Women's Rights

Education and opportunity are among the primary needs of women and girls in my district. Although I represent a bountiful and beautiful district, there is a tremendous need to help low- and middle-income families struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing cost of living so that young women who aspire to pursue the dream of a college education can attain it. I advocated for and obtained significant federal funding that directly benefited women in our community with their healthcare, housing, employment, and education with the passage of the CARES Act, American Rescue Plan, and Inflation Reduction Act.

We must also work toward eliminating barriers to care for survivors of violence and domestic abuse. I proudly cosponsored and voted for reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, which aims to protect all Americans from violence and abuse and ensures that survivors have access to essential services and justice. I also led a bipartisan letter signed by 22 of my colleagues in the House to the Department of Homeland Security that called for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to ensure that immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other serious crimes have full access to protections provided for them under humanitarian immigration provisions of the Violence Against Women Act and Trafficking Victims Protection Act. I co-introduced the I Am Vanessa Guillén Act to offer greater support to survivors of military sexual trauma (MST) and harassment and to improve oversight of military sexual assault cases. This bill was named in honor of Army Specialist Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old U.S. Army soldier who was murdered by a superior after suffering sexual abuse.

We must also work toward eliminating bias against women in the workplace. That is why I was an original cosponsor of and voted for the Housed-passed Paycheck Fairness Act. That law prohibits employers from paying women less than men for doing the same or substantially the same work at the same facility. I have also voted for the Equal Rights Amendment to finally enshrine women’s equality under the Constitution, and I remain an active member of the House Equality Caucus to prescribe federal policies strengthening protections for LGBTQ+ Americans against discrimination and abuse.

As a proud member of the Pro-Choice Caucus, I’ll continue to fight for the rights of women to make their own health care choices. We must eliminate barriers to health care, family planning, and reproductive healthcare for women following last year’s Supreme Court decisions. That is why I voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act and expand its reach to provide care for uninsured and under-insured women and girls. I will continue to work on federal legislation that protects a woman’s right to choose, including the Women’s Health Production Act, the EACH Act, the Ensuring Women’s Right to Reproductive Freedom Act, the Right to Contraception Act, the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, the Reproductive Health Travel Fund Act, and the Protecting Access to Medication Abortion Act. This fight is far from finished.  That’s why, I joined the Pro-Choice Caucus to sign a discharge petition to bring the Women’s Health Protection Act to a vote.  Access to reproductive health care services is a fundamental right, and inaction is not an option.