Sen. Kay Hagan said that women have made progress, but not enough.

Speaking at a pro-choice women's luncheon in Washington Sunday, the Greensboro Democrat noted that she was taking the seat of former Sen. Jesse Helms, drawing brief boos from the audience.

She related that in 1999 Helms kicked now-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and nine other Congresswomen out of a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after they tried to present him with a petition to sign an international treaty against the discrimination of women.

"That's whose seat I am taking," she said. "Looking around this room today, I know that you would agree that a lot has changed in this country and a lot has changed in the great state of North Carolina."

Speaking at an event sponsored by EMILY's List, Hagan repeated her support for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would extend the time period for filing a discrimination claim. It is the first bill Hagan has cosponsored and was the subject of her first speech in the Senate.

She also noted a smaller, but still irritating, act of discrimination.

"Imagine my surprise when I tried to use the Senate members' gym recently and found out that there is a pool, but — guess what — it's only for the men," she said.

Sen. Kay Hagan spoke on the Senate floor today.

The Greensboro Democrat used her first speech in the Senate chambers to urge support for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would amend the rules under which a person is compensated for discrimination.

"When someone is discriminated against in the workplace or anywhere else, surely they feel the impact of that discrimination far longer than 180 days," she said.

She added that the bill would not place "an undue burden" on employers by opening them up to litigation based on claims from decades ago.

"It simply says, for all of the legal jargon, that it's not acceptable for women to make less than men for the same job, with the same qualifications and with the same performance," she said.

Hagan is one of 53 cosponsors of the Senate version of the bill.

Related: Some senators wait weeks, months or even years to speak first, but Senate historians say that's no longer the case.

The full text of Hagan's remarks after the jump.

   Comments (8)

Sen. Kay Hagan has cosponsored her first bill.

The Greensboro Democrat is one of 53 cosponsors of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a bill that would amend the rules under which a person is compensated for discrimination.

The bill arose from the case of Lilly Ledbetter, who discovered that Goodyear Tire Co. had been paying her less than her male colleagues for years. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that Ledbetter did not file her case in time.

The case was a cause celebre during the presidential campaign, with both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton supporting the bill and John McCain opposing it.

Ledbetter joined Hagan at a campaign stop in Charlotte in October to criticize then-Sen. Elizabeth Dole for voting against a prior version of the bill.

All but two of the 17 women in the U.S. Senate are also cosponsors. 

Barack Obama is going after John McCain on the radio in North Carolina.

Under the Dome readers report hearing Obama ads on country stations (WQDR 94.7 and The Rooster 106.1 in Raleigh, WSOC-FM 103.7 in Charlotte, 93.1 FM The Wolf, 104.1 WTQR in Winston-Salem and WMNC The Big Dawg in Morganton), rock stations (Mix 101.5 in Raleigh) classic R&B stations (Foxy 104.3 in Raleigh), sports radio (850 AM The Buzz in the Triangle), conservative talk radio (WPTF 680 AM in Raleigh, 101.1 FM Talk in the Triad), urban radio (K97.5 in Raleigh, Power 98 and 96.1 The Beat in Charlotte).

Readers reported hearing two ads in particular.

One features former Washington Redskin Ray Schoenke, who leads the American Hunters & Shooters Association, a Democratic-leaning gun owners group.

"Barack Obama and John McCain will both make sure we keep our guns," he says in the ad. "But what about keeping our jobs?"

Another ad describes a lavish Ferris wheel being built in Baghdad.

"John McCain wants America to keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq when we should be rebuilding America," the narrator says.

Readers also describe an ad encouraging people to register to vote. Pollster Tom Jensen reports hearing ads attacking McCain on gender pay equity as well.

Kay Hagan joined Michelle Obama on the campaign trail today.

The Democratic Senate candidate joined the wife of presidential candidate Barack Obama at a rally at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro this afternoon.

The Greensboro News & Record reports that Hagan addressed the crowd before Obama, talking about pay equity and access to health care.

Obama then thanked Hagan.

"We can't forget what's going on in these local races because Barack is going to need some help when he gets to the White House," she said, according to the paper.

The appearance was a strong sign that the Hagan campaign considers it beneficial to tie itself more closely to Obama in the fall presidential campaign. 

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue spoke about pay equity and reproductive rights at the annual Jefferson-Jackson Breakfast this morning.

She was one of several speakers at the fundraiser, sponsored by the Democratic Women of Wake County, including U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler and her likely rival for the gubernatorial nomination Treasurer Richard Moore.

In a six-minute speech, Perdue said the recent Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart to uphold some bans on the procedure known as partial-birth abortion made her "mad."

"I thought that family decisions should be left to the family and the doctor," she said.

As Dome has noted before, Perdue has a complicated history on the issue of abortion.

She also decried a recent study that showed that women make a third less than male coworkers after 10 years on the same job.

"You tell me a place where a woman can go this morning and buy her a quart or a gallon of milk that costs a third less," she said.