“Tomorrow, we celebrate Women’s Equality Day, which commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing women the right to vote.  We remember the courage and sacrifice of women such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Jeanette Rankin.  We saw their spirit in women such as our former colleague, the late Bella Abzug, who introduced the legislation commemorating this day.

“In July, we honored the memory of the suffragists and their sisters Coretta Scott King, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Rosa Parks, when a strong bipartisan majority in the House and Senate reauthorized the landmark Voting Rights Act, protecting and strengthening the right to vote for all Americans.

“But we must also honor women throughout this country who are working every day to provide for their families.  These include the more than half of American women over age 65 who would be living below the poverty line without their Social Security benefits; the women who are paying more than $3 per gallon at the pump to get to work and take their children to school; the more than 19 million women enrolled in Medicare, many of whom are confused about their drug benefit; and the women who do not believe that our country has been made any safer for their children since the devastation of September 11.  We also salute the nearly 10 million women who are attending degree-granting institutions to expand opportunity for themselves and their families, and the women who are trying to support their families on the minimum wage.

“When we speak of equality, we also need to consider equality in representation. Women are still only 14 percent of the House of Representatives and 14 percent of the Senate. We are only 4 percent of the nation’s CEOs. We need more seats at the table.

“We need a new direction for women in America, one that offers them true equality of opportunity. Democrats have a plan for better American jobs and higher pay, for more affordable higher education, for greater access to quality health care, for greater retirement security, for lower gas prices, and for real security at home and abroad.”