Day 40: Women’s History Month

vp.parade.women.IMG_2141.jpg

The United States House of Representatives passed the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill, in a 219-212 vote, in the pre-dawn hours of the weekend preceding Women’s History Month.

“The American people need to know that their government is there for them, and as President Biden has said, help is on the way,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said during the debate.

The bill, the American Rescue Plan, is the largest stimulus package in U.S. history and includes a $15 minimum wage increase, a child tax credit and housing assistance for the near 11 million families facing eviction.

More than 500,000 Americans have died in Covid-related deaths and women have left the workforce in droves due to childcare demands amid school closings and shutdowns obliterating service industries. Biden projects a near-immediate creation of 7 million jobs should the bill pass the Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris has the tie-breaking vote.

By Monday, the first of March, the House Committee on Rules moved forward an election rules and police reform bill in memory of George Floyd, Ahmad Aubrey and Breonna Taylor. The pandemic — disproportionately affecting people of color, too — also brought with it heightened racial tension that poured into the streets around the world, triggered by the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmad Aubrey and Breonna Taylor last year.

Taylor was shot to death after police entered her apartment with a no-knock warrant. Floyd was under arrest when he was kneeled on for nearly nine minutes. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (H.R. 1280) was first heard in 2020, before a Republican majority House.

On the Senate side, Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination for Attorney General advanced out of committee in a 15-7 vote. Biden, who served as Vice President when Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act as his first legislation while in office, has nominated two women to serve alongside Garland — Vanita Gupta as Associate Attorney General and Kristen Clarke to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division.

“Women make history every day,” now Vice President Kamal Harris tweeted around suppertime. “Some we know—the Suffragettes, the Riveters. The stories of others—especially women of color and LGBTQ women—have gone untold. This Women’s History Month, we honor these women and all women.”



Previous
Previous

Day 41: Texas Now Open ‘100 Percent’

Next
Next

Day 37: House Votes on $1.9T Stimulus