Senate

Since HR 358 passed the House of Representatives back in October, we’ve heard from a few of our supporters in the states. These advocates have been alerting us that their legislators just don’t get it. They fail to understand what this dangerous piece of legislation would do and they don’t understand why our advocates are opposed to it (hint: because it is dangerous, you know, and women could die as result of its passage).

The thing we learned from looking at the responses from the offices of Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) and Representative Chris Gibson (R-NY) is that they’re okay being out of touch with their constituents.  In fact, they’re ok not even acknowledging that are taking positions opposed by their constituents. Neither legislator addressed the concerns our advocates raised about this harmful legislation, instead just assuming that the constituents contacting them on this issue were in agreement with their anti-choice stance. Failing to meaningfully respond to the constituents’ concerns is worrisome considering the significant impact HR 358 would have on women and their families. Read more »

Today the Senate HELP Committee held a “roundtable” on the proposed Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that was voted out of committee two weeks ago. The roundtable came about as a result of some procedural wrangling by Sen. Rand Paul, who continues to call for greater “flexibility” for states. Today’s ESEA takeaway came from Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference, who once and for all addressed the argument that states should be the absolute arbiters of education reform. Henderson explained that the Supreme Court studied this “states’ rights” approach to public education and “found it deeply wanting and, in fact, offensive to the Constitution.” In short – for years “flexibility” meant that states bent backwards to avoid educating the kids who need it most – including children of color, poor kids, and students with disabilities. Read more »

Twenty years ago, Anita Hill sat down in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and detailed how her former supervisor repeatedly made a series of vulgar advances and regularly turned professional conversations into sex-tinged talk of pornography and physical anatomy. As a result, Professor Hill was eviscerated in the Senate and in the press, where people derided her as humorless, a perjurer and (get ready for the real humdinger) as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.” Anyone who actually watched Professor Hill testify was shocked by the disparity between her manner (cool, collected, humble) and the way she was spoken about in the press (vindictive, disingenuous, trampy). Books were published maligning her good name. One book in particular, The Real Anita Hill, received a substantial amount of press. But when the author’s later recanted and apologized for the copious lies contained in the book, there was much less of an uproar. Anita Hill was asked, on the floor of the United States Senate, if she was simply a “spurned woman” out for revenge. She received death threats and her job was threatened. At the time, Clarence Thomas categorically denied every one of the allegations despite the fact that he did not actually listen to Anita Hill’s testimony.

We know now that there were other women who worked for Thomas that were prepared to testify and corroborate Hill’s story – but the chairman of the committee, then Senator Joe Biden, declined to call any of them to the stand. Other colleagues came forward and offered to testify about Thomas' long-standing interest in pornography, but Biden declined to call them as well. Because the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to call most of the most pertinent witnesses, at the time the country was left with an incomplete picture. But over the years, the image has been filled in and today there is consensus that “virtually all the evidence that has emerged since the hearings corroborates Hill’s version of events.”

But fast forward twenty years and there are now political ads out that imply that Professor Hill’s accusations were nothing more than a smear campaign. No wonder Herman Cain’s accuser says she doesn’t want to come forward because she doesn’t want to be another Anita Hill; it is still not safe for women to publicly make an allegation of sexual harassment. Read more »

Today’s jobs data brought surprising news – not only did women gain jobs, they actually gained most of the jobs added to the economy in October. However, our analysis shows that the news isn’t all good – overall unemployment was 9.0 percent and women’s unemployment dropped by just 0.1 percentage points to 8.0 percent, still higher than the 7.7 percent unemployment they had at the beginning of the recovery.  In fact, since the official start of the recovery in June 2009, women have actually lost 117,000 jobs, despite the fact that the economy added more than 1.0 million jobs during that time.

