Remarks of Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney Upon Receiving the Edith I. Spivack Award May 1, Women in Politics 2006

Transcription

1 1 Remarks of Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney Upon Receiving the Edith I. Spivack Award May 1, 2006 Women in Politics 2006 I want to thank NYCLA's Women's Rights Committee and its co-chairs, Marcia Goffin and Judge Eileen Rakover, for giving me this award. It is an honor to receive an award named after a woman as remarkable, accomplished and determined as Edith Spivack. A pioneer for women in both the legal profession and in municipal government, she became a living institution and a fixture in the Corporation Counsel s office. The city s first female lawyer, she served every mayor from Fiorello LaGuardia to Michael Bloomberg as a tough and effective advocate. To cite Ed Koch, When I was mayor, the toughest lawyer representing the City was Edith Spivack. What a woman... what a lawyer! Indeed, all women in New York City, and all women lawyers everywhere, owe Edith Spivack a tremendous debt of gratitude. You cannot talk about Women in Politics: 2006 without having a sense of how far we've come. When I graduated college in 1968, few women imagined politics or government as a career we had no role models: The landscape was bleak: There were only 11 women in the House and one in the Senate and most of these women were widows elected to replace their husbands. The first woman to run successfully for the Senate without having followed her husband into politics was Nancy Kassenbaum of Kansas in In 1993 it went from four in the Senate to seven and 30 in the House to 48. Today, there are 14 women in the Senate and 65 in the House strong gains, but nowhere near parity. There were, of course, no women on the Supreme Court of the United States in The first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O Connor was appointed in 1981 and for a few brief years we actually had two women, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined her. In 1968, Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, was only woman in the world elected to serve as a head of state; today there are ten. In 1968, Minerva Bernardino, the pioneering feminist from the Dominican Republic, was the only woman serving as a U.N. Ambassador; today, there are eighteen. In the late 60s, America had a total of three women ambassadors and female foreign service officers were forced to resign once they married! Today, there are 42 women serving America as ambassadors. The fourth estate was no better. This was the time of the Girls in the Balcony female journalists were forced to cover major speeches of world leaders from the balcony of the National Press Club. They stood, crowded together, not even offered a crust of bread, while male journalists were seated at tables on the ballroom floor, enjoying four course meals as the luminaries of the day made speeches. Four decades ago, women's voices were said to lack the requisite authority to deliver hard news. Although Barbara Walters was a true pioneer, no woman served as the sole anchor of a major national news broadcast; this year, in September, Katie Couric will assume the helm at the CBS Evening News. Change didn t happen easily -- but the gains we have made began with an explosion of legislation

2 thanks to the civil rights movement. It was hoped that these new laws would eliminate the barriers that kept women from succeeding: 2 In 1963, President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act making it illegal to pay women performing the same job as men lower rates strictly on the basis of their sex. In 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in the workplace. Affirmative action was born in 1965, when President Johnson issued an Executive Order that requires federal contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Notice who's missing from that list? Women argued that they too had suffered generations of discrimination and deserved a place at the table. In 1967, Johnson expanded the Executive Order to cover women was a banner year: Congress enacted Title IX, to require equality in education which has opened the door for women athletes and made it possible for women to compete for sports scholarships; the Equal Employment Opportunity Act gave the EEOC enforcement authority; and the ERA was sent to the states for ratification. In 1973 Roe v. Wade guaranteed women abortion rights. Other bills prohibited discrimination on the basis of pregnancy in credit and housing. Courts ruled that women couldn t be excluded from jury pools and that men did not have primary say over marital property. But since the '70s, we've stalled out. The Equal Rights Amendment failed to win ratification by the deadline in and to some extent we ve been treading water ever since. Women have made small gains -- but the sea change everyone hoped for hasn t materialized. For a brief period after I was elected to Congress in 1992, along with the largest cohort of women ever - nearly doubling the number of women members - long-stalled legislation to help women started to move. In that first year we passed the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Violence Against Women Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and the Gender Equity in Education Act to train teachers and promote math and science learning by girls. All told, the 103 rd Congress passed into law 30 bills on women's issues during our first year, 33 during the second. The previous record for any year was five. All that vitality helped bring about a backlash. In 1994 the Republicans took back the House and they have been more likely to roll back programs to benefit women than to expand them. Since 1994, we have done remarkably little as a society to make it easier for women to work. There is no paid leave; no accessible, affordable child care; a tax system created in the 1950s that penalizes a married couple s second salary. Taxes on second earners are high. When you add the costs of working outside the home, it discourages many women from working. Nonetheless, our economy has increasingly become one in which families cannot survive without that second salary: 12 million children under the age of five are in some form of day care. But the cost of child care is forcing families to make uncomfortable choices. A couple weeks ago, USA Today reported that day care, preschools and nannies now consume so much of our incomes that working parents are basing major decisions about their jobs and families on how much child care they can afford. Single parents in New York spend more than 40% of their income on child care. We are, unsurprisingly, the most expensive state in the nation when it comes to child care. But child care costs are only minimally deductible whereas business executives can deduct 100% of their entertainment expenses. It was recently reported that an executive deducted $250,000 for business expenses at Scores, the notorious strip club!

