Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. I congratulate Chairman Miller, the driving force behind this effort, who, with great tenacity and great leadership, has given this issue the priority that it deserves.

Together, with his colleagues on the Education and Labor Committee and our dedicated partners in the Senate, Chairman Miller has brought gender-based pay discrimination front and center in this Congress, and as a result, we finally have the opportunity to send powerful legislation to the President's desk today.

We are here because Lilly Ledbetter got shortchanged, shortchanged by her employer, the perpetrator of consistent pay discrimination lasting years; and shortchanged again by the Supreme Court.

A jury found that, yes, Lilly Ledbetter had been discriminated against by her employer. They awarded her $3.8 million in back pay and damages. But then under Title VII, this award was reduced to $360,000, and ultimately zero when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against her in 2007, drastically limiting women's access to seek justice for pay discrimination based on gender, requiring workers to file a pay discrimination claim within a 6-month period only, regardless of how long the pay inequity goes on. When women still earn only about 78 percent of what men earn, this ruling has essentially rolled back efforts to ensure equal pay and left women with little remedy.

As Justice Ginsburg suggested in her dissent, Congress has an obligation to correct the court's decision. That is why we must pass the Lilly

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