Supporting the goals and ideals of National Women's History Month.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 211) supporting the goals and ideals of National Women's History Month.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I am pleased to join my colleagues in consideration of H. Res. 211, which is designed to provide recognition and support for National Women's History Month, which is commemorated annually during the month of March.

Sponsored by our colleague, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey of California, H. Res. 211 was introduced on March 5, 2009, and is currently cosponsored by 115 Members of Congress, both men and women, as well as from both sides of the aisle. The measure was considered by Chairman Towns and the Oversight panel on March 10, 2009, where it was passed without objection by voice vote.

Mr. Speaker, I contend that it would be challenging to recount history without recognizing the profound role that women have played in every community, State, and country throughout the world. While only a small measure of appreciation, today's consideration of H. Res. 211 is designed to express the appreciation and the gratitude of this legislative body for the priceless and timeless contribution of women throughout history.

The origins of National Women's History Month dates back to 1978 when organizers in Sonoma County, California, established a public celebration of women's history, calling it ``Women's History Week.'' In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month-long commemoration by declaring March as Women's History Month.

Since the 1970s, we in American have seen notable growth in the study and expansion of women's history. In fact, today almost every college offers women's history courses and most major graduate programs offer doctoral degrees in this important field of study.

Even today, we continue to witness women history makers--from our very own Speaker of the House to the Speaker of the California State Assembly. From Governors and mayors to successful businesswomen, scientists, athletes, teachers and, of course, mothers, women are clearly making a difference in our country and in our world.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the sponsor of the resolution, Ms. Woolsey of California, for 4 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 2 minutes to my good friend from the State of Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I recognize my friend from Ohio, the most senior female in the House, Ms. Kaptur, for 2 minutes.

I yield the gentlewoman another 30 seconds.

Let me first of all thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for that quick history lesson on women's history in this Capitol. I want to yield to my friend from South Dakota (Ms. Herseth Sandlin) for 2 minutes.

MS. HERSETH SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding. I rise in strong support of House Resolution 211, a resolution Supporting the Goals and Ideals of National Women's History Month.

I am proud to be a cosponsor of this resolution, along with many of my colleagues, and would like to thank Congresswoman Woolsey for introducing this legislation, recognizing the critical role women have played in shaping the Nation we are proud to call home today.

Women like the pioneers who helped settle the great plains in the West, the women who were the suffragettes working to ensure women's right to vote, the role of so many women on the home front and abroad throughout our Nation's history and serving in our Armed Forces, the important and positive influence of women across the country in the workplace, in public service, and throughout our communities.

Although we have certainly come a long way in ensuring equal treatment of women, challenges do remain. In recognition of the need to address the obstacles women still face, President Obama signed an executive order recently, creating the White House Council on Women and Girls, and I was honored to participate in the signing ceremony at the White House.

Given the number of working mothers in South Dakota, one of the highest numbers per capita in the country, and having recently become a working mother myself, I will be particularly interested in this new council's focus on this aspect of women and families. I am proud of the progress we have made to integrate the stories of heroic American women into the discussion of our Nation's history. I encourage schools and organizations across the country to participate in the celebration of National Women's History Month and make their own unique contribution to the ongoing narrative of the history of women in America.

I would like to thank again Congresswoman Woolsey for introducing this important resolution. I thank her for her leadership, and I encourage my colleagues to support the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to recognize the distinguished gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus) for 2 minutes.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize my friend from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) for 2 minutes.

At this time, we yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of House Resolution 211, a bill to support the goals and ideals of National Women's History Month.

I would like to send a tribute out to all of the women trailblazers who have contributed so much to our country. And I think St. Patrick's Day is the perfect time to remember them! I would like to begin by sending a very special thank you to former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder of Colorado; Congresswoman Carrie Meek of Florida; and Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly of Connecticut; and to some of the women Members who I had the honor to serve with in this body and recently passed: The Honorable Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio; The Honorable Julia Carson of Indiana; and the Honorable Juanita Millender-McDonald of California.

