I 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 8380 
To obtain and direct the placement in the United States Capitol or on 
the United States Capitol Grounds of a monument to honor Associate 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 24, 2020 
Ms. FRANKEL (for herself, Ms. SPEIER, Mrs. LAWRENCE, Ms. ESCOBAR, Ms. 
HAALAND, and Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on House Administration 
A BILL 
To obtain and direct the placement in the United States 
Capitol or on the United States Capitol Grounds of a 
monument to honor Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in 1933 in 
Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in a low-income, 
working-class neighborhood. 
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(2) Ginsburg graduated from Cornell University 
in 1954, finishing first in her class. 
(3) Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law School 
in 1956, entering into a class of 552 men and only 
8 other women. 
(4) As a law student, Ginsburg became the first 
female member of the prestigious legal journal, the 
Harvard Law Review. She also cared for her hus-
band, Martin Ginsburg, who had been diagnosed 
with cancer, and their young daughter. 
(5) Ginsburg finished her legal education at Co-
lumbia Law School, where she graduated first in her 
class in 1959. 
(6) Ginsburg taught at Rutgers University Law 
School from 1963 to 1972 and at Columbia Law 
School from 1972 to 1980, where she became the 
school’s first female tenured professor. 
(7) During the 1970s, Ginsburg served as the 
director of the Women’s Rights Project of the Amer-
ican Civil Liberties Union. In this position, she led 
the fight against gender discrimination and success-
fully argued 6 landmark cases before the Supreme 
Court of the United States (in this section referred 
to as the ‘‘Supreme Court’’). 
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(8) Ginsburg won 5 cases on gender discrimina-
tion before the Supreme Court, including the case 
Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, which involved a portion 
of the Social Security Act that favored women over 
men, because the Act granted certain benefits to 
widows, but not widowers. 
(9) In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed 
Ginsburg to the United States Court of Appeals for 
the District of Columbia Circuit. 
(10) In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed 
Ginsburg to the Supreme Court to fill the seat va-
cated by Associate Justice Byron White. 
(11) On August 3, 1993, the Senate confirmed 
Ginsburg’s nomination to the Supreme Court by a 
96 to 3 vote. 
(12) Ginsburg became the second female justice 
to serve on the Supreme Court as well as the first 
Jewish female justice to serve on the Supreme 
Court. 
(13) As a justice, Ginsburg presented a strong 
voice in favor of gender equality, voting rights, the 
rights of workers, and the separation of church and 
state. 
(14) In 1996, Ginsburg wrote the Supreme 
Court’s landmark decision in United States v. Vir-
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ginia, which held that the State-supported Virginia 
Military Institute could not refuse to admit women. 
(15) Despite her reputation for restrained writ-
ing, Ginsburg gathered considerable attention for 
her dissenting opinion in Bush v. Gore by subtly 
concluding her decision with the words, ‘‘I dissent’’, 
a significant departure from the traditional ‘‘respect-
fully dissent’’. 
(16) Ginsburg famously dissented in Ledbetter 
v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., where the plaintiff, 
a female worker being paid significantly less than 
males with her same qualifications, sued under title 
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 
2000e et seq.), but was denied relief under a statute 
of limitation issue. Ginsburg broke with tradition 
and wrote a high colloquial version of her dissent to 
read from the bench. In her dissent, she also called 
for Congress to undo this improper interpretation of 
the law. 
(17) Following her dissent in Ledbetter v. 
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Ginsburg worked with 
President Barack Obama to pass the first piece of 
legislation he signed, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay 
Act of 2009 (Public Law 111–2; 123 Stat. 5). 
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(18) In 2013, when the Supreme Court ruled in 
a 5–4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder to gut the 
Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et 
seq.), Ginsburg wrote, ‘‘Throwing out preclearance 
when it has worked and is continuing to work to 
stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away 
your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not 
getting wet.’’. 
(19) Until the 2018 term, Ginsburg had not 
missed a day of oral arguments, not even when she 
was undergoing chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer, 
after surgery for colon cancer, or the day after her 
husband passed away in 2010. 
SEC. 2. MONUMENT HONORING JUSTICE RUTH BADER 
GINSBURG. 
(a) OBTAINING OF MONUMENT.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 2 years after 
the date of the enactment of this Act, and in con-
sultation with the Committee on House Administra-
tion of the House of Representatives and the Com-
mittee on Rules and Administration of the Senate, 
the Joint Committee on the Library shall enter into 
an agreement to obtain a monument honoring Asso-
ciate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States Ruth Bader Ginsburg under such terms and 
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conditions as the Joint Committee considers appro-
priate, consistent with applicable law. 
(2) CONSIDERATION.—In selecting an artist to 
make the monument obtained under paragraph (1), 
the Joint Committee on the Library shall make the 
announcement available to and consider artists from 
underrepresented demographic groups. 
(b) INSTALLATION.—The Architect of the Capitol, 
under the direction of the Joint Committee on the Library, 
shall permanently install the monument obtained under 
subsection (a) in a prominent location in the United States 
Capitol or a prominent location on the United States Cap-
itol Grounds, as described in section 5102 of title 40, 
United States Code. 
(c) AUTHORIZATION
OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There 
are authorized to be appropriated such sums as are nec-
essary to carry out this Act. Amounts appropriated pursu-
ant to this subsection shall remain available until ex-
pended. 
Æ 
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