Congress

They're at it again. I'm sure you remember the feverish news cycle — federal unemployment insurance (UI) benefits were set to expire right before the holidays in December. House Republicans passed a bill that would slash the UI safety net (and more). At the last minute, Congress agreed to continue federal UI benefits for two months. But that extension expires in less than a month. We need your help to prevent millions of unemployed workers from losing the lifeline of UI benefits.

Tell Congress: Fully Renew Unemployment Insurance for 2012 — no cuts, no barriers to benefits!

The House Republican leadership is still pushing to dismantle UI, with drastic benefit cuts and new barriers that would prevent many jobless workers from accessing these vital benefits. Read more »

Anti-abortion advocates were in rare form during the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing on H.R. 3541, the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011 ("PRENDA"). The bill would criminalize race and sex selective abortions. Throughout the hearing pro-PRENDA committee members shamelessly misappropriated and exploited civil rights and women's rights history in their crusade to rebrand their "anti-choice" agenda as a "civil rights" agenda. But this proved to be no easy task for pro-PRENDA committee members who unfortunately lacked knowledge of and respect for civil rights and women's rights. This led to several major offenses that outraged the civil rights community. And it revealed these committee members' true colors, exposing PRENDA for what it really is — just another attempt to turn back the clock on women's access to safe, legal abortion care.  

Offense #1: Misappropriating the Names of Susan B. Anthony and Fredrick Douglass

It is not uncommon for legislators to name bills after people who, either through influence or personal advocacy, have a special connection to the legislation. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which extends the federal hate crimes law to cover crimes based on perceived sexual orientation and disability, was named after two men who were victims of hate crimes. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, an act that combats pay discrimination against women, was named after the woman who had the courage and stamina to challenge the pay discrimination she had faced for almost two decades. Read more »

I’m very happy to report that millions of jobless workers and their families can rest a little easier over the holidays. Last night, House Republican leadership agreed to move forward with a two-month extension of federal emergency unemployment insurance (UI) and other measures, like the payroll tax cut, that were set to expire December 31. This morning, Congress approved a slightly modified version of the extension that the Senate passed 89-10 last Saturday, ending the standoff that began when House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced Sunday that the House intended to reject the Senate bill. President Obama is expected to sign the bill shortly.    Read more »

On December 6, 2011, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on H.R. 3541, the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011 (“PRENDA”).  The bill would criminalize race and sex selective abortions. According to the sponsors of the bill, it addresses the disproportionality high rate of abortions among black women and combats abortions performed in the name of son preference in some Asian communities.

Now, it is no surprise that the attacks on women’s reproductive rights continue unabated. But what’s unique (and absurd) about this particular attack is the way those opposed to women’s reproductive rights are shamelessly misappropriating civil right language and history in an attempt to bolster the legitimacy of their assault on women and to distract us from their true intentions. This absurdity was in full display in last week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on PRENDA.

Throughout the hearing, women’s rights advocates, including many women of color, watched in amazement and disbelief as many committee members who have historically ignored their needs tried to convince the public (and possibly themselves) that they were the true champions of civil rights and women’s rights. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona), the chairman of the committee and sponsor of the bill, led this charge, opening the hearing with a distorted version of our country’s civil rights history and deceptively invoking civil rights icons and civil rights activism for his own misguided purposes. (For more on this brazen misappropriation of civil rights history, stay tuned for part 2 of this blog.) Read more »

No one likes a Grinch. Especially this time of year.

With overwhelming bipartisan support, the Senate just passed a bill temporarily extending federal unemployment insurance programs that expire on December 31. But now, House Republican leaders are threatening to kill the bill, cutting off this vital support for millions of struggling families. Read more »

As the House and Senate sort out the final details of the final appropriations bill, it looks like there are not many surprises. Which is both great and bad news. Read more »

The deadline to extend federal unemployment benefits (UI) is rapidly approaching, but it is still not clear when Congress will get around to addressing this extremely critical issue. Meanwhile, some Members of Congress have indicated that they would vote against a bill to extend UI unless it changes the funding structure to let states use more money on non-benefit spending , meaning that money that should be dedicated to paying benefits can be used for paying back deficits, cutting employer taxes, and for other purposes.

That’s bad enough, but the justification offered for seeking this change in the UI funding structure is even more frustrating: The current structure, in the words of Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), “[is] discouraging people who can go back to work from going to work … [T]he program needs to be reformed to encourage people to get off it instead of encouraging them to stay on it.” It doesn’t take much to get what Senator DeMint is implying – that UI recipients are lazy, unmotivated, and would rather depend on government benefits for as long as possible than go back to work. As Senator Franken (D-MN) put it at today’s Senate hearing on long-term unemployment, this characterization is “offensive.”

Recent research has shown that claims that unemployment benefits discourage recipients from seeking jobs are exaggerated and that UI recipients are more proactive than non-recipients in looking for work. If that isn’t enough to debunk claims like Senator DeMint’s, the testimony at today’s hearing of Donna Stebbins, a long-term unemployed worker from Phoenix, really puts the lie to the notion that recipients of unemployment benefits are unmotivated:

Donna began her working life at age fourteen, when she began working summer jobs to earn spending money. Since that time, she and her husband Rick have done everything right. They paid their mortgage, put money away for retirement in a 401(k), and provided for their daughters. In April 2010 Donna was laid off and has been unable to find work. Read more »

Congressional coverage this week has focused on the continuing debate in the super-committee and the just-passed spending bill that counts tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable in school lunches. It’s hardly a wonder that Congress’s recent approval ratings have been as low as 9 percent; more people approve of turning the U.S. into a communist country than approve of the job Congress is doing.

But there really are Members of Congress who are trying to do the right thing for the country – like helping the nearly 14 million women and men who are unemployed. Last week, I wrote about the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act, which would maintain vital federal unemployment benefits for workers who have been unemployed for more than six months. And this week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the Pathways Back to Work Act (S. 1861), a bill that would create employment and training opportunities for jobless workers, including those who have exhausted UI benefits or who have insufficient work experience or earnings to qualify for UI. (Rep. George Miller has introduced a similar bill, H.R. 3425, in the House.)

The $5 billion Pathways Back to Work Fund established by the bill includes: Read more »

Yesterday, Speaker Boehner and his allies in the House of Representatives acted shamefully: they passed H.R. 358, a dangerous bill that would undermine women's health and even put women's lives at risk. As we told you earlier this week, H.R. 358 is so extreme that some women facing pregnancy complications could die as a result.

The bill is not expected to pass the Senate, and President Obama has promised to veto it even if it does, but this vote was more than symbolic — these provisions are likely to surface again, either as standalone legislation or as amendments to other bills.

Put your Member of Congress on notice. Find out how she or he voted, and let's express our thanks to those champions who stood up for women's health and make clear our disappointment with the others. Read more »

The contrast couldn’t be more striking.

Today, the Senate is expected to address the most urgent deficit facing this country: the jobs deficit. Senators will vote tonight on the President’s plan to put people back to work and get the economy moving again. The plan would keep teachers and first responders on the job, invest in rebuilding our nation's infrastructure, provide job training, create incentives to hire the long-term unemployed, provide help for disadvantaged workers, extend emergency unemployment benefits, and prohibit discrimination against jobless workers.   Read more »