[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 514 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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117th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 514
To obtain and direct the placement in the Capitol or on the Capitol
Grounds of a monument to honor Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 1, 2021
Ms. Klobuchar (for herself, Ms. Smith, Mr. Merkley, Ms. Warren, Mr.
Durbin, Mr. Heinrich, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Blumenthal, Ms.
Cortez Masto, Ms. Hirono, Mrs. Shaheen, Ms. Duckworth, Mr. Whitehouse,
Mr. Menendez, and Ms. Rosen) introduced the following bill; which was
read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To obtain and direct the placement in the Capitol or on the Capitol
Grounds of a monument to honor Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in 1933 in Brooklyn, New
York, and grew up in a low-income, working-class neighborhood.
(2) Ginsburg graduated from Cornell University in 1954,
finishing first in her class.
(3) Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1956,
entering into a class of 552 men and only 8 other women.
(4) As a law student, Ginsburg became the first female
member of the prestigious legal journal, the Harvard Law
Review. She also cared for her husband, Martin Ginsburg, who
had been diagnosed with cancer, and their young daughter.
(5) Ginsburg finished her legal education at Columbia Law
School, where she graduated first in her class in 1959.
(6) Ginsburg taught at Rutgers University Law School from
1963 to 1972 and at Columbia Law School from 1972 to 1980,
where she became the school's first female tenured professor.
(7) During the 1970s, Ginsburg served as the director of
the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties
Union. In this position, she led the fight against gender
discrimination and successfully argued 6 landmark cases before
the Supreme Court of the United States (in this section
referred to as the ``Supreme Court'').
(8) Ginsburg won 5 cases on gender discrimination before
the Supreme Court, including the case Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld,
which involved a portion of the Social Security Act that
favored women over men, because the Act granted certain
benefits to widows, but not widowers.
(9) In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to
the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit.
(10) In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Ginsburg to
the Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by Associate Justice
Byron White.
(11) On August 3, 1993, the Senate confirmed Ginsburg's
nomination to the Supreme Court by a 96 to 3 vote.
(12) Ginsburg became the second female justice to serve on
the Supreme Court as well as the first Jewish female justice to
serve on the Supreme Court.
(13) As a justice, Ginsburg presented a strong voice in
favor of gender equality, voting rights, the rights of workers,
and the separation of church and state.
(14) In 1996, Ginsburg wrote the Supreme Court's landmark
decision in United States v. Virginia, which held that the
State-supported Virginia Military Institute could not refuse to
admit women.
(15) Despite her reputation for restrained writing,
Ginsburg gathered considerable attention for her dissenting
opinion in Bush v. Gore by subtly concluding her decision with
the words, ``I dissent'', a significant departure from the
traditional ``respectfully dissent''.
(16) Ginsburg famously dissented in Ledbetter v. Goodyear
Tire & Rubber Co., where the plaintiff, a female worker being
paid significantly less than males with her same
qualifications, sued under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq.), but was denied relief under a
statute of limitation issue. Ginsburg broke with tradition and
wrote a highly colloquial version of her dissent to read from
the bench. In her dissent, she also called for Congress to undo
this improper interpretation of the law.
(17) Ginsburg's impactful dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear
Tire & Rubber Co. led to the successful passage of the Lilly
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-2; 123 Stat. 5),
which was the first piece of legislation signed by President
Barack Obama.
(18) In 2013, when the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4
decision in Shelby County v. Holder to gut the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.), Ginsburg wrote,
``Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is
continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like
throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not
getting wet.''.
(19) Until the 2018 term, Ginsburg had not missed a day of
oral arguments, not even when she was undergoing chemotherapy
for pancreatic cancer, after surgery for colon cancer, or the
day after her husband passed away in 2010.
SEC. 2. MONUMENT HONORING JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG.
(a) Obtaining of Monument.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 2 years after the date of
the enactment of this Act, and in consultation with the
Committee on House Administration of the House of
Representatives and the Committee on Rules and Administration
of the Senate, the Joint Committee on the Library shall enter
into an agreement to obtain a monument honoring Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader
Ginsburg under such terms and conditions as the Joint Committee
considers appropriate, consistent with applicable law.
(2) Consideration.--In selecting an artist to make the
monument obtained under paragraph (1), the Joint Committee on
the Library shall make the announcement available to and
consider artists from underrepresented demographic groups.
(b) Installation.--The Architect of the Capitol, under the
direction of the Joint Committee on the Library, shall permanently
install the monument obtained under subsection (a) in a prominent
location in the Capitol or on the Capitol Grounds, as described in
section 5102 of title 40, United States Code.
(c) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized to be
appropriated such sums as are necessary to carry out this Act. Amounts
appropriated pursuant to this subsection shall remain available until
expended.
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