Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I appreciate so much the comments of my colleague from Arizona on the challenges inherent in getting our budget under control. I particularly appreciated over the last few days the conversation we have had about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

I would like to say that the Senator from Arizona has brought particular value in expressing concerns about how we make sure businesses have the guidance they will need to implement this act effectively, particularly as this act embraces an area--that is, transgender discrimination--that was not part of the act considered in the House of Representatives.

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I look forward to that conversation as well. The State of Wisconsin was one of the first or maybe the first in the Nation to bring an end to workplace discrimination. Oregon has a fully inclusive bill that has worked very well. We have worked out a great partnership with the businesses of Oregon in making sure there is satisfactory guidance for them. I look forward to bringing that experience into this conversation about the concerns of the Senator from Arizona. I echo the appreciation for the thoughtful dialog we have had over the past few days and look forward to future dialog as we continue to try to make this bill ending discrimination in the workplace work well for businesses across the Nation and certainly for the millions of LGBT Americans who will have the opportunity to break these chains of discrimination and more fully participate in our national economic life.

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague who preceded me who has summarized the bipartisan collaboration to bring this bill to this point that we will be voting on in just a few minutes. No one has done more than she to advance this conversation over many years. I thank the Senator from Maine for those incredible efforts on behalf of ending discrimination and advancing liberty and opportunity.

Today the Senate will vote to break the chains of discrimination that hold back millions of LGBT Americans from the full promise of liberty--liberty, that freedom to participate fully in our society, in the public square to the voting booth, to the school, to the workplace; liberty, that quality deeply rooted in our national journey and embedded in our Declaration of Independence `` ..... that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness;'' liberty, the declared mission of our Nation in the preamble to the Constitution: We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish a Constitution of the United States of America.

But the march to liberty has been long, with numerous battles along the way: the fight to end slavery that President Lincoln figured so prominently in, the fight to end racial discrimination, the fight to end gender discrimination, the fight to end discrimination against our seniors, and the fight that continues today with this bill to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Discrimination diminishes the potential of the individual and it diminishes the potential of our Nation. Senator Ted Kennedy said this succinctly when he helped introduce in 2009 a predecessor of the bill we will be voting on today. Senator Ted Kennedy said: ``The promise of America will never be fulfilled as long as justice is denied to even one among us.'' He spoke these words just 20 days before he passed away. It is appropriate to quote Ted Kennedy because he led the fight for this bill since its first introduction in 1994. I think he would be tremendously pleased with the bipartisan vote of affirmation against discrimination which we will soon be taking.

Along the course of the two decades many have helped on this bill, whose footsteps no longer echo in these Halls, and to all of those champions of liberty who have participated in this process I say thank you.

There are many champions of liberty still in this body who have been fighting toward this moment, and I wish to make sure I acknowledge them: Senator Harkin, who championed many elements, including ending discrimination against those with disabilities and who steered this bill through his committee; Senator Harry Reid and the leadership team who worked together to enable this moment in the calendar to have this debate and to advocate this bill; Senator Tammy Baldwin, who brought in energy from the House and the powerful voice of her personal experience to bear on this debate; Senator Collins, who just spoke, who has done so much for so long to make this happen, and in the first 2 years of 2009 and 2010 was the lead cosponsor. She passed the baton to Senator Kirk, who has carried that baton forward in the most admirable way. Senators MURKOWSKI and HATCH joined to help this bill come out of committee and helped create the momentum; Senators Portman, Ayotte, Heller, Toomey, and Hatch engaged to help make sure the religious exemption which we developed with the right hand is not taken away with the left hand, to reinforce the integrity of the title VII religious exemption; Senator Flake, who brought forward ideas on how to make sure the guidance would be there to help businesses understand how to implement this act.

There are a lot of coalition groups that have done a tremendous amount of work. Well done. Every conversation such as this takes advocates inside the Chamber and advocates outside the Chamber but a particular acknowledgement of the Human Rights Campaign.

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Mr. MERKLEY. There are two staff members on my team who have labored on this whom I wish to personally acknowledge: Scott Rosenthal, who carried this organizational responsibility for a number of years, and my legislative director Jeremiah Bowman, who provided over these last few months this critical organizing stage.

I look forward to this vote for liberty, this vote for freedom, this vote for opportunity, and this vote for a fairer and just America.

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