Sen. Kennedy gets a belated win.
Sen. Ted Kennedy left Oregon's junior senator, Jeff Merkley, with a very big task as he was dying. He asked Merkley to take over the leadership and ownership of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, one of the projects that was nearest and dearest to him. The senator from Oregon succeeded, with passage of the bill in the Senate this week. Here's Merkley on the bill, and on Sen. Kennedy.
Liberty, that quality deeply rooted in our national journey and embedded in our declaration of independence, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Liberty, the declared mission of our nation in the preamble to the constitution: "We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity do ordain and establish a constitution of the United States of America."
But the march to liberty has been a long march with numerous battles along the way. The fight to end slavery that President Lincoln figured so prominently in. The fight to end racial discrimination. The fight to end gender discrimination. The fight to end discrimination against our seniors, and a fight that continues today with this bill to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Discrimination diminishes the potential of the individual and it diminishes the potential of our nation.
Senator Ted Kennedy said this succinctly when he helped introduce in 2009 a predecessor of the bill that we will be voting on today. Senator Ted Kennedy said "the promise of America will never be fulfilled as long as justice is denied to even one among us". He spoke these words just 20 days before he passed away. And it's appropriate to quote Ted Kennedy because he led the fight for this bill since its first introduction in 1994. I think he would be tremendously pleased with the bipartisan vote of affirmation against discrimination that we will soon be taking.
Watch:
Sen. Kennedy would have also been pleased that it was a bipartisan effort—including 10 Republican senators—that got the bill passed in his Senate, because some of his greatest legislative achievements were borne of his close work with Republicans. That
included his work on this very bill with Merkley's Republican predecessor, Gordon Smith.
Bipartisanship, indeed equality, seems to end there. House Speaker John Boehner is steadfastly refusing to take up the bill. So much for rebranding.