Bart Stupak: “Mr. Speaker and Congresswoman Norton, thank you for the opportunity to support women's issues and to acknowledge the…”

“Mr. Speaker and Congresswoman Norton, thank you for the opportunity to support women's issues and to acknowledge the contributions of former Michigan Congresswoman Martha Griffiths to the cause of equal rights for women. As the U.S. Representative from Michigan's 1st District, I am particularly proud of the example set by this dynamic, fiery woman, who was elected to the U.S. House in 1954 and served here for twenty years, including a term as the first woman on the House Ways and Means Committee. Before her service in the U.S. House, Martha Griffiths served from 1949 to 1952 in the Michigan House, followed by two years as the first woman Detroit Recorder's Court judge. Martha Griffiths was still in Congress when I began my career in public service as a police officer in Escanaba, Michigan in 1972. By the time she re-entered public life as Michigan's first elected female Lieutenant Governor in 1982, I was serving as a Michigan State Trooper. In all that time, and later when I was elected to the Michigan State House of Representatives, I had Martha Griffith's example to follow. While she was one of America's greatest women leaders, she was also at the top of the list of consummate politicians and public servants of either gender. In her work reinvigorating the fight to pass the Equal Rights amendment and in adding language banning sex discrimination in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Martha Griffiths set the stage for later generations of women in politics.”