3 3 As we all know, women remain a disproportionately tiny percentage of top decision makers in government, as well as in virtually every field. Study after study shows that high-clout positions, such as corporate CEO s and law firm partnerships, continue to be held overwhelmingly by men. I truly believe an Equal Rights Amendment will make a huge difference. That s why I have re-introduced it in the House as lead sponsor in every Congress since Pat Schroeder retired. (It currently has 185 cosponsors and would undoubtedly pass if it ever came to the floor). My colleague John Dingell and I commissioned two General Accounting Office studies that document the persistence of the glass ceiling. You can find them on my Congressional website at maloney.house.gov. These studies are titled A New Look Through the Glass Ceiling: Where are the Women, issued in October 2001 and Is the Glass Ceiling a Permanent Fixture?, published in November Both showed that the wage gap is present, persistent and if anything growing. In 2001, we studied men and women managers in ten fields that employ three quarters of all women. These are people who chose to take responsibility who are at the top of their professions. They aren t entry-level or unskilled workers. And in these management positions, women are earning substantially less than men. Even more startling: between 1995 and 2000, a time of great prosperity, women actually lost ground. We didn t spread the wealth - we grew the disparity. The usual conservative pundits started arguing that there's no glass ceiling women just choose to take themselves out of the workforce, or take on fewer hours, or assume less challenging jobs. So, Representative Dingell and I asked GAO to do a follow up study. It found that, if you factor out all of those personal choices women have been paid 80 cents on the dollar for the last 20 years a number that has stayed absolutely constant for that entire period. If anything, in 2002 women were actually paid a slightly lower percentage compared to their male counterparts than they had been in The GAO gave no reason for the stagnation but pointed out one possibility that could account for the difference: discrimination. The area in which the Republican control of Congress and the Presidency has been most devastating has been in terms of reproductive health care. When the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994 and started rolling back women's reproductive rights, I started keeping a scorecard. It's also available on my website if you want to have a look. There have been over 214 votes on issues involving the right to choose since 1994, and 182 that s 85 percent of them have had an anti-choice outcome. For example, Congress passed a law that prohibits hospitals on military bases from providing abortions. That's OK if you're stationed in Germany you can go to a German hospital but what do you do if you're serving in Afghanistan? The first act of the Bush administration of all things was to reinstate the infamous Global Gag Rule. As a result, family planning counselors abroad who are funded by the U.S. government are not allowed even to tell their clients about the option of having an abortion. It would be unconstitutional here in America and it is unconscionable abroad. In drugstore after drugstore across the country, pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control. That's why I've introduced legislation, known as Alpha for short, to require pharmacists to fill legally written prescriptions. In a similar vein, the FDA has overruled the determination of its own scientists by refusing to grant overthe-counter status to Plan B the so-called morning-after pill. I have introduced legislation requiring the FDA to follow the findings of science in determining the availability of safe and medically effective drugs. But the most appalling and frightening thing is this is clearly just the tip of the iceberg there s worse coming. President Bush won t even affirm that he supports the use of birth control. I have written to him twice, and never gotten an answer, and I ve had reporters ask the question seven times at press conferences, and they can t get a straight answer, either.

