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DeLauro Endorsed by Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO of National Women’s Law Center, for Chair of Appropriations in the 117th Congress

November 12, 2020

Fatima Goss Graves: "We look forward to fighting along your side – as the next Chair of the Appropriations Committee – for the future that we all deserve."

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Chair of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, received the endorsement of Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO of National Women's Law Center (NWLC) for Chair of the Appropriations Committee in the 117th Congress.

"Fatima Goss Graves is a dynamic, effective champion for women and families, and her confidence in my leadership means the world to me," said DeLauro. "As a steadfast partner in the fight to invest in women in ways that meet the unique needs of this moment, Ms. Goss Graves' leadership is essential to helping our nation recover from the past four years, defeat the coronavirus pandemic, and create lasting change in a broad set of issues central to advancing opportunities for women and girls. Together, we will eliminate barriers and lift women and their families."

"The road ahead will not be easy," said Goss Graves. "It will require investing in families, raising wages, and ensuring pay is more equal. It means addressing the care crisis before us – a crisis that is foundational for our families and any economic recovery. It will require showing up for our access to health care, especially reproductive health care, which for too many people across the country is at a crisis level. It will take leadership that can move beyond false debates between progressives and moderates and put people first. I've had the chance to work with Representative DeLauro over the years – as she fought with us to invest in and stabilize child care, on equal pay, for fair schedules, and paid leave, and a budget that serves women and families. We must invest in women in ways that meet the moment. In the midst of this pandemic, during uprisings around racial and gender justice we need leadership to get us through; she has put a marker down: Last summer she said: ‘We are in a moment to reckon with the norm, with tradition and view it through the lens of racial justice. That means harmful policies like the discriminatory Hyde Amendment restriction on abortion have to go.'"

"DeLauro said it herself in the last annual appropriations fight: ‘[a]lthough the bill includes the Hyde amendment this year, let me be clear, we will fight to remove the Hyde amendment,'" Goss Graves continued. "We look forward to fighting along your side – as the next Chair of the Appropriations Committee – for the future that we all deserve."

NWLC President Goss Graves' endorsement of Congresswoman DeLauro to be the next Chair of the House Appropriations Committee follows the endorsements of AFT President Randi Weingarten, NEA President Becky Pringle, AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka, and many others.