Climate Change

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I rise to speak about three critical matters impacting families in Washington State and across this country today.

First of all, I would like to say that even though the wildfires in my State are being contained, thanks to the skilled work of brave and dedicated firefighters, wildfires and health impacts of smoke are still creating hazardous conditions throughout the Pacific Northwest. Until we begin addressing the drivers of those natural disasters, like climate change, we know these crises and the suffering they bring will only continue getting worse. Judicial Nominations

Secondly, I want to talk about three nominees under consideration for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or the EEOC.

One of these nominees is Jocelyn Samuels. She is exactly who workers need right now. As the coronavirus continues to impact workplaces across the country, workers are facing unprecedented challenges, and they need a champion at the EEOC who will work tirelessly to defend their rights. Jocelyn Samuels is that champion.

With almost 20 years of experience in the Federal Government, including at the EEOC itself, she has spent her career working to address discrimination and making sure no one is treated unfairly because of their age, their race, or their disability.

I am confident she will be an excellent Commissioner. I am proud to vote to confirm her nomination and strongly urge my Senate colleagues to join me in supporting her nomination.

Unfortunately, the other two nominees already approved by the Senate--Andrea Lucas and Keith Sonderling--will likely have disastrous consequences for workers' rights. These are two people who have spent their careers working to protect corporations, not workers.

As a lawyer, Andrea Lucas has never defended workers. Her only legal experience is defending corporations when workers tried to fight back against sexual harassment or age discrimination and disability discrimination. That is exactly the opposite type of experience and values we need at the EEOC, which is why I voted against her nomination.

Keith Sonderling's record is no better. During his time at the Trump administration's Department of Labor, Keith Sonderling worked to churn out policies that hurt workers.

From his joint employer rule that lets massive corporations off the hook for minimum wage, overtime, and equal pay violations to his initiative that gives companies a ``get out of jail free'' card for wage theft, Keith Sonderling's legacy at the DOL has made it harder for workers to fight for their rights and easier for companies to abuse them. For those reasons, I opposed his nomination.

Finally, right now, our Nation is facing truly trying times. Two hundred thousand lives have been lost to COVID, millions are unemployed, and we just lost a treasured American hero, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

So much hangs in the balance now, and people are already voting and organizing to make sure their healthcare, their rights, and their futures are protected in this election.

For those nationwide who have already cast their ballots and who will vote in the coming weeks for the future of our country and to help ensure trust--trust in our democracy--the people must have a vote in this nomination.

The next President should choose Justice Ginsburg's replacement as she wished to spare our democracy the painful chaos of making such a decision so close to an election.

People are speaking out, and the Senate must listen, as Majority Leader McConnell insisted only a few years ago. But, unfortunately, it seems like my colleagues on the other side are content to ignore these cries, just like they have neglected the cries of our constituents for a COVID-19 relief package that meets this moment instead of shortchanging our communities because nothing--nothing is more important than pushing through their ideological agenda to jam as many partisan judges on the bench as possible, especially on the Supreme Court, and tip the balance of our Federal judiciary even further against everyday people, packing our courts to ensure we can't make progress to defend affordable healthcare and preexisting conditions protections or addressing the climate crisis or strengthening protections for workers or doing anything on the critical issues that people in my home State of Washington and around the Nation care so deeply about and that have been blocked time and again by the Republican Party.

I will be doing absolutely everything I can to make sure everyone from Washington State to Washington, DC, and my Republican colleagues here in Congress know just how much is at risk if President Trump gets to appoint another hard-right nominee an unprecedented 41 days before a Presidential election.

It is truly impossible to understate the consequences for families and communities across the country now and for generations to come. President Trump has made it clear he wants a nominee who will gut protections for preexisting conditions, who will take healthcare away from millions of people nationwide, and do everything they can to undermine basic rights and freedoms and protections through the Court, including crucial worker protections that Justice Ginsburg, herself, helped secure and the EEOC is tasked with enforcing.

I urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting today to honor an important part of Justice Ginsburg's legacy and vote for the nomination of Jocelyn Samuels. Then let's keep fighting for people's healthcare, for protections for preexisting conditions, for workers' rights, and voters' rights, and LGBTQIA+ rights, and for the vision of a just and equal country--a just and equal country Justice Ginsburg fought so hard to advance.

Thank you.

Vote on Hinderaker Nomination

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