H.R. 4445
Floor Speech
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Ms. ERNST. Madam President, protecting survivors of sexual assault and harassment has been one of my top priorities here in the Senate. In fact, yesterday, I introduced the bipartisan Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022, which now has the support of 10 of my Republican colleagues.
Today, we are here to talk about another issue that is impacting too many in our Nation's workforce. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2022 provides survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment with a choice between litigation and arbitration so their voices will not be silenced.
Earlier this Congress, I was glad to see progress in the Senate Judiciary Committee as they moved forward on this bill. The committee took action that I supported. They removed the provision on collective bargaining agreements. Just this week, I was even more encouraged when the House made further changes to the bill that improved the definition of sexual harassment.
While these changes are important and significant, it is still not a perfect solution. That is why, when I sat down earlier this week with the majority leader and the lead Republican sponsor of this bill, my friend from South Carolina, we agreed to come to the floor and ensure the congressional intent of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2022 was crystal clear.
During our meeting, my colleagues agreed with me that this bill should not be the catalyst for destroying predispute arbitration agreements in all employment matters. Specifically, we agreed that harassment or assault claims should not be joined to an employment claim without a key nexus. Harassment and assault allegations are very serious and should stand on their own. The language of this bill should be narrowly interpreted. It should not be used as a mechanism to move employment claims that are unrelated to these important issues out of the current system. These clarifications are needed.
I care very much and support survivors of sexual harassment or assault having access to the appropriate process to ensure swift justice, but it is also very important to me that those claims stand separate from any other kind of claim. I am grateful that Senators Schumer and Graham stand with me today in knowing that those claims are meaningfully different.
There is one other important piece here that I would like to mention and that, I hope, my colleagues can agree with me on. If an employment agreement contains a predispute arbitration clause and a sexual assault or harassment claim is brought forward in conjunction with another employment claim and the assault or harassment claim is later dismissed, a court should remand the other claim back to the arbitration system under this bill.
I think we can all agree that we want to ensure survivors of sexual assault have their voices heard. We just have to do this in a thorough and thoughtful way.
My hope is that the legislative intent of this bill reflects the conversation with my colleagues discussed here today; namely, that the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2022 should not effectively destroy arbitration in employment litigation.
This bill is narrow and scoped to address sexual assault and sexual harassment cases. These clarifications we are making here reflect the specific challenges that victims of these particular allegations face. And if any subsequent litigation manipulates the text to game the system, Senators Schumer and Graham have pledged to work with me on a bipartisan bill to further codify the intent and language of this bill.
I would yield to Senator Graham for further discussion.
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Ms. ERNST. I am good.
I will yield the floor but want to thank my colleagues.
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