Though the Pennsylvania Primary has dominated the headlines, Senator Hillary Clinton took time out to speak in support of the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act. She is a co-sponsor of the bill. Here is a transcript of her remarks from yesterday:

I think it's important that we go back to the facts and remind ourselves in this chamber about the person, the real, live woman for whom this legislation is named, Lilly Ledbetter. She was a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and Rubber’s plant in Gadsden, Alabama from 1979 until her retirement in 1998. For most of the years she worked as an area manager, a position largely occupied by men. Now initially, Lilly Ledbetter's salary was in line with the salaries of men performing substantially similar work. Over time, however, her pay slipped in comparison. And it was slipping in comparison with men who had equal or less seniority. By the end of 1997, Lilly Ledbetter was the only woman working as an area manager, and the pay discrepancy between her and her 15 male counterparts was stark. She was paid $3,727 a month. The lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 a month and the highest $5,236. In other words, Goodyear paid her male counterparts 25 to 40 percent more than she earned for doing the same job.

Now, when she discovered this, which she hadn't for years, because it’s somewhat difficult, if not impossible, to obtain information about the salaries of your counterparts and lots of times why would you ask—you're doing the same job, you show up at the same time, you have the same duties—who would imagine that you would be paid less than the younger man who just came on the job a year or two before, or the older man with whom you had worked for years? So when she discovered that, she rightly sought to enforce her rights, and a jury agreed, a jury of her peers, that she had suffered discrimination on the basis of her gender. And the district court awarded her $220,000 in back pay and more than $3 million in punitive damages. The court of appeals reversed that, claiming she had not filed her charge of discrimination in a timely manner. And the Supreme Court agreed.

Now, Lilly Ledbetter is retired from her job. Nothing we do here today will have any impact on her. But she has tirelessly campaigned across this country for basic fairness. We thought we had ended discrimination in the workplace against women when the Equal Pay Act was passed all those years ago. In fact, yesterday was the day we commemorate the passage of the Equal Pay Act, but clearly, we have not finished the business of guaranteeing equality in the workplace, fair and equal pay for those who do the same jobs.

Nearly a century after women earned the right to vote, women still make 77 cents to every man's dollar. The effects of the recession that we are in right now in many parts of our country is affecting women worse than their male counterparts. And this is not just about the women themselves, it is about their families. I just came from Indianapolis where I was introduced at an event by a young single mom. I meet young single moms all over America. They work really, really hard for themselves and their children. So when they are discriminated against in the workplace, they bring less home to take care of the children that they're responsible for.

We can talk about what needs to be done here, and there are, I'm sure, all kinds of legal reasons that it doesn't make sense to end discrimination, that it doesn't make sense finally to have our laws enforced. But this is the law that we had until the Supreme Court changed it. Until the Supreme Court said, “No, wait a minute, you're supposed to actually know that you're being discriminated against despite the conditions in the workplace and file whatever action make whatever complaint you can at that moment.” Lilly Ledbetter acted as soon as she knew. She just didn't know until that information was made available to her. I'm hoping that this chamber will stand up for fundamental fairness for women in the workplace. I'm hoping you will stand up and vote to make it clear that women who get up every single day and go to work deserve to be paid equally to their male counterparts. That's all Lilly Ledbetter wanted, and that is what we should deliver today.

You can see a video of her remarks on the Senate floor here

She also released a resource guide called Know What to Ask & Know Your Rights: A Pay Equity Guide on How to Help Yourself in the Workplace about a year ago which is an informative tool for young women entering the workforce.

Hillary has always been a champion of women's rights and you can tell that her statement is from the heart. She gets it. And why shouldn't she... she's a working woman herself.