Washington, D.C. – Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva today was honored as one of 30 recipients of Corporate Voices for Working Families and Working Mother Media’s second Best of Congress Award. The award honors lawmakers who have made an extraordinary effort to improve the lives of working families.

The awards were given based on applicants’ voting record, sponsored and co-sponsored legislation, and efforts to promote laws the support working families. In addition, applicants were asking to submit the policies and practices in their own offices that support working famlies and give employees flexible workplace options.

“I’m deeply honored to receive this award, and I salute these groups’ much-needed focus on the needs of working families,” Grijalva said. “I bvelieve in giving children a good education, helping working men and women stay employed with good benefits, and making sure civil rights and equal pay are enforced in the workplace. These are not niche or local issues – they affect millions of working families around the country, and we need to do more to support them.”

Grijalva has actively pursued a number of measures designed to help working families, including:

– Voting for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which became law last year. That law says paycheck discrimination begins when you start receiving unequal pay, not just when you find out about it, and successful complaints should be compensated accordingly. Rep. Grijalva thinkgs the Fair Pay Act is a powerful way to hold companies accountable and make sure they take their responsibilities to their employees seriously.

– Voting for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which became law in April. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the law will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years and extend employer-provided health care coverage to 9 million more Americans by 2019.

– Co-sponsoring the Fair Elections Now Act, which would allow candidates for many political offices to qualify for public matching funds by raising money exclusively from small donors. This bill would return political power back to its small-donor roots and ensure that working families, not corporations, have the last word on where this country should be headed.

“We in Congress can’t underestimate the importance of practicing what we preach about equal treatment in the workplace,” Grijalva said. “I try to give my staff the same consideration I’d like every other working American to be given, and I’m happy to keep fighting for the people of Southern Arizona to make sure they can work, have families if they choose, and make life decisions based on their own preferences rather than economic insecurity or a lack of basic health care.”

For more information, see the Corporate Voices for Working Families Web site about the award.