Stories begat other stories, or at least they do for me; this two-part conversation came from a comment that was made after I posted a story suggesting that voting matters this time, especially if you don't want environmental disasters like the recent Hungarian "toxic lake" that burst from its containment and polluted the Danube River happening in your neighborhood.
Long story short, we are going to be moving on to ask what, for some, is a more fundamental question: if you're an LBGT voter, and the Democratic Party hasn't, to put it charitably, "been all they could be" when it comes to issues like repealing "don't ask, don't tell" or the Federal Defense of Marriage Act...what should you do?
Now normally I would be the one trying to develop an answer to the question, but instead, we're going to be posing the question to a group of experts, and we'll be letting them give the answers.
And just because you, The Valued Reader, deserve the extra effort, for Part Two we've trying to get you a "Special Bonus Expert" to add some input to the conversation: a Democratic Member of Congress who represents a large LBGT community.
Blade: Madame Speaker, a question on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. How confident are you that if that measure came to the floor there would be enough votes for passage and to overcome a motion to recommit?
Pelosi: Well, first of all, we still have to finish "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." We were able to pass the bill with a 40-vote majority in the House of Representatives last Thursday before the break. We're very proud of that vote.
I was disappointed, however, the next day, when the full measure came to the floor to pass the defense authorization bill. Only nine Republicans voted to pass the defense bill. This is historic. Republicans are now voting against the defense authorization bill - only nine did - because "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was in the bill.
And now, of course, we'll go - after the bill passes in the Senate - we'll go to conference. But our work is not finished in that regard, so one thing at a time.
ENDA is personal priority for me, and I [understand] the focus for that, but because the defense bill came up now, we did "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" first. But we want to finish that.
Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that if the Speaker's timeline means what I think it means, that will mean no action on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act this year. DADT still needs to pass the Senate, go into conference, and be voted upon by both houses, and from what folks close to this have told me, all that is scheduled for completion in September- and that's assuming the funding for the F-35 strike fighter doesn't make it in and the President vetoes the bill and we have to do this all over again. It is extremely unlikely that either House will act on ENDA before leaving for the fall campaign recess. And I don't think last week's defeat of GENDA in a New York State Senate Judiciary Committee vote, complete with Sen. Lanza's concerns over the bathrooms issue, helped any, nor did Sen. Reid recently leaving ENDA off his proposed legislative schedule.
On the other hand, owing to Speaker Pelosi's penchant for not voting on bills until they have sufficient support, it was very unlikely there was going to be action anyway until the votes were had. It is widely known that the votes are not there to defeat a motion to recommit that would strip gender identity protections from the bill. So I feel less like I want to shake my fist at the House leadership and more angry that this bill has already been negotiated and re-negotiated to incorporate concerns over that issue, but still lacks sufficient support.
This week and weekend is Pride in DC, when most people I know will drink heavily, go clubbing, watch parades, and go to a street festival on Sunday. And maybe celebrate