Latest Releases
U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith Join Colleagues in Introducing Legislation to Double Pell Grant Amounts
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last week, U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith (both D-MN) joined their colleagues Senators Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to introduce the Pell Grant Preservation and Expansion Act of 2024, legislation that would nearly double the Pell Grant maximum award. During the 1975-76 school year, the Pell Grant was enough to cover three-fourths of the average cost of attendance at a four-year public college. Today, a Pell Grant covers less than 30% of tuition, fees, and living expenses. The Pell Grant program is the cornerstone of federal financial aid for higher education, serving over 6 million undergraduate students. Representatives Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA) led the effort in the House of Representatives. “The Pell Grant has long been an incredible resource for students and it’s important we ensure future generations can continue to benefit from the program,” said Klobuchar. “This legislation will expand the Pell Grant, double the maximum award, and protect its true value from eroding over time to make college more affordable for students from all walks of life.” “The federal Pell Grant has enabled generations of Americans to pursue a college degree. But the Pell Grant’s purchasing power has not kept up with rising tuition costs, leaving the high price of a college education out of reach for many Americans,” said Senator Smith.“I am proud to be a part of this legislation that will revitalize the Pell Grant and help make higher education more affordable for Americans.” Senator Smith has long been an advocate for
U.S. Senator Tina Smith Unveils Legislation to Repeal the Comstock Act
WASHINGTON, D.C. [6/20/24] —Today, U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.) introduced a bill to repeal an arcane 1873 law, called the Comstock Act, that Republicans and anti-choice extremists want to misuse to ban abortion nationwide. Comstock has been cited recently by Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas in oral arguments during the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA and invoked in Project 2025 – broadly seen as a roadmap for a future Trump administration – as a way for an extremist, anti-choice administration to use unilateral executive action to effectively ban abortion nationwide. “The Comstock Act is a 150-year-old zombie law banning abortion that’s long been relegated to the dustbin of history. But extremist Republicans and Trump judges have seized upon the idea of misusing Comstock to bypass Congress and strip women nationwide of their reproductive freedoms. When MAGA Republicans say they intend to use the Comstock Act to control women’s decisions and enact a backdoor national abortion ban, we should believe them. Now that Trump has overturned Roe, a future Republican administration could try to misapply this 150-year-old Comstock law to deny American women their rights, even in states where abortion rights are protected by state law. “This is why I’m introducing legislation to repeal Comstock. It is too dangerous to leave this law on the books; we cannot allow MAGA judges and politicians to control the lives of American women,” said Senator Smith. The Comstock laws are a set of 1800s laws meant to ban the mailing or shipping of every obscene, lewd, indecent, article, matter, thing or device, with the goal of restricting
U.S. Senator Tina Smith to Nation’s Rural Health Care Leaders: COVID-19 Has Hit Rural America Hard
WASHINGTON, D.C. [02/10/21]—Today, U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.), a member of the Senate Health Committee, told rural health leaders from across the country that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a devastating crisis in rural health care delivery, and has exacerbated the already-steep challenges that have plagued rural providers in Minnesota and across the country for years. Sen. Smith, in her virtual remarks to the Rural Health Policy Institute on Wednesday, said the pandemic has increased costs and decreased revenues for rural health providers, who also have struggled to get the ventilators and protective equipment needed to treat an influx of
U.S. Senator Tina Smith Teams up with Senate Colleagues to Introduce Justice for Black Farmers Act
WASHINGTON, D.C. [2/10/21]—This week, Senate Agriculture Committee member U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.)—along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)—introduced landmark legislation aimed at addressing and correcting historic discrimination within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in federal farm assistance and lending that has caused Black farmers to lose millions of acres of farmland, and has robbed these farmers and their families of the hundreds of billions of dollars of inter-generational wealth that land represented. Just over 100 years ago, there were nearly 1 million Black farmers
U.S. Senators Tina Smith & Dick Durbin, U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider Introduce Bill to Help State, Local Governments Provide Paid Leave to Employees During Pandemic
WASHINGTON, D.C. [02/9/21]—U.S. Senators Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced a key measure to help state and local governments provide paid leave to public employees who can’t work due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. A bipartisan House companion bill was introduced by U.S. Representative Brad Schneider (IL-10). The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, enacted last year, provided tax credits to private-sector employers to cover the costs of paid leave during the pandemic. Congress also extended those tax credits through 2021 in a bipartisan measure enacted in December 2020. But those measures did not make public-sector employers eligible for paid leave credits. The lack of access to the paid leave credits is putting
U.S. Senator Tina Smith Urges Amazon to Recognize Workers Seeking Union Representation Ahead of Key National Labor Relations Board Vote
WASHINGTON, D.C. [2/8/21]—Today, U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.)—who has long been fighting for Amazon workers, including those at the Amazon fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minn.—and a group of her colleagues are urging Amazon to do right by its workers and support workers’ efforts to freely exercise their right to organize a union. In their letter sent to current Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, and his successor, Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy, Sen. Smith and her colleagues expressed support for Amazon workers seeking to organize a union with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The senators also pushed
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