Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Today’s Senate Vote To Pass The Respect For Marriage Act
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the Senate working towards greater equality and passing the Respect for Marriage Act. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks:
For millions of Americans, today is a very good day, an important day, a day that’s been a long time coming: we are voting to pass the Respect for Marriage Act.
Later this afternoon, with a little more bipartisan cooperation, the Senate will vote to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, putting it on the brink of reaching the President’s desk.
In many ways, the story of America has been a difficult but inexorable march towards greater equality. Sometimes we’ve taken steps forward. Other times, unfortunately, we’ve taken disturbing steps backwards.
But today, after months of hard work, after many rounds of bipartisan talks—and after many doubts that we could even reach this point—we are taking the momentous step forward for greater justice for LGBTQ Americans.
Let me summarize how today will proceed. Later this afternoon—per an agreement between both parties—the Senate will hold three roll call votes on amendments presented by Senators Lee, Lankford, and Rubio.
A vote on final passage for the Respect for Marriage Act will be held after that.
Standing here today, with the passage of this legislation, it’s impossible not to think of my family. Today I’m wearing the tie I wore at my daughter’s wedding, one of the happiest moments of my life. But I also cannot help but recall the harrowing conversation I had with her and her wife a little more than two years ago.
In September of 2020, I was in the middle of a family dinner when we received the news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away.
I remember that awful feeling around the dinner table—and I distinctly remember the question my daughter and her wife asked: “could our right to marry be undone?”
Millions of Americans in same-sex marriages go about their day with this terrible question lurking in the back of their minds. It’s a scary but necessary acknowledgment that despite all the progress we’ve made, the constitutional right to same-sex marriage is not even a decade old and exists only by the virtue of a narrow 5-4 Supreme Court decision. And we all know the court has changed since that decision.
As we have already seen this year, what the court has decided in the past can be easily taken away in the future.
So today’s vote is deeply personal for many of us in this chamber. It’s personal for me of course, it’s personal to many of my colleagues and their staff and their families. And while we still have a few more votes to take, today is certainly an occasion for joy and relief.
But as important as today is, let’s remember nothing about this process was certain.
Remember, it was our original plan to act on the Respect for Marriage Act in September, shortly after the House voted to pass this bill over the summer with the surprising 47 Republicans voting for the Act. We knew this bill was popular, we knew it was the right thing to do, but what we did not know was whether or not we had enough support, 60 votes, to pass this bill through the Senate.
Maybe the votes would materialize if we forced a vote on the floor, but that was highly unlikely. And for a great number of us, for so much of America, this bill was too important to risk failure.
So, back in September, when I met with the leaders of this bill in my office—Senators Sinema and Baldwin and Collins and Tillis and Portman—they recommended I hold off on a vote because they believed they could secure enough support for this bill. Many questioned if it was the right thing to do.
Many on my side of the aisle felt, put everyone on record right now. And sometimes they say that’s the way to go.
But at the end of the day my number one priority is always to get legislation passed through the Senate, so I made the decision to take the risk and to wait.
Today, we have vindication the wait was well worth it.
Pushing Respect for Marriage over the finish line required patience, persistence, and today it is paying off.
I want to thank the Senators who brought us this far: Senators Sinema and Baldwin, as well as Collins and Tillis and Portman for their outstanding and relentless work. Their work has been magnificent, and I am so thankful they stayed the course even when success may have seemed elusive.
I also want to acknowledge my Republican colleagues who voted in favor of advancing this legislation. Because of our work together, the rights of tens of millions of Americans will be strengthened under federal law. That’s an accomplishment we should all be proud of.
And of course, I want to thank all the advocates, volunteers, and organizers not just for supporting this bill, but for everything they’ve done over the years to make the United States a fairer, more accepting nation for LGBTQ Americans.
Finally, let me finish where I started. Two years after my daughter and her wife questioned if their marriage could be undone, they are now expecting a baby next spring.
I want them to raise their child with all the love and security that every child deserves, and the bill we are passing today will ensure their rights won’t be trampled upon simply because they are in a same-sex marriage.
After this bill passes, they will be the very first people I call.
So thank you to my colleagues who spearheaded this bill. Thank you to my colleagues who have supported this bill. Thank you to the staff and members who worked day and night to find a path forward.
And maybe above all, thank you to the American people, the vast majority of whom have understood that the inexorable march towards equality is what America is all about.
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