Mr. Speaker, as March slips away, a number of women in the House did not want to let the year go by without commemorating Women's History Month. We recognize this is April 1. This is no April fool's joke. Women are a very serious concern…
Mr. Speaker, as March slips away, a number of women in the House did not want to let the year go by without commemorating Women's History Month. We recognize this is April 1. This is no April fool's joke. Women are a very serious concern of the women who will come forward this evening.
We note first the progress women around the world, our sisters in solidarity, are making; and then we compare that progress to the progress of American women who serve in the legislatures of their countries.
According to the data used internationally, women are considered to be at an acceptable threshold when they are about 30 percent of their legislatures. There are only 14 countries that qualify. The United States of America is not one of them. We are pleased at the increase in women, especially in the House and in the Senate; but we are not where we should be, particularly given the ideals that our country professes.
Interestingly, women made their greatest strides in Rwanda last year, and that may well be because there is a fixed percentage of women required in their legislature. But this should be said of Rwanda: This is one of the world's most tragic nations, which suffered from violence. Perhaps having women in the leadership will help send to that country the notion that violence, most of it perpetrated by men in that country in one of the worst cases of genocide in the 20th century, is no longer acceptable.
Mr. Speaker, just a couple nights ago Women's Policy, Incorporated, celebrated its 10th anniversary. This is a privately financed organization from which many Members of the House and Senate gather the information that they need to keep track of women's issues and where women need to go as far as legislation and other progress is concerned.
It was also the 27th anniversary of the Congressional Women's Caucus. It reminded us that it was in 1916 that the first woman came to serve in this House, the famed Jeannette Rankin. That was 4 years before women even got the right to vote. I believe that says something, Mr. Speaker, about the determination of women to exercise the vote, that before the Constitution of their country even gave them the vote, as a matter of State law they sent a representative to this body.
Today, we have grown from one in 1916 to 76 in this House and 14 in the Senate, well below the 30 percent threshold that the world acknowledges as a decent percentage. We are still struggling. We are still determined to find our rightful place in this body and in our country.
We certainly do not suffer, as many of our sisters do around the world. For example, in Kuwait, one of our allies, women cannot even stand for election to any office.
Mr. Speaker, I was a Member of the House when the so-called ``Year of the Woman'' was informally proclaimed. That was the year when the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas brought women forward, given the controversy surrounding his nomination, that a man who had been accused of sexual harassment was nevertheless put on the bench. It sent a whole bunch of women to the House and to the Senate, more than before and more than since. Some of us, Mr. Speaker, I must say, are inclined to call 2004 the ``Year of the Forgotten Woman,'' and we say so because we look for concrete evidence of where women are going in our country today. And for that, I think the best place to look is in the President's budget.
The budget document is the best evidence of the policy of the President in office. I think that the American people for whom women's rights, the progress of women and children means something would be absolutely astonished by what the President's 2005 proposed budget tells us about his priorities when it comes to women's concerns. So I want to start where the American people would start in evaluating where this President stands on matters affecting women and their children. They would start with where he puts his money. They would start with his budget.
As I look at that budget, it seems as if the President went on a search-and-destroy mission, focused heavily on the programs that affect women most. I looked, because I saw many programs that might tell us something about where an elected official stands on a given subject. I looked at signature issues for women, issues that are particularly identified with women and their children, although I am sure my good friends and colleagues in this body who are men would be quick to step forward and say that these issues mean just as much to them. It is simply that women have been at the front of the line advocating the issues that I am speaking about at the moment.
Let us take the child care and development block grant: frozen for the third year in a row. Children are not frozen. The numbers continue to come forward. They grow older. They need services. So that when we have a 3-year freeze, it means 3 years of cuts for child care and development. It, of course, means that we are leaving hundreds of thousands of women in line for child care, holding their kids' hands and wondering what in the world they are going to do, particularly if they are on TANF where the bill this House has passed says you have to work longer and have less child care.
