Nomination of Peter Joseph Kadzik to Be an Assistant Attorney General

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, Senate Democrats have been focused on a lot of ways to expand opportunity and economic security for women and mothers in today's workforce. We have talked about the need to ensure equal pay for equal work, to make childcare more affordable, and to encourage profamily workplace policies that help workers be good parents and good employees.

We have explained how each of those policies and others would give working women and mothers a better shot at success. It is important to keep in mind that times have changed in the last few decades. Today two-thirds of families with children have two working parents. Dads are taking a more hands-on role in raising their children. This means in many working families fathers are increasingly facing a lot of the same challenges that mothers do. In fact, more and more fathers report they are struggling to balance work and family.

At a time when so many families need both parents to be at work in order to make ends meet, we clearly need to update our policies so that both mothers and fathers can succeed at work and at home. So today, since it was just Father's Day, I asked a few dads to come in and speak with my colleagues and me about how many of the policies often thought of as especially important to working women, such as affordable childcare, paid sick leave, would also do a lot for dads. I want to thank them for taking the time to share their stories and their experiences with all of us, because what we heard was really powerful. We heard fathers speak about how family-friendly policies helped them raise their kids and meet their responsibilities at work.

We heard from a dad who decided to stay home with his twins rather than pay for childcare because it was simply too expensive. We heard from a father and a small business owner who has made fair pay a priority at his business because he knows how fast those lost wages add up and how much equal pay can mean for a working family with a mortgage or student loans or car payments or all three of those.

What these fathers made clear is the economic barriers we often see as impacting women, such as inflexible workplace policies or the high cost of childcare or unequal pay, are not just holding women back, they are holding 21st century families back. There is no question in my mind they are a drag on our economy. That is why Democrats are fighting for policies that would help hard-working mothers and fathers across the country.

We are fighting to make sure women get equal pay for equal work, just as we made sure women do not get charged more for health insurance because of their gender. We have legislation to expand access to affordable quality childcare and early education so that mothers and fathers can go to work knowing their children are safe and thriving while they are away.

We have also proposed raising the minimum wage so parents are not working full time but still stuck in poverty and struggling to make ends meet. Democrats are also fighting to help our workers compete for good jobs by bringing down tuition costs and ensuring workers can get the training and education they need.

There is much more we can do as well. But any of those policies would go an enormously long way toward helping working families get the fair shot they deserve. This is why it has been so disappointing to see that when it comes to everything from the Paycheck Fairness Act to the raising of minimum wage for millions of our workers, to helping ease the burden of student loans, our Republican colleagues have so far said no, even though these policies are policies that would help millions of our working families and even though we know Americans across the country strongly support these kinds of changes. I know they would certainly mean a lot to many of the fathers I spoke with today.

I came here today to say I hope our Republican colleagues rethink the approach they have taken on all of those issues so far, because I believe if we take steps to break down the barriers working mothers and fathers are facing in today's economy, families across our country will have more opportunity and our country will be stronger now and over the long term.

There is no reason for us not to get to work on these.

I yield the floor.

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