Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009

Floor Speech

LILLY LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT OF 2009 -- (House of Representatives - January 27, 2009)

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the chairman, I thank the ranking member, I thank the United States Senate for passing this bill.

I am proud that this is the very first bill that we passed in this House in the 111th Congress. Lilly Ledbetter is a woman of courage, leadership, and my daughters owe her a debt of gratitude.

In passing that bill, we recognized that sexism and discrimination can still cheat women out of equal pay and equal worth, a theft of livelihood and dignity that is especially damaging as families across our country struggle to pay their bills, as if somehow a single mom raising children could do it more cheaply than a single dad raising those same children.

That didn't make any sense then or now. Within my lifetime, sexism in the workplace could be blatant and unashamed, but today it does some of its worst work in secret.

We can take a stand against it by voting for final passage today. It was secret sexism that cheated Lilly Ledbetter out of the thousands of dollars for years. And we repeat her story, not because it is unique and shocking, but because it's typical, typical of the experience of so many American women, indeed, women all over the world.

Ms. Ledbetter was a supervisor at a tire plant. For years she was paid less than her male coworkers, but she was paid a differential in secret. Her employer didn't tell her I am going to pay you less than I pay your male counterparts who do exactly the same work. For years, she was left in the dark, and by the time she finally saw the proof, the Supreme Court said it was too late. Ironic.

I will tell you on assault there may be in some States no statute of limitations and others there may be a statute of limitations. Essentially, what happens here, if they keep hitting you, and they keep hitting you month after month after month, it's not the last hit that counted, it's the first hit that counted. And you couldn't sue for that, what we would call, we lawyers, tortious conduct, others would call criminal conduct.

But there was no responsibility that Lilly Ledbetter could get from the employer for wrongdoing, for breaking the law. There was no dispute that the law was broken. It was simply that it was broken in secret. And so Lilly Ledbetter had to suffer in public.

The Supreme Court ruled that even though Ms. Ledbetter had suffered clear discrimination, the law had been broken. She had missed the time in which to raise the issue. How perverse, in a nation of laws, of justice, of equity, that we would say they broke the law in secret, and you didn't know it, and you couldn't find it out and, therefore, we will not redress your recognized grievance.

Ladies and gentlemen of the House, this is the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do, not just for Lilly Ledbetter, not just for women, it's the right thing to do because our country believes in fairness, in equity, that we are a nation of laws and treat people equally under those laws. That is why it's so appropriate for us to pass this bill today and send it to the President, who will sign it proudly. All of us who vote for it and see its enactment will be proud as well.

I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

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