To obtain and direct the placement in the Capitol or on the Capitol Grounds of a statue to honor Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Sandra Day O'Connor and a statue to honor Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Bill: H.R.4814 | Sponsor: Rep. Frankel, Lois (D-FL)
Policy area: Congress

Summary:
This bill requires the Joint Committee on the Library to obtain, and the Architect of the Capitol to permanently install in the U.S. Capitol or on the U.S. Capitol Grounds, statues honoring Associate Justices of the Supreme Court Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

To obtain and direct the placement in the Capitol or on the Capitol 
Grounds of a statue to honor Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States Sandra Day O'Connor and a statue to honor Associate 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

    (a) Sandra Day O'Connor.--Congress finds the following:
            (1) Sandra Day O'Connor was born in 1930 in El Paso, Texas, 
        and spent her childhood on her family's isolated Arizona cattle 
        ranch. She lived with her grandmother in El Paso during the 
        school year, away from her home and parents.
            (2) O'Connor matriculated to Stanford University at the age 
        of 16, and combined her undergraduate and law school curricula, 
        graduating with a bachelor's degree in economics and a law 
        degree in just 6 years. She was third in her law school class, 
        behind William Rehnquist, her future colleague on the Supreme 
        Court of the United States (in this section referred to as the 
        ``Supreme Court'').
            (3) Despite her qualifications, O'Connor could not find 
        work as an attorney because of bias against women in the law. 
        She ended up negotiating for an unpaid position in the San 
        Mateo County District Attorney's office at a shared desk, while 
        her husband, John, finished at Stanford Law School 1 year 
        later.
            (4) O'Connor traveled to Frankfurt, Germany, in 1954 with 
        her husband John, who had joined the United States Army Judge 
        Advocate General's Corps, where she was able to find work as a 
        civilian attorney with the United States Army Quartermaster 
        Corps. In 1957, O'Connor returned to Arizona and still could 
        not find work with a traditional law firm due to her gender, so 
        she ``hung out a shingle'' as a sole practitioner.
            (5) In 1965, O'Connor was hired as an Assistant Attorney 
        General for the State of Arizona.
            (6) Active in Republican Party politics and well-received 
        for her work at the Arizona State Capitol, O'Connor was 
        appointed to an Arizona State Senate seat in 1969 when the 
        incumbent, also a woman, was appointed to a Federal position 
        and vacated the office.
            (7) In 1970, O'Connor was elected to the Arizona State 
        Senate and served 2 consecutive terms. In 1972, she was 
        selected as majority leader of the Arizona State Senate, the 
        first time a woman held such a position in any State.
            (8) In 1974, O'Connor ran for office as a trial court 
        judge. She won and was later appointed to the Arizona Court of 
        Appeals in 1979.
            (9) On August 19, 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated 
        O'Connor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, to 
        fill the seat vacated by Associate Justice Potter Stewart. On 
        September 21, 1981, the Senate confirmed O'Connor's nomination 
        by a unanimous vote, making her the first woman to serve on the 
        Supreme Court.
            (10) O'Connor established herself as a pragmatic, 
        independent voice on the Supreme Court, casting decisive votes 
        during a time when the Court was being asked to resolve 
        politically charged issues.
            (11) In the 1982 case of Mississippi University for Women 
        v. Hogan, O'Connor wrote the majority opinion holding that the 
        State could not prevent men from enrolling in an all-women's 
        nursing school, writing that laws discriminating on the basis 
        of sex would be allowed only if there was an ``exceedingly 
        persuasive justification'' for them.
            (12) O'Connor sought, when possible, to find the middle 
        ground between her often-divided colleagues, frequently joining 
        the majority decision but presenting her views in concurring 
        opinions that eschewed broad constitutional doctrine in favor 
        of resolving the cases before the Court.
            (13) O'Connor put a very public face on the role of the 
        Supreme Court, domestically and around the world. She became 
        the Court's most prolific public speaker, traveling to all 50 
        States and to countless law schools, libraries, and public 
        events to describe how the Court works and its role in our 
        constitutional form of government. She traveled worldwide as an 
        ambassador for the Rule of Law and the independence of 
        judiciaries everywhere.
            (14) After 24 years on the Supreme Court, O'Connor 
        announced her retirement to care for her ailing husband, who 
        had Alzheimer's disease. President George W. Bush nominated 
        John Roberts, Jr. for the vacancy, but before Roberts was 
        confirmed, Chief Justice Rehnquist passed away, creating a 
        second vacancy. President Bush personally appealed to O'Connor 
        to remain on the Court so he could nominate Roberts for the 
