Today on Equal Pay Day, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (FL14) introduced a resolution to the U.S. House calling for female athletes to be paid on par with their male counterparts. The resolution also calls for organizers of world class competitions to actively take part in combating the wage gap. Read more »

Today, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (FL14) will announce at the Centre for Women’s Waves of Change event in Tampa details about H.R. 7, the landmark Paycheck Fairness Act that passed the U.S. House on Wednesday. The legislation takes a dramatic step forward to ensure that America’s women receive equal pay for equal work. This legislation strengthens and closes loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to secure justice for working women in Florida and across the country by providing effective remedies for women subject to unfair and inequitable pay practices. Read more »

Today U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (FL14), Chair of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, continued her career-spanning fight for a clean and healthy environment, clean energy jobs and promoting environmental justice in Tampa Bay and around the country by leading her colleagues in introducing H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act. The legislation demands action on the climate crisis by ensuring America honors its Paris Agreement commitments and laying the groundwork for further action. Read more »

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (FL14) released the following statement after the Trump administration filed a legal memo calling for a complete invalidation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the Texas v. United States health care lawsuit before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, endangering the health of Americans across the nation: Read more »

Valerie Roberts, a senior from Brooks DeBartolo Collegiate High School, was awarded the top prize at U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor’s 2019 Congressional Art Competition with her interpretive portrait drawing titled, “Gloss.” She is the first student from Brooks DeBartolo Collegiate High School to win the Congressional Award in U.S. Rep. Castor’s annual art competition. Valerie previously competed in U.S. Rep. Castor’s 2018 Congressional Art Competition and was awarded 1st place in the Water Media portion of the competition for her piece titled, “Woman from Hawaii”. An awards ceremony for the annual competition took place Sunday at the Tampa Museum of Art Read more »

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the living legacy of Dr. Juel Smith. Her story starts in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, where she was born and graduated from Sapulpa High School in 1960. She married and became a mother of five children. Tragedy struck her and her family when her husband suddenly passed away, and Dr. Smith became a widow. She realized that pursuing higher education was her best… Read more »

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor beloved community leader, Florida State Representative Betty Reed. She was raised in Thomasville, Georgia, in a close-knit family of hardworking sharecroppers and with 12 other siblings. Representative Reed and her husband, James, moved to Tampa after he was discharged from the military to raise a family of their own. Representative Reed was an active… Read more »

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor a third-generation servant leader from my community of Tampa, Florida, Harold A. Jackson, Jr. who was born at Tampa Negro Hospital to the late Jacqueline Haynes Jackson and the late Harold A. Jackson, Sr. Jackson learned about service at a young age as his father served in the U.S. Army during World War II and returned to Tampa to become one of our… Read more »

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, Chair of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, released the following statement in response to the Trump administration’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget, which would slash funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and eliminate ARPA-E: Read more »

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (FL14) championed the historic reform package, H.R. 1, the “For The People Act” today. The bill passed overwhelmingly 234-193 and is focused on reforms that U.S. Rep. Castor and House Democrats have been working on for years – ensuring fair elections by fighting voter suppression and reaffirming commitment to the Voting Rights Act, standing against big money’s influence in politics and cleaning up the culture of corruption – all to return power back to the American people. Importantly, the bill included the Castor amendment to bury the “Zombie Campaign” abuses which allowed former Members and special interests to influence elections long after the Member left office. Read more »