Designating Certain Land Components of the National Wilderness Preservation System

Floor Speech

DESIGNATING CERTAIN LAND COMPONENTS OF THE NATIONAL WILDERNESS PRESERVATION SYSTEM -- (Senate - January 14, 2009)

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

I thank the Senator from Maryland for her great leadership and her tenacity with this bill from the very beginning. She is wearing red for a reason: That is the color to get this done. I will always remember this bill by Senator Mikulski taking to the floor the last time we came so close to passing it, when she said to the women of America: Suit up, square your shoulders, put your lipstick on. We are ready for a revolution.

I also enjoyed hearing the comments from my colleague from Washington. I thought the analogy to the identity theft case was on point, where sometimes people have a wrong done to them--whether it is discrimination or whether it is identity theft--and it is literally impossible for them to know what happened until sometimes years later. That is what happened to Lilly Ledbetter.

I am proud to join Senator Mikulski and my fellow women Senators and fellow Democrats and others who are here today to call for the Senate to take up and pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act.

The timing of the vote on this legislation, which is tomorrow, could not be more appropriate. We all know our Nation is in the midst of a financial and economic crisis of historic proportions, with Americans facing record job losses and the largest loss of wealth since the Great Depression.

We know working families and women are bearing the brunt of this crisis. Since 2000--these figures are actually before we had, literally, this meltdown in the last few months--but since 2000--even without those figures--the average family income in America has gone down $1,175 per year when adjusted for inflation. At the same time, the average family's expenses have gone up $4,500 per year.

This includes higher mortgage payments, higher phone costs, higher gas prices, higher heating costs, and higher health insurance costs. So the bottom line is the average middle-class family has suffered a net annual income loss of something like $5,500 a year, and that is not even including all the losses to the 401(k) funds and the pension funds, all the losses because of the expenses of childcare, and everything that has been going on in the last few months.

These are not just statistics. I saw this when I was home over December. I saw it in the eyes of a woman at a cafe near Litchfield, MN, who called me over to her table and said she was taking a break at her job being a waitress and she was now doing three jobs. She had just had her hours cut back at the third job, and that was the extra money she was going to use to buy her grandkids Christmas presents.

We have received letters in our office, such as the one we received from parents who said they would put their three daughters to bed and then just go sit at the kitchen table and put their heads in their hands and think: How are we going to make it? There is the woman who wrote to us and said she had received a small amount of inheritance from her father, and she planned to use it for her daughter's wedding, but she was now using it to pay for her own retirement because her 401(k) and her retirement funds had decreased so dramatically.

These are stories of women, real women, in Minnesota. No one has felt the impact of this economic downturn--the loss in income and the rising costs--more than the working women in America. It is often said that things have changed a lot for women in this country, and they have. It was not too long ago that we did not have the right to vote. It was not too long ago that my colleague from Maryland, Senator Mikulski, was the only woman in this Chamber. Now we have 17 of us. And it was not too long ago that I was kicked out of public fourth grade for wearing bellbottom pants to school by Mrs. Quady. I went home and changed and returned without missing much of my classes--a true story.

It is a sad reality that--88 years after the 19th amendment gave women equal voting power, and 45 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act--it still takes women 16 months to earn what men can earn in 12 months.

When I travel around my State and talk to the women in my State, I find these women are not simply looking for a handout or preferential treatment. All they are asking for is a fair and equal chance to make a fair and decent living. That is why it is so important the Senate take up the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on the Senate floor this week.

This important legislation will reverse a 2007 Supreme Court ruling--Ledbetter v. Goodyear--that significantly limited the rights of individuals to sue for gender-based discrimination. The facts that gave rise to Lilly Ledbetter's case have been told, but I think they should be told again. She was a hard worker. People can picture her right now. I have met her many times. She is a delightful person. She worked at Goodyear Tire as a manager for 20 years.

When she started, all the employees at the manager level started at the same pay. She knew she was getting the same pay as the men doing the same job. But early in her tenure as manager, the company went to a ``merit-based'' pay system.

Payment records were kept confidential, as they are in many companies, and Lilly did not think to ask what her male colleagues were making. She was happy to be a manager. She did not think to look at her pay raise and to ask if the men in the department were getting the same pay the day the paychecks came out. I do not think many people think about running around and asking their colleagues if they are getting the same amount of money for the same work.

As the years passed by, the pay differential between what she made and what the male managers were making just kept getting bigger. It was only after getting an anonymous note from a coworker telling her she was not paid as much as the male managers that she finally realized what was happening. Soon after getting that note, she filed a legal complaint. But that was many years after the discrimination began.

At trial, Lilly Ledbetter was easily able to prove discrimination. She could show what she did, she could show what the men did, and she could show the difference in pay. In fact, the jury found that sex discrimination accounted for a pay differential of as great as 25 percent between Lilly and her male counterparts. You can think about how that adds up over 20 years of working.

However, Goodyear appealed the jury's ruling, and the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, decided that Lilly filed her case too late. Essentially, they ruled she would have had to have filed within 180 days of Goodyear making its first discriminatory act.

Now, you ask, how would she have known this unless she was nosey and going around trying to look at people's paychecks? But this, as absurd as it sounds, is what the Court said.

Although the Court's decision completely ignores the realities of the workplace--that employee records are confidential and there is no reasonable way to know when discrimination starts--we now have an opportunity to bring the realities to light.

We should pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and allow a claim to be filed as long as the paychecks reflecting discrimination continue to be issued. In doing so, we will restore the original intent of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act.

Women cannot be expected to challenge practices they do not know are happening. By passing this law, women will be able to take those 4 months back, those extra months it takes them to catch up with their male counterparts.

This legislation is critical in the fight for equality for women in the workplace, but there is still a long way to go.

I am honored to be the first woman elected to the Senate from the State of Minnesota. Today, I am humbled to work with my women colleagues in the Senate in this effort to advance equality for women across the country.

Last week, we welcomed two new women to the Senate, and I see one of them in the Chamber--my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen--bringing our current total to 17, although our dear friend and champion on these issues, Senator Clinton, will soon be leaving us.

Passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would be a fitting sendoff to Senator Clinton who has dedicated her life to working toward equality for women. It would also be a fitting tribute to Senator Mikulski in her cry to square up your shoulders, suit up, put your lipstick on, and get this bill passed. And it would be a great tribute to Senator Kennedy. If he were on the Senate floor with us at this moment, I know he, too, would be saying: Get this done, pass this legislation--in his booming voice.

So I implore my colleagues--for Senator Clinton, for Senator Kennedy, for Senator Mikulski, but, most importantly, for the working women of America--that we pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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