Or let us take another signature issue: the Violence Against Women Act. These programs are cut for next year $22 million over what was in the budget for this year.
Mr. Speaker, I can only hope that these programs that I am going to go through get the attention of the Congress and the appropriators and that they come to their senses and put some of this money back.
Republicans have been grandstanding about an important issue that concerns all of us. I say ``grandstanding'' because the way to indicate that it matters to you is, of course, to put just a little money in it. I am talking about trafficking in women and children, where women and children are essentially held virtually as slaves. Well, the Bush budget simply eliminates the program altogether.
By now it is gospel that the best straight line for reducing juvenile crime is to give kids something to do after school. Well, the President's budget provides half of the promised funding for after- school programs.
What about Head Start? Here is a program that is surely not one of the favorites of the President, even though children and education has been a signature issue for him. He has begun the gutting of the Head Start program by eliminating the health and nutritional aspects that is itself a signature of the program. We bring low-income children, we combine the services they need in preschool by the time they go to school, so that they are ready to learn.
There will also be no educational services in Head Start. Just a moment. I thought this was the education President. I thought the whole point is to begin education and the most rigorous education that a child can take according to age as soon as possible, so that we meet this goal that by grade 4 every child can read. How are we going to do that if we do not begin educational services in Head Start, particularly for low-income children who, of course, are and continue to be the furthest behind?
Speaking about behind, if the President had put just a little more money in Head Start, he might have given the best and biggest boost to his own Leave No Child Behind bill. Only 60 percent of the children who are eligible for Head Start are covered by Head Start. Put all of those children in there and we will begin to see some difference for low- income children in school, and No Child Left Behind can begin to take some of the credit for it, because it will pick them up, ready to learn.
Speaking of No Child Left Behind, Mr. Speaker, once again the President has simply declined to fund the bill. This has been a huge disappointment for Democrats, because this bill was passed in a bipartisan fashion on the promise that a very difficult issue would have the prerequisite funding and, therefore, a chance to succeed. That issue is taking children who are not learning in school and somehow
making it possible for them to learn; and not only that, Mr. Speaker, but indicating that they were not going to graduate unless they learned. Well, on the basis of that promise, this became a bipartisan bill. It overcame many doubts and much skepticism.
Now the promise of funding has dropped out of the President's budget. It has caused consternation in the House and in the Senate. But if we think that is all it has caused, we need only go into our own States and hear the howls and the cries about No Child Left Behind, its broken promises and the difficulties that States are having in meeting its goals, precisely because the promise of funding has not been kept.
Moving right along, Mr. Speaker, to Even Start. Now here we have not only a woman's program but a family values Congress program. Because, essentially, what the program does is to put adult literacy and childhood education and vital parental education all in the same package and say, if you put them all together, then we will get what children need to learn. They will have parents who know how to read and who have an appreciation for learning. That is the adult literacy part. They will have childhood education, which is focusing on the child itself. And, of course, the parental education is absolutely essential, because once you know how to parent, you recognize the value of education, and the rest is likely to take care of itself.
Well, this program, Mr. Speaker, is eliminated, not cut, but eliminated in the President's budget. I do not see how we can go home and leave that zero on our record, even though the President has left it on his.
Maternal and child health block grant, if ever there is funding that gets the motherhood award of agreement of everyone, it is that grant: frozen.
Some of the freezes are just plain cruel. Why would we want to cut off hearing screening for newborns? This program was started because we learned that if you catch a newborn with hard of hearing very early, the chances of correcting it soars. Hearing screening for newborns wiped out. Can you hear us, Mr. President? This is not a program to eliminate. It is not very costly. It is very vital.
Perhaps the greatest forgotten issue of the Bush administration is health care for the uninsured. Twenty million of them are women without health insurance. What does the President have to give to them? A $1,000 tax credit for individual coverage only. I hope you have a job so the tax credit can help you out. But even this $1,000 tax credit will cover only 5 percent of the uninsured.