I would also like to discuss a few of the women who served as mentors to me over the years. I remember growing up in Jacksonville, back in the civil rights era in the United States. And I knew I wanted to do something--get involved in something big--to make a difference. And I was inspired by a strong willed woman, Ms. Gwendelyn Sawyer Cherry, who would stop at nothing to change the terrible ills that our society, and in particular, African Americans, were facing in that time period.

Ms. Sawyer Cherry was the first African-American woman to practice law in Dade County, Florida, and became one of the first nine attorneys who initially served at Legal Services in Greater Miami in 1966. She was elected as a state representative in 1970, becoming the first African-American woman to serve as a legislator for the State of Florida. She was elected to four terms and served until 1979.

During her term, she introduced the Equal Rights Amendment in Florida, chaired the State of Florida's committee for International

Woman's Year in 1978, and co-authored Portraits in Color. I thank you, Ms. Sawyer Cherry, for all you have done for our nation and for the state of Florida.

And the last woman I would like to mention is a very near and dear friend of mine; an African American woman who served with me both in the Florida state legislature and came up to Washington with me in 1993. I am referring to, of course, Ms. Carrie Meek of Miami.

The granddaughter of a slave and the daughter of former sharecroppers, she spent her childhood in segregated Tallahassee. She then went on to graduate from Florida A&M University in 1946, at a time when African Americans could not attend graduate school in Florida, so she was forced to travel North to continue her studies and ended up graduating from the University of Michigan.

Ms. Meek went on to become a Florida state representative in 1979, and was the first African American female elected to the Florida State Senate in 1982. As a state senator, Meek served on the Education Appropriations Subcommittee, and her efforts in the Legislature also led to the construction of thousands of affordable rental housing units.

In 1992, Congresswoman Carrie Meek was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 17th Congressional District. This made Ms. Meek, along with myself and Congressman Alcee Hastings, to serve as the first black lawmakers elected to represent Florida in Congress since Reconstruction. Upon taking office, Ms. Meek was faced the extreme task of helping her district recover from Hurricane Andrew's devastation, and her efforts helped to provide $100 million in federal assistance to rebuild Dade County.

As a powerful and hard working Member of the appropriations committee, Congresswoman Meek became a leader on issues from economic development, to health care funding, to education and housing. She also passed legislation to improve Dade County's transit system, their airport and seaport; construct a new family and childcare center in North Dade County; and fund advanced aviation training programs at Miami-Dade Community College. In recent times, the Honorable Carrie Meek has worked to become a civil rights advocate for senior citizens in the Miami area, as well for the Haitian community in South Florida.

In closing, I want to thank these pioneers, those who have led the way for our daughters today and in the future.

I thank Chairman Clay for moving this bill forward. I thank him for yielding me time. I want to thank Congresswoman Woolsey for her great leadership in introducing House Resolution 211, honoring the contributions of women across history, and certainly here in our great country. I want to thank Congressman Issa for his support.

I also want to say that we have a long way to go. As far as we have come, we have even further to go. The majority of women's contributions in history have never been recorded. So much of what women have lived has not even been put to pen and to page; and that is no more true than here in the House of Representatives itself.

I was so pleased the other day to walk in the main corridor on the first floor of the Capitol, and to see for the first time in history the portrait of Shirley Chisholm hung in a place where most people who travel here will actually witness the first African American woman ever to be elected to the Congress of the United States, and who campaigned for me in my very first campaign. She left in 1983.

For a very long time, indeed the first 200 years of our country, up until this last decade, the only portrait of a woman hung in this House was of Pocahontas over in the main dome of the Capitol as she saved the life of John Smith around the year 1623. But it wasn't until this last decade where we tried to get the portraits of women hung in this Capitol, and it has proved to be as hard as winning the Revolutionary War.

Mary Norton, the child of Irish immigrants, has finally been hung in the Education and Labor Committee as the first woman to chair a committee in this House, the Education and Labor Committee. She wrote the National Labor Relations Act, No Child Labor, time-and-a-half overtime, minimum wage. And for all those years, from the Great Depression until this past year, her portrait was in a closet here in the Capitol. Imagine that. Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to ever serve from the State of Montana before suffrage was even adopted, never a portrait of her. Finally, it was commissioned. We worked so hard. She is hung up on the third floor as you come off to the visitor's gallery.