The data show that the job market remains bleak.  The unemployment rate overall hardly dropped, nearly 14 million Americans are officially unemployed, and millions more are underemployed or have given up on finding work. Despite these numbers, just yesterday, the Senate blocked yet another jobs bill, the Rebuild America Jobs Act, which would have created hundreds of thousands of jobs. This bill was just one of three blocked in the last month by the Senate, which also blocked the American Jobs Act and another of its components, the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act. Read more »

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) tried to get the Senate to consider another component of the American Jobs Act. The Rebuild America Jobs Act would create hundreds of thousands of jobs by investing $50 billion to repair and upgrade our highways, bridges, rail systems and airports, with $50 million dedicated to enhancing access to those job opportunities for women, people of color, and disadvantaged individuals. It would also provide $10 billion for a National Infrastructure Bank to finance additional improvements in water, energy and transportation infrastructure. It would be fully paid for by a surtax of 0.1 percent on income above $1 million.

But – as you’ve probably guessed – it was filibustered, just like the comprehensive American Jobs Act and another of its components, the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act.   Read more »

Monday, the Senate confirmed Stephen Higginson to a judicial emergency seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana, by a vote of 88-0. Read more »

This Wednesday, November 2^nd, two subcommittees of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Senator Boxer and Senator Casey, are holding a hearing on “Women and the Arab Spring: Spotlight on Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.” The hearing will examine the critical role women have played in the Arab Spring, how they can continue to participate as these countries establish new governments, and what the United States can do to be supportive.

One key way for the U.S to show its support for these women’s efforts is for the Senate to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a comprehensive women’s human rights treaty. One of CEDAW’s primary goals is to ensure that women are able to exercise the full rights of citizenship and emerge as leaders in their own societies. The United States is one of only six countries that have not yet ratified the treaty, putting it in the company of Iran, Somalia, Sudan and two small Pacific Islands. In many of the 187 countries that have ratified CEDAW, it has been used to reduce sex trafficking and domestic abuse; provide access to education and vocational training; ensure the right to vote; ensure the ability to work and own a business without discrimination; ensure inheritance rights; improve maternal health; and end forced marriage and child marriage. Read more »

Last week, Senate Republicans and two Democrats voted to block debate of the full American Jobs Act, even though 14 million Americans – 9.1 percent – are still looking for work. Now, the Obama Administration and Senator Harry Reid are looking to take up the Jobs Act one piece at a time to tackle our nation’s jobs deficit.

First up on the agenda is the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act. It’s a part of the American Jobs Act that particularly helps women, and it couldn’t have come sooner. Since the recovery began in June 2009, women have lost 264,000 jobs while men have gained 1.1 million jobs. The job-hemorrhaging public sector is primarily to blame for women’s dismal employment picture.

Local government education, a field which is three quarters women, lost more than 255,000 jobs since June 2009. So the $30 billion the Senate bill would provide to protect or create about 400,000 education jobs would be a boon to women’s employment, families’ economic security, and children’s education. Read more »

Yesterday evening, the Senate confirmed Cathy Bissoon to the Western District of Pennsylvania by a vote of 82-3. Judge Bissoon will be the first Hispanic woman to sit on this court. She is the ninth woman (and 11th judge) confirmed to the federal bench thus far in October, and the 54th woman confirmed during the Obama Administration.  All of which is terrific news, but news like this needs to keep on coming to make a real difference -- unfortunately, although women make up half the population and, for almost twenty years, close to half of law students, only a third of federal judges are women, and many, many fewer are women of color. We can do better. 

Likewise, it's encouraging that the Senate has taken action on eleven nominees this month, but with the number of judicial vacancies hovering around 90 (for a vacancy rate of almost 11 percent) there is still a long way to go. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service determined that we are in the longest period of historically high vacancy rates in 35 years. And with 33 of the existing vacancies designated "judicial emergencies," more than 188 million people are living in a jurisdiction that has been declared a judicial emergency. Without enough judges to hear cases, people around the country are waiting for justice. As Senator Patrick Leahy said on the floor yesterday evening, the nominees who are currently pending on the floor would, if confirmed, serve about 170 million people in as many as 25 states. Read more »

The end of another week is upon us. It’s been testing at times, that’s for sure, but I promise that within this roundup are some encouraging stories mixed in with the not-so-happy ones. After the jump, more on National Coming Out Day, reflections on Anita Hill, the continued post-H.R. 358 onslaught, changing times in the UK, everyone’s favorite football-playing Homecoming Queen, and some awesome friendship in Congress. Read more »