Women, of course, we are told in this House, particularly by our Republican good friends, are the fastest-growing small business people. Indeed, they are about half of the small business people now, they have grown so fast. Why, then, would the President want to say, well done, women. Let us cut $79 million from the Small Business Administration, the chief agency you turn to for help, assistance, and funding.
We want the President to know that there are many of us in this Congress to remind him that 3.8 million women are looking for jobs and cannot find them. Nobody even talks about women's work anymore. We assume the obvious, that women must work; and indeed, Mr. Speaker, they must. And the fact that they cannot find work has a greater effect on children than any single group who cannot find work because of the disproportionate number of these women who are heads of household.
Mr. Speaker, I have more to say about women, but I see that one of my distinguished colleagues has come to the floor and, therefore, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) for her comments on this vital subject.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee ) coming down to offer her comments on this important issue at this time, and I appreciate the quality of those comments.
I am very pleased now to be joined by the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) for whom these issues affecting women and children have been of priority and importance since she came to Congress.
Mr. Speaker, may I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois for coming forward to inform the House of this intriguing study and for giving us I think some ammunition about what our responsibility is.
Women, in fact, need to be asked. It seems to me there is some asking that we all need to do; and you consider that women are increasingly better qualified, by education, to hold office because they get more education. You wonder what more do they need.
I guess it is important information for us all to have, and it is challenging information, and I thank the gentlewoman for staying this evening to come forward.
Partial Birth Abortion
Mr. Speaker, a previous speaker spoke of the March for Women's Lives that is coming forward on April 25 next month. That march is being sponsored by nonpartisan organizations, tax-exempt organizations. So they come forward not under any political banner, but they do carry a banner.
They carry the banner of American women, and they fear for the right of choice that women won only in the last few decades. They fear about the Supreme Court and whether it will hold fast or whether it will overturn its own precedents quickly.
Today, Mr. Speaker, the case on the partial birth abortion ban is being argued in three separate jurisdictions at the very same time. Here we have the determination of some in the Congress and some in the country to simply go back to where we were before Roe versus Wade, and it looks like they will not stop, no matter what the Supreme Court tells them.
The Supreme Court settled this question in Stenberg versus Carhart, and when the Supreme Court speaks, we should usually respect the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court, under the Constitution of the United States, is the final arbiter of constitutional right. That is the difference between us and many other countries, because the Constitution says you must respect certain rights even if the majority does not agree, but of course, when it comes to choice, the majority does agree.
Of course, late-term abortions are controversial, and this bill would not be controversial if it did not overstep. Under Roe versus Wade, of course, the State may regulate the third trimester, but that is not what is at issue in Stenberg versus Carhart.
This law is worded, it would seem, deliberately to trap the second trimester as well, the trimester where, of course, women are freer than they would be in the final weeks. Under the wording of this law, it is as clear as day that beginning in the 13th week procedures that are the most commonly used could not be used without risking prosecution.
The fatal flaw in the bill, of course, is that there is no health exception. So no matter how grave the risk to the health of the woman, a woman would not be allowed to have an abortion, as it turns out, under this bill, beginning with the 13th week, as it is worded and certainly not beyond.
I think that the American people are depending on a Supreme Court that will, in fact, respect the constitutional rights the Court itself has indicated are there for women. I want to quote from what the Supreme Court indeed said in the Stenberg decision to indicate why I really do not fear that the law that has just been passed, and indeed I think was signed today by the President, I do not fear that that law will be overturned by this Court. I do fear we could get a different Court, and that is something that every woman in America, when she goes to the polls in November, should bear in mind.
This Court has said the following, and I am quoting:
``Using this law some present prosecutors and future attorneys general may choose to pursue physicians who use the most commonly used method for performing previability, second trimester abortions. All those who perform abortion procedures using that method must fear prosecution, conviction and imprisonment. The result is an undue burden upon a woman's right to make an abortion decision. We must quickly find the statute unconstitutional.''
The court has spoken. Trying to overturn the Supreme Court does not work in our system. Let us hope that whatever the Court says this time is, in fact, respected.