        Chief Justice vacancy and have more time to make a second 
        nomination to the Court. In yet another act of public service, 
        O'Connor agreed to serve until Samuel Alito was confirmed to 
        fill her seat on January 31, 2006.
            (15) O'Connor began her retirement with 2 goals. One was to 
        convince more States to adopt merit selection of judges for 
        filling vacancies in State courts. The second was to educate 
        the public on the importance of an independent judiciary. Her 
        judicial independence work led to her awareness of a national 
        civics education deficit.
            (16) In 2009, O'Connor created iCivics.org to educate young 
        Americans about civics and what it means to be a citizen. That 
        endeavor grew to become the largest civics education platform 
        in the country, with over 7,000,000 students annually enrolling 
        in the programs. Its popularity was due to a captivating 
        online, interactive gaming approach. The program was free to 
        all and had no advertising. iCivics played a crucial role in 
        Educating for American Democracy, a federally-funded initiative 
        to improve civics and history education, which released its 
        reports in March 2021.
    (b) Ruth Bader Ginsburg.--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.
            (2) Ginsburg graduated from Cornell University in 1954, 
        finishing first in her class. Following her graduation, 
        Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1956, entering into 
        a class of 552 men and only 8 other women.
            (3) As a law student, Ginsburg became the first female 
        member of the Harvard Law Review, a prestigious legal journal. 
        She also cared for her husband, Martin Ginsburg, who had been 
        diagnosed with cancer, and their young daughter. Ginsburg 
        finished her legal education at Columbia Law School, where she 
        graduated first in her class in 1959.
            (4) 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.
            (5) During the 1970s, Ginsburg served as the director of 
        the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties 
        Union. In this position, she led the fight against gender 
        discrimination and successfully argued 6 landmark cases before 
        the Supreme Court.
            (6) Ginsburg won 5 cases on gender discrimination 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.
            (7) In 1980, President Jimmy Carter nominated Ginsburg to a 
        seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of 
        Columbia Circuit.
            (8) On June 22, 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated 
        Ginsburg to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, to 
        fill the seat vacated by Associate Justice Byron White. On 
        August 3, 1993, the Senate confirmed Ginsburg's nomination to 
        the Supreme Court by a 96 to 3 vote.
            (9) 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.
            (10) 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.
            (11) In 1996, Ginsburg wrote the Supreme Court's landmark 
        decision in United States v. Virginia, which held that the 
        State-supported Virginia Military Institute could not refuse to 
        admit women.
            (12) 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 interpretation of the law.
            (13) Ginsburg's impactful dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear 
        Tire & Rubber Co. led to the successful passage of the Lilly 
        Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-2; 123 Stat. 5), 
        which was the first piece of legislation signed by President 
        Barack Obama.
            (14) 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.
            (15) Ginsburg passed away on September 18, 2020.

SEC. 2. STATUES HONORING JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR AND JUSTICE RUTH 
              BADER GINSBURG.

    (a) Obtaining of Statues.--
            (1) In general.--Not later than 2 years after the date of 
        the enactment of this Act, in consultation with the Committee 
        on House Administration of the House of Representatives and the 
        Committee on Rules and Administration of the Senate, and under 
        such terms and conditions as the Joint Committee of Congress on 
        the Library considers appropriate, consistent with applicable 
        law, the Joint Committee shall--
                    (A) enter into an agreement to obtain a statue 
                honoring Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
                United States Sandra Day O'Connor; and
                    (B) enter into an agreement to obtain a statue 
                honoring Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
                United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
            (2) Consideration.--In selecting one or more artists to 
        make the statues obtained under paragraph (1), the Joint 
        Committee of Congress 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 of Congress on the Library, shall 
permanently install each statue obtained under subsection (a) in a 
prominent location in the Capitol or on the Capitol 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 necessary to carry out this Act. Amounts 
appropriated pursuant to this subsection shall remain available until 
expended.
                                 <all>