Date: 2007-07-30
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker. let us understand something here. They can say it until the cows come home. but the fact of the matter is. this legislation restores the law to what it was before. Up until the Supreme Court made its ruling. each discriminatory check that was issued was a violation of the law. and you had 180 days from the issuance of that check when you discovered it to file a claim. This legislation would restore that law as it was. If you file that claim. if you were successful in proving your claim. you could receive up to 2 years back pay. That was the law up until the Supreme Court decision. That would be the law if we passed this legislation. Now. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said that if we pass this law. the courts will be inundated with lawsuits. The people will wait 5. 10. 15. 20 to file a lawsuit. that there will be cases where the witnesses die and memories fade and long times will expire and we wont be able to have justice. It will be a huge cost on the business community. It will change our. competitive stature in the world. It will limit economic growth. All of that from little Lilly Ledbetter. Whats the problem with that? If all of that was true. why havent my colleagues come to the floor of the House in the 12 years they controlled the House of Representatives and the United States Senate and asked to change the law? Whyhasnt the President of the United States. whos been in office for 6Y2 years. asked to change the law? Why hasnt that happened? Because none of the things you talked about happened under the previous law. It didnt change our competitiveness. They werent involved in thousands of cases. People didnt wait 40 or 50 years to get 2 years back pay. No. none of those things happened. But they want to scare people. into believing if we go back to the law as it was before the Lilly Ledbetter case and the Supreme Court overturned all of these years of laws and justice and fairness and antidiscrimination provisions. that somehow all of these terrible things would happen. but they didnt happen. and thats been the law all of these years. So. tomorrow we will get an opportunity to vote to restore the protections of every American citizen against pay discrimination. to restore justice to the workplace. to restore the right of an individual to be paid the same as those who are doing the same job for the same reasons and the same purposes. Thats what we seek. Thats all Lilly Ledbetter sought. but she couldnt get justice at the Supreme Court. No. she couldnt get it even though a jury found that that could be the situation. So weregoing to have to restore this for the people of this country. and again. well simply be restoring the law. You can tell the doomsday scenarios all day long. You can predict all of the things that are going to happen. but none of them have happened in the last 35 years. None of them have happened in the last 35 years. So at least you ought to properly represent what the law was and what the law will be. and with that. I look forward to the conclusion of the debate tomorrow.