Equal Pay for Women
Mr. Speaker, I am a former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, so I cannot let this hour go by without saying a word about perhaps the right that most women depend upon today and recognize today and that is the right to equal pay.
This Congress has not looked at the Equal Pay Act since it was passed 40 years ago in 1963, more than 40 years ago now, and yet we are in a different world, with women with different aspirations and jobs totally different from what they were at that time.
To that effect, many women and men in this body are trying to update the Equal Pay Act with a Paycheck Fairness Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act is not a very radical piece of legislation. It would add national origin and race to the Equal Pay Act. The Equal Pay Act bars unequal pay on the basis of sex alone.
It would seem that by now everybody would agree that it is time to make sure that the typical protections involving the groups that are most likely to experience discrimination would find their way into the Equal Pay Act.
A very important part of the Act would keep a person from being punished or being fired for discussing her salary or his salary in the workplace with others. This is a favorite ruse of many employers. They do not want colleagues of one another to know what they make because, if they do, women might say, I do not know why this man is being paid more than I am.
A woman should be protected. If she goes to a man who is doing a job like hers or unlike hers and says, could I ask you what is your wage, what is your salary, there is no such protection now, and a woman could be fired for discussing or inquiring of the wage of another colleague.
Along with Senator Tom Harkin, I have introduced the Fair Pay Act. Just as the Paycheck Fairness Act updates the Equal Pay Act, our bill would update the equal employment opportunity, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, so that jobs that have the same skill, effort and responsibility would have to be paid the same.
Today, there are women doing work of equal value to the work of men who are being paid grossly differential salaries. For example, a man and a woman both graduate from college at the same time. He becomes a probation officer. She becomes a social worker. Guess who makes the most money? It would be very difficult to make the case that his job as a probation officer is more difficult than her job as a social worker.
The reason for the discrimination is that we still have sex segregation of jobs in our society, jobs that are essentially for women and jobs that are essentially for men, and the jobs that are for women are paid often according to gender, as opposed to the job to be done.
Women work in essentially three fields: clerical, sales and factory jobs. You will find that where women are bunched together their salaries are lower than men who do comparable jobs. As a result, the society is flailing around looking for women in the traditional women's occupations: teaching, nursing, social work. Women are fleeing those occupations, for no reason other than they are going where the money is. Nurses are becoming doctors. Social workers are becoming lawyers. Heaven knows who is going into teaching today when we most need them.
People who get educated are not going to continue to join professions that do not pay them according to what they are worth. Because women have filled very vital occupations in our society, this is dangerous indeed. One has only to go into the hospitals of America to understand what pressure we are under. We cannot get enough nurses. There are strikes at hospitals. Nurses have to work on weekends, do not enjoy holidays. It cannot go on this way forever. An easy way to right that wrong is raise the pay.
I am an attorney. I have to tell you that this profession has been overpaid since it came into existence. Pay has nothing to do with the worth of lawyers. What it does have to do with is that it has been a male profession. I joke with my friends who are lawyers that as there are more women in the legal profession we are going to drive down the wage because it will be seen as a woman's occupation.
Very seriously, the occupations that concern me most are occupations that the society perhaps most depends upon: people to teach our children, nurses who in a very real sense are more vital than doctors today because of the breadth and depth of the health care tasks they perform, social workers because there are so many parts of what the society needs that have now integrated their skills.
We are in very deep trouble when people abandon these professions. We can recruit all we want to. We can preach all we want to. The way to get men and women into these professions is to pay these professions what they are worth.
Under our bill, a person could sue if, in fact, in the same workplace somebody in a comparable job was not paid for reasons of sex the same as that person. You would have to prove it. The burden would be on you. This would not change our economic system in any way.
It fits right into the way in which title 7 requires that you prove discrimination, and here you would have to prove that the difference in wage is based on discrimination. Because the difference in wage can be based on any number of factors, and the burden would be on the women.