4 4 Some reproductive rights advocates fear that the next wave of conservative legislation in the states will be an effort to restrict access to birth control; that there will be conscience-clause legislation to allow pharmacies and medical providers to refuse to write or fill prescriptions, and even bills to restrict young people s access to birth control. This brings me back more directly to our theme: Women in Politics It s clear that women need to be out there talking about the issues we care about. Our issues and our concerns are often being left out of the political dialogue. During the Kerry campaign, we kept talking about the need to hear the candidate define a real platform on issues of particular importance to women. It s coming, we were told: just wait. And then we heard that a great announcement was forthcoming. The Democratic nominee s program on women s issues is being unveiled. So I was excited to find out - what s his message to women? It was clear from all the polls that women really could make the difference -- Gore would have won states he needed if more registered women, in particular single and working-class women, had come out to vote. Surely, Kerry couldn t take us for granted he d have to do something to reach out to women. What would he do to attract women, I wondered. Universal child care? End the marriage penalty? Paid family leave? No: his great message to women was: every woman should bring five other women to the polls. Is it any wonder he lost? So we have to do better in This year has the potential to be one of the most interesting election seasons in recent memory. For the first time in over a decade, it feels as if change is in the air. The President s polls are sinking (Bush had a 32% approval rating at the beginning of last week, his lowest ever). Opinion polls suggest that the public is leaning toward a change of leadership in Congress. Scandals, problems in Iraq, the failed response to Katrina, soaring gas prices, deficits out of control the Republicans have a lot to answer for. Of course, the challenger party my party won t just win elections by default. It s very hard to unseat an incumbent believe me, I should know, because I m the Member of the New York City congressional delegation who last did so, and that was 14 years ago. Very few Congressional seats are actually in play, so it will be an uphill battle for the Democrats. At this point, it s entirely too early to tell just how many women will be serious contenders this year. Most primaries are yet to come. A recent snapshot of the potential field of women candidates showed that up to 19 women are likely to run in the 33 Senate races, 188 could run for the House and 18 are potential candidates for governor among the 36 states holding elections this year. New York may be a pivotal state -- so many of us are so fed up with Republican rule that longstanding Republican areas are starting to fall into Democratic hands. Bloomberg News Radio reported recently that as many as six of the seats needed to turn the House Democratic could come from New York State. That s one-third of the number to flip the House. In my own district, when I first ran for Congress, nearly ever legislative district, including the Congressional seat, was represented by a Republican. Today, the entire district is Democratic. One of the most promising candidates in New York State this year is a woman, Kirsten Gillibrand, who is challenging Representative John Sweeney. She s got the money and the charisma to run a strong race. Judith Aydelotte will take on Sue Kelly. She s raising money well and George Soros is giving her a

5 fundraiser, but she ll probably have to survive a primary. 5 There s also a woman, Paloma Capanna, who is a long shot to win the primary to face off against James Walsh. She s raised a fair amount of money, but there s another more experienced Democratic candidate who has raised roughly twice what she has. Elsewhere in the country there are some interesting races featuring women. In Pennsylvania, Lois Murphy is once again challenging incumbent Representative Jim Gerlach after losing a close race in She outraised Gerlach in the first quarter by more than two hundred thousand dollars. In Illinois, Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who sustained serious injuries during her military service, is running for the seat left open by the retirement of Representative Henry Hyde. And we shouldn t forget that Republicans are also running interesting women last season we saw some tough Republican women take seats that Democrats had a chance to win. We won t know until November if 2006 will end the Republican s one-party rule, or whether women will turn the tide. I do know that we have every reason to be out there trying. As Eleanor Roosevelt said: It s up to the women.