Political Quotes

“Madam President, I am so pleased to be joining colleagues in celebrating the anniversary of the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and to move on to what we need to do on full paycheck fairness with the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act. I wish to start by thanking our leader, the dean of the women in the Senate and the House, the longest serving woman, who is Senator Barbara Mikulski. She has led us through the Lilly Ledbetter legislation and is now leading us as we move forward to the next step in making sure women receive equal pay for equal work. Her extraordinary leadership is something that has touched every woman, every man, and every family in America. I wish to thank her for her leadership, as well as the efforts of all my colleagues. It has been nearly 50 years since President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law--a law that made it illegal for an employer to pay women less than men for the same work. With the stroke of a pen, he ushered in a new era of opportunities for women and the American economy as a whole. In those 50 years, many millions of American women entered the workforce and we have truly changed the nature of employment in our country, including in the Senate, where we now have a woman sitting as the distinguished Acting President pro tempore, and we have 20 women who are a part of leading the country through the Senate, with 7 of us now chairing committees.…”