I thank the gentleman for that time. And, to say, when the Senate saw what we did in the House, they hung a portrait of Hattie Carraway, the first woman elected to the Senate, over on the Senate side.

So the road has been a very long road, even here inside the Capitol, which is supposed to reflect the history of the American people. We know as women, at the founding of our republic, as with slaves, we were considered three-quarters of a person, and it was not until 1920 with adoption of the 19th amendment to our Constitution were we considered full persons. And it was not until the Married Women Property Acts were passed in the State of New York in the late 1800s that in fact women began to emerge from the shackles that had held them in bondage for all of recorded history.

I congratulate my dear friend from California, Congresswoman Woolsey. I thank the chairman of the Committee. Thank you for bringing us into the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Women's History Month. Women were once considered second-class citizens whose rights were restricted, from voting to property ownership. But today, women serve in the Senate and the House of Representatives, they serve as members of the President's cabinet, and as Speaker of the House of Representatives. It is important that the role that women have played in shaping this country is honored. However, it wasn't until the late 1970s that women's history was taught in our schools. It was almost completely absent in media coverage and cultural celebrations.

That is why, Mr. Speaker, in 1998, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women, when I was the Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women, initiated a women's history week celebration, a celebration that centered around International Women's History Day. The National Women's History Project, located in my district, was founded in 1980 by many dedicated women who poured their hearts and their ideas into promoting and expanding the weeklong celebration. Because several dedicated women, including Molly Murphy MacGregor, Mary Ruthsdotter, Maria Cuevas, Paula Hammett, and Bette Morgan, decided to write women back into history, thousands of schools and communities then started to commemorate Women's

History Week by bringing lessons on women's achievements into the classroom, staging parades, and engaging neighborhoods and churches in celebration of the contributions of women.

The hard work and dedication of these women and the support of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women paid off. They started a national movement, and in 1981 Congress responded to the growing popularity of Women's History Week by making it a national observance in 1987 and expanding the week to a month, the month of March.

Imagine what American history lessons would be today without teaching about Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad; or the work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B. Anthony, and the many women who fought for women's suffrage; or Dr. Sally K. Ride, who was the first woman in space, encouraging more girls to be interested in science.

Today, Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in reaffirming our commitment to the celebration of women's history by supporting H. Res. 211, to ensure our grandchildren and great grandchildren learn more about women like Amelia Earhart and, eventually, the first woman President.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Towns, Chairman Clay, and Ranking Member Issa for supporting this resolution. Let us reflect on the contributions of women. Let us reflect on their place in history, with the hope that the day will come, and soon, when it is impossible to study American history without remembering the contribution of women.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues in recognizing Women's History Month. This is important. We recognize a great many days and months here in the Capitol, and sometimes we get disparaged for it. But I think when we look at the important role and the partnership since Colonial times until this very day that women have spent and made in our history, we do so without it being properly marked in history.

One needs to dig a little deeper in order to see the equal participation of women. Our Founding Fathers did not make the decision to go to war without the support of their families because their land, their property, and their very lives were at stake when they made that decision.

Since 1987, this country has recognized Women's History Month in this month, and we should. National Women's History Month has also received the support of Federal, State, and local officials that allow for public fora to raise the awareness and perhaps to inspire a next generation of women to do all that they can do, be all that they can be, and participate in ways that women throughout our history have, and more.

So I join with my colleagues, and particularly my California colleague, Representative Woolsey, in asking that we take a moment to recognize Women's History Month.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I believe today as we move this important piece of legislation recognizing Women's History Month that we realize that women have played an important part in both parties and in all the major issues of our time. Certainly when we view Susan B. Anthony through the role she played as a strong women's suffragette and as a strong advocate for women's rights, the right of life, a strong pro- life advocate, we realize that women have played an important role in political decisions, decisions of war and peace and in development of so many things in our country. And they continue to do so today.

So, I would hope that as we recognize Women's History Month, we recognize that women are just as independent in their politics, in their desires and in their beliefs as any man would ever hope to be, and that we not falsely determine that somehow women will save the planet where men won't, or that there aren't women developing innovative solutions including next generation nuclear, wind and solar, and, beyond that, solutions that haven't even been talked about on the House floor.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield back the remainder of my time.