On the recordApril 30, 2015
I thank my good friend from New Jersey for her extraordinary remarks and for her generosity in yielding. Mr. Speaker, this rule has the high stink of both unfairness and discrimination. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to overturn a valid local District of Columbia law but denied D.C.'s locally elected officials even the courtesy of defending that law, which is aimed at keeping employers from discriminating against women and men for their private reproductive health decisions, the most personal decisions Americans make off the job. Of critical importance, the D.C. local law requires that all employees carry out the mission of the organization or business, whatever its mission is. The disapproval resolution was only added to the Rules Committee agenda yesterday, literally at the same time that the committee began its meeting. And no member of the majority showed up at the hearing to defend the disapproval resolution until I noted this unprecedented absence. The committee then hurriedly summoned the subcommittee chair, who spoke without any prepared testimony. No wonder--how can any American defend an employer who imposes his religion or personal philosophical beliefs on an employee's private reproductive matters by sanctioning the employee because the employer disagrees, for example, with an employee's use of in vitro fertilization to become pregnant or of birth control for family planning? The employer has no right to even know about such private matters.…
