Sen. Warren Delivers Floor Speech on Hobby Lobby, Urges Passage of "Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act"
Senator Says Hobby Lobby Decision is Another Example of Supreme Court's Pro-Corporate Tilt, Urges Colleagues to Fight Back
Video of Senator Warren's Remarks Available Here
Text of Senator Warren's Remarks Available Here
Washington, DC - In a speech delivered on the floor of the United States Senate Tuesday evening, Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke about the destructive consequences of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, and urged the Senate to pass the Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act to restore basic health care services for women across the country.
"I cannot believe that we are even having a debate about whether employers can deny women access to birth control," Senator Warren said. "Guys, this is 2014, not 1914. Most Americans thought this was settled long, long ago. But for some reason, Republicans keep dragging us back here - over and over and over again." Senator Warren noted that the Hobby Lobby decision is the latest battle in an all-out Republican assault on women's access to basic health care.
Calling the Hobby Lobby decision "stunning, but not entirely surprising," Senator Warren cited data showing that the Hobby Lobby case is just the most recent example of a major pro-corporate tilt on the Supreme Court. Three well-respected legal scholars examined 2,000 Supreme Court cases from the last sixty-five years and concluded that the five conservative justices on the court today are all in the top ten most pro-corporate justices in that time - with Justices Alito and Roberts at numbers one and two. "So it's no surprise that those five Justices banded together in the Hobby Lobby case to decide that corporations have more rights than the women who work for them."
Warren urged her colleagues to fight back against the corporate effort to rig the federal courts "by appointing judges who are fair, judges who are impartial, and judges who won't show up on any top ten lists" for consistently favoring big business.
She also urged her colleagues to pass the Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act, which would reverse the Hobby Lobby case and prevent ordinary employers from ignoring the law refusing to provide access to basic health benefits that are legally required. "I have a daughter. I have granddaughters. And I will never stop fighting the efforts of backward-looking ideologues who want to cut women's access to birth control," she said. "We've lived in that world, and we are not going back."
###
Next Article
