Tag: Congress

The U.S. Congress is the country’s legislative body and is made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Read stories here about elections to these bodies, the laws they introduce and the ways lawmakers shape peoples’ lives.

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Pennsylvania Elects Its First Black Woman House Speaker; Minnesota ‘Democracy Caucus’ Will Combat Election Deniers

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) launched her campaign for Debbie Stabenow’s soon-to-be-vacated seat Senate seat; a new “democracy caucus” aims to expand access to voting, part of a movement in statehouses to counter election deniers; donors have pledged an additional $55 million in funding for the Smithsonian’s proposed American Women’s History Museum; a preview of RepresentWomen’s second annual Democracy Solutions Summit; and more.

Industrial Policy Requires Care Infrastructure Investments

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The combination of the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)—all signed into law by President Biden in the past two years—will create millions of new jobs in the American economy in the months and years ahead. These new industrial policy jobs will be across energy, physical infrastructure, manufacturing, science and technology.

Building care infrastructure into industrial infrastructure is the best way to ensure that these good jobs that have been created have people to work in them. Building a care infrastructure into the new U.S. industrial policy is not only the right thing to do, but also the most strategic.

Pain and Prejudice (Winter 2018)

The very name of the illness that had so totally derailed my life sounded like a joke, as if it were nothing more than ordinary life in our too-fast age, the complaint of someone too lazy to keep up. The words stung my lips with insult: “chronic fatigue syndrome.”

Though I felt like I was suffering in my own private hell, more than a million Americans shared my fate. Worldwide, the number is estimated at between 17 and 30 million. Though the disease has been characterized as the “yuppie flu,” it is more common in poor people. It occurs in all racial groups and ages but most of us are women—around 80 percent. Hidden in these numbers is astonishing suffering. But public health agencies have treated chronic fatigue syndrome as if it were the jest the name suggests.

ICYMI, the Senate Just Held Its First ERA Hearing in 40 Years

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On Tuesday, Feb. 28, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)—the first Senate committee hearing on the ERA since 1984. At the hearing, constitutional law scholars, ERA advocates and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle made the case for enshrining equality in the U.S. Constitution, and what Congress can do to make ERA ratification a reality.

Women’s Work Is the Backbone of the U.S. Economy

We don’t say, “Behind every great man is a great woman” anymore, because women aren’t standing behind men anymore; we are care workers and caregivers leading the way to making the investments in our shared care infrastructure that we all need. Paid parental leave, higher wages for care workers, a domestic workers’ bill of rights, pay transparency and equal pay for equal work are just a few of the solutions that are long overdue.

(This essay is part of The Majority Rules project—an artful essay and op-ed series from Ms. and Supermajority Education Fund.)

Lawmaker Urges Biden to ‘Ignore’ Texas Judge Who May Order FDA to Ban Mifepristone and Abortion Pill by Mail

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a long-time advocate for access to abortion pills who held the first congressional hearings on mifepristone in 1990, is calling on the Biden administration and the FDA to defy any ruling restricting abortion pills.

“There are moments in history where Americans and their leaders must look at circumstances like this one and say, ‘Enough.’ Not ‘let’s see how the appeals process plays out,’ or ‘Let’s hope Congress can fix this down the road.’ Just, ‘Enough.’”

What Congress Should Do on the ERA

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday—the first Senate committee hearing on the ERA since 1984—constitutional law scholars will testify that Congress has full authority to amend the Constitution and that the ERA is not subject to the filibuster. These groundbreaking arguments have given new hope to lawmakers and ERA advocates that the amendment will finally be recognized.

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Virginia Sends its First Black Woman to Congress; Barbara Lee Enters California Senate Race

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: Jennifer McClellan will be the first Black woman to represent Virginia in the House of Representatives; as an older generation steps back from political positions, more younger women step up to lead;

There’s a Way to Add the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution—And We Did It

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The truth is that the ERA is very much alive today, and this terrifies anti-equality activists and columnists alike. We don’t need to start over. Like Professor Tribe said, we have met the requirements of Article V and just need the ERA to be recognized by Congress as valid. It has enormous potential to protect reproductive rights and freedom, trans rights and much more.