Pay Equity – Setting the Record Straight

Rather than joining with us to find a solution to the economic inequity facing women in the workplace today, the opponents of the Paycheck Fairness Act are now falsely and personally attacking its champions.  

As others have already shown, the recent claim in the right-wing press about my staff salaries is absolutely false. 

Equal pay for equal work not only is what I believe in, but it governs all my decisions on hiring and promotions – and is evident by any accurate analysis.  

In the U.S. Senate, only a quarter of chiefs of staff, Democrats and Republicans, are women. I not only have a female chief of staff, but for my entire 20-year career in the Senate, the top staffer in my Washington office has always been a woman. In the U.S. Senate, only a quarter of committee staff directors, Democrats and Republicans, are women.  

During my entire time as ranking member and now chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, my staff director and chief counsel has been a woman. During my tenure in the U.S. Senate, I have had two state directors—one woman and one man—and currently my two Deputy State Directors and my Director of State Operations are all women.  

I am the second highest-ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. My entire foreign and military policy team of five staff members – which includes an Army fellow and a State Department fellow—are all women.  

• I have run for the U.S. Senate four times, and in every election, my campaign manager has been a woman.  
• Pay equity is about ensuring equal pay for equal work. That means that two people, regardless of gender, with the same qualifications and the same job should get paid the same salary. And that’s what we do in our office, at every level. Here are just a few examples:  
• We have six men and women, most of whom have recently graduated college, answering the phones in DC and our largest California offices. They all have the same salaries and their supervisors are all women. 
• We have four legislative correspondents, three women and one man, all earning the same salary. Their supervisor is a woman. 
• We have five legislative assistants and senior legislative assistants, all but one of whom is a woman. Based on seniority, the women earn the highest salaries. • We have two senior legislative advisors, one man and one woman—they earn the same salary.  
• Our current legislative director is a man and his predecessor was a woman; both were paid the same. 

It is time to end the distractions and distortions and focus on the real issue – making sure that equal pay for equal work is the law of the land and the reality for women across America.