OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 5084

Floor Speech

Date: July 1, 2020
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Business and Consumers Employment and Affirmative Action

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, thank you to my colleague from New Jersey for yielding me some time.

I sit on the Banking Committee with Senator Menendez, and it is my privilege. I have learned a lot from listening to him, along with our chairman, Senator Crapo.

While convictions are important to us on the Banking Committee, so is data. I believe that as much as we can be, America is and should be a colorblind meritocracy. I believe in that.

I also believe in data. I believe in facts. This is a data bill. This is a fact bill. This doesn't make anybody do anything except be transparent.

This bill applies to public companies. Some may call them Wall Street companies, but they are spread throughout America. I make that point simply to reaffirm that this does not apply to small, publicly held companies we sometimes call Main Street businesses.

This bill is endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This fact and data bill passed overwhelmingly in the House with a bipartisan coalition, and as Senator Menendez eloquently pointed out, it simply requires public--usually large, but not always--publicly held corporations to report data with respect to their Board of Directors, nominees to the Board of Directors, and their executive officers.

The data that these companies are being asked to report is data with respect to gender, data with respect to veteran status, data with respect to ethnicity, and data with respect to race to the extent that the board members, nominees, and the executive officers themselves report that data.

Frankly, and I will end on this note, I was very surprised that we didn't have this data. In fact, when I first read Congressman Meeks' bill and Senator Menendez's bill, I thought: This can't be necessary; we must have this data at the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not, but we will if this bill becomes law. For that reason, I rise in support of Congressman Meeks' legislation and Senator Menendez's legislation, and I support it.

With that, I would yield to Senator Menendez.

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