Today is Equal Pay Day: After 16 months of work, professional women today will finally have earned what their male counterparts earned in just 12 months of work last year. It is shameful that gender discrimination still exists in our…

this past Sunday marked the start of National Crime Victims' Rights Week. Since 1981, people across the Nation have observed this week with candlelight vigils and public rallies to renew our commitment to crime victims and their families…

Mr. Presdient, the Senate yesterday, by a vote of 84 to 10, invoked cloture to end a Republican filibuster of President Obama's nomination of Lael Brainard to be Under Secretary at Treasury. As I said before that vote, the majority leader…

today the Senate finally confirmed the nomination of Marisa Demeo for a 15-year term as a judge for the District of Columbia Superior Court. Her nomination was the longest pending judicial nomination on the Executive Calendar, having been…

today is Justice John Paul Stevens' birthday, and I cannot help but think about that and some wonderful conversations I have had with him of late. As I said, his retirement from the Supreme Court will begin to draw to a close an…

the majority leader has taken a significant step to address the crisis created by Senate Republican obstruction of President Obama's highly qualified nominations and the Senate's advice and consent responsibilities. Regrettably, Republican…

last week, the country took another important step toward a more just and perfect union when President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum on Respecting the Rights of Hospital Patients to Receive Visitors and to Designate Surrogate…

I don't think USAID is living up to its potential of what... the U.S. taxpayers and this subcommittee expect it to do.

I think Dr. Shah's the right person at the right time and the right place.

Like many government bureaucracies, USAID suffers from a culture of arrogance that it knows best.

I know the chair and I agree that your leadership is critically important at this time.

Energy, of course, is important in India as it is in the United States and they are overwhelmingly dependent upon coal to fuel their growth.

Well, in fact, there's been a lot of delays in launching the USAID's worldwide procurement software and system.

I would like to sit down with you and see how objective a picture you got

There was an Op-Ed in last Sunday's New York Times by Bono entitled 'Africa Reboots.' Did you have a chance to read that?

Please keep it a priority.

You can't have a democracy, a real democracy without a functioning justice system.

I couldn't think of a better way to invest U.S. dollars and I think our taxpayers would agree to give a free quality universal education to the 4.5 million children in Haiti that really have no access today.

Nothing would bring about more effort to cut off money if it turns out that it wasn't spent well.

I, and I believe most people here, want USAID to succeed, but you talked about outsourcing and some of the other things that are being done.

I think you are and will be an inspiration to the people in USAID.

I want to avoid what happened in Iraq where, you know, cargo planes full of money came in.

We cannot get there without the most modern farming techniques and biotechnology.

Roads. We need roads. Today, we women, we are the roads carrying things.

I don't envy you the job because USAID is in urgent need of reform and it is a formidable task.