In case you think this is a far-out idea, let it be known that 20 States have already done wage studies and adjusted the wages of women State workers based on those wage studies that showed that the wages of women were out of whack because they were women. In these States all over the United States, not following any particular pattern, north, south, east, and west, the wages have been raised for women who were teachers, nurses, clerical workers, and librarians simply based on looking at the skill, effort, and responsibility of the jobs they perform.
The evidence that women are continuing to be paid less is rampant in our society. The favorite I would cite is Wal-Mart, because it is the largest corporation and the most expanding corporation in our country and women there make $1.16 per hour less than men. Is that why the prices are so low? Are they saving on what we spend on the backs of their own women workers? That is worth finding out.
Mr. Speaker, finally, I want to say a word about poor women, because there is so little discussion about women who do not work and want to work. I am very concerned about the TANF bill. About the most important thing that happens to a woman who becomes pregnant before marriage is that she wakes up and understands that there is somebody she is responsible for besides herself. It is an extraordinary awakening that occurs and maturity for such a woman. And I have seen what women are willing to do after the birth of such a child that they were not willing to do before, and one of those things is to go to school.
I cannot for the life of me understand why the TANF bill that we passed would not allow a woman to work part time and go to college part time if she had the gumption and the energy to do so. I do not know what we expect. Should she go off TANF and work at a minimum-wage job, or one close to minimum wage for the rest of her natural life? How does that help the children?
The whole point of this bill was to bring greater responsibility and to encourage people to take that responsibility or we were not going to pay for them. About the best way to take greater responsibility for yourself is to educate yourself and make sure you can support yourself decently, not just support yourself. What have we done? We have increased the work hour requirements to 40 hours per week and then limited what counts as work. It is penny-wise, pound-foolish, and cruel.
And, Mr. Speaker, one thing we are not going to let this House forget is that the Republicans in this House killed the child care credit for poor women and poor families; that those families that earn between $10,000 and $26,000 a year, including military families, cannot get that child credit. That issue is not going away. We are going to carry it to the American people. We are not going to let this House forget it until we have made good for those who most need the child care credit.
Mr. Speaker, I want to close simply by paying tribute once again to Dr. Dorothy Height and thanking the Congress of the United States for conferring on Dr. Height the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Dr. Height was for many years a resident of the State of New York. It is my great good fortune that a few years ago she moved to the District of Columbia and has become my constituent.
This is an American who richly deserved the honor she got last week. She has spent her whole life doing what many leaders have found difficult to do, fighting for a particular group while bringing people together. It is easy enough to fight for your own group. To a black woman, nothing is easier than for me to get up and talk about black women and what they need and what has been their history.
As the president emeritus of the National Council of Negro Women, that of course is what Dr. Height has done for most of her life. She is now 92 years old. Why America was justified in awarding her the Congressional Medal of Honor is she has managed to fight with great strength for African American women while preaching the message of inclusion and brotherhood and sisterhood of all people at the same time. They are not contrary messages, but there are few who have been able to bring them forward and make them believable to those they reach.
I am particularly grateful as a young woman when feminism emerged that Dr. Height was one of those feminists who made black people understand that as white women came forward and demanded their equal rights, that that took nothing from black people; that their own movement for full equality was a movement that called forth universal principles; that black women had much in common with white women; and that this was not a cause for the two to be in dispute, but rather to be in coalition.
The world does not have enough leaders like Dorothy Height. That is why we extol them when we find them: the Mandrels of this world, the Martin Luther Kings of this world, and, yes, and the Dorothy Heights of this world.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that we have been granted this time so that American women understand that March would not go by, for those who expected women to come forward in this House and commemorate Women's History Month, that that month would not go by entirely without us remembering that this House, this Congress must never forget its women; that we must never forget the women of the world. And one way in which we indicate that women are always on our minds is to choose a month where we talk about them.
We have been talking about women throughout this House. We have been talking about their issues. It was time to talk about women on the floor of the House of Representatives this very evening.
General Leave
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order this evening.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.