parenthood when she was 18 for what turned out to be endometriosis. It is a condition that causes severe menstrual pain and can affect fertility. Thanks to the treatment she received at Planned Parenthood, today Shannon is managing her chronic pain and raising an adorable little girl.

When I was in Seattle a few weeks ago, another constituent, Cindy, shared how a routine screening at Planned Parenthood saved her life by detecting cancer early on and giving her the head start she needed to beat it. Today Cindy is not just a survivor; she is a mother because she was able to get pregnant after she went into remission.

We should be supporting providers that help women like them get the care they need, not burdening them with restrictions designed to force out Planned Parenthood or gag clauses that prevent providers from even discussing a patient's right to a safe, legal abortion. Moms deserve better.

Unfortunately President Trump's attacks on women's reproductive rights go well beyond his changes to the title X program. Since day one, he has been working to jam our courts full of far-right judges to appease extreme Republicans who want to see Roe v. Wade struck down. When President Trump nominated Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, we heard from women and men across the country, concerned about what his confirmation would mean. Countless women shared their personal stories about what life was like before Roe v. Wade and what the right to get a safe, legal abortion has meant to their families.

So while Republicans continue to press ahead with extreme, harmful legislation--like the bill that was just passed in Georgia--and President Trump continues to tell outright lies meant to demonize women and their healthcare providers, people are going to continue calling out those lies, calling out the attempts to turn back the clock, and standing in solidarity with women across the country.

President Trump's harmful attacks on women's healthcare are hardly the only time he has ignored how his policies would hurt women and their families. He has also cruelly and unnecessarily separated hundreds of migrant parents and their children. Yolany is a mother who is being detained in Tacoma, WA, while her 6-year-old son has been sent all the way across the country to New York. According to media reports, they were kept apart for almost 2 months before they were reunited. Their story is just one of so many pointless tragedies President Trump's heartless family separation policy has caused.

Moms deserve better, especially when there are so many other challenges on which they need us to lead. There is the maternal mortality crisis and the appalling fact that our country has the highest maternal death rate in the developed world. We know this crisis is worse for women of color--for African-American women in particular, who face an even higher maternal death rate. Because of a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we also know that three out of five pregnancy-related deaths in our country are preventable.

We should be working together to take action to stop so many mothers from dying in childbirth and building on the $50 million Maternal Mortality Initiative that I fought to enact in this year's funding bill to expand evidence-based programs to prevent maternal mortality and advance maternal health equity.

There is the childcare crisis and the reality that for far too many parents, quality, affordable childcare is not available. One mother in Washington State told me how she struck out with more than 10 childcare centers before she finally found one that could care for her son, and when she did find it, it cost her more than her mortgage. We should be working to make sure all parents can go to work and know their children will be well cared for.

We should also be fighting for paid family leave so that people will have the time they need to welcome new members to their families and start building those bonds that will last a lifetime and so that no parent will have to choose between a paycheck and caring for a sick child.

At a time when there is so much we could be doing to make life better for mothers and fathers and families across the country, it is disappointing that President Trump has spent so much time looking for ways to make things worse.

While the Trump administration may not be fighting for families, moms are. Just last week, I attended a rally here in Washington, DC, and met a mom who came all the way across the country, from Washington State, to speak up for families like hers. I know what it is like to be in her shoes--or tennis shoes, I should say. I also know that when people like her speak up and fight for change, they do make a difference, which is why I am so inspired by the moms whose stories I have shared today and by the many others who shared their stories with me back in my home State of Washington.

I wish all the moms out there a happy Mother's Day. I know you are going to keep fighting for your families, and I want you to know we are going to keep fighting for you.

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to oppose the nomination of Janet Dhillon to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I have a number of concerns about her record, which I plan to lay out here today, but before I do, I want to talk about the process by which this nomination has come to the Senate floor.

It has long been common practice in the Senate to confirm nominees to independent agencies as pairs--one Republican and one Democrat.

We do this so agencies like the EEOC are balanced and are able to fully function no matter which party is in the White House. In the case of the EEOC, it ensures workers are being protected from discrimination in the workplace.

Yet, at every opportunity, Republicans have broken norms and abandoned longstanding practices to jam through their nominees. First it was the National Labor Relations Board, when my colleagues across the aisle jammed through two Republican nominees without any Democrats and then refused to give a highly qualified nominee another term on the Board--all because that highly qualified nominee was fighting on the side of workers, not corporations. Then one lone Republican was allowed to object to the reconfirmation of a well-respected Commissioner to another term on the EEOC, even if that meant the EEOC would no longer have a quorum and be able to perform some of its most critical duties.

I came down to the floor to urge our colleagues to end the partisan obstruction and pass a slate of nominees to the EEOC, but Republican leaders allowed one Republican Member's opposition to a noncontroversial nominee to hold more weight than the entire Senate minority.

Now, here we are today, and Republicans want to jam through another nominee without their Democratic pair, and by doing this, my colleagues across the aisle have now abandoned longstanding norms of the Senate and are once again sending a message to the most vulnerable workers they believe the corporations that discriminate against them deserve more of a say.

This is unacceptable and goes against the core of the EEOC. It is illegal to discriminate against someone in the workplace because of their race, religion, sex, disability, or because they are LGBTQ. It is the EEOC's responsibility to enforce those laws and to give every person the opportunity to earn a living without fear of discrimination or harassment.

The EEOC protects LGBTQ rights in the workplace and is the primary agency addressing the gender pay gap. The EEOC is responsible for addressing harassment in the workplace, an issue our country has been grappling with but still has a long way to go. Over the past 2 years, as so many brave women and men have spoken out and shared their stories, we have seen a shift in this country toward acknowledging, finally, the epidemic of harassment and assault in workplaces, and finally we are beginning to address it on a large scale. In Hollywood, the media, even in the Halls of Congress--those who have used their position of power to prey on the less powerful are finally being held accountable.

Workers in industries outside the spotlight, in hospitality or farm fields, and in offices around the country are waiting for the same kind of reckoning. For many of these workers, the EEOC is one of the few places they can turn. It is a resource for workers who want to file complaints and hold employers and businesses accountable for discrimination and harassment. This issue should matter to everyone-- Democrats and Republicans--and this critical civil rights agency should be able to stay out of the political fray too. We have to ensure that the EEOC is balanced and remains committed to its core mission.

Unfortunately, Janet Dhillon's record proves she is not going to stand up for workers. Ms. Dhillon has spent her career working on the side of corporations, making it easier for them to violate workers' rights without consequence. She has fought against positions the EEOC has taken that help ensure workers have the protections they need.

In her confirmation hearing, she refused to commit to maintaining the EEOC's current and critical position that LGBTQ workers are protected under the Civil Rights Act, which is something, by the way, that should not be up for debate.

So what we are seeing today is another power grab by Republican leaders, another Republican step toward partisanship and away from balance, and if Ms. Dhillon is confirmed, another step backward under Republican leadership for workers who simply want to be treated fairly on the job, especially those workers who historically have not had the rights or resources to come forward.

I urge the Senate leadership to postpone this vote and work with the White House to get our Democratic nominee ready for confirmation--she is waiting--so there is no other break in yet another Senate tradition. It is bad for workers. It is bad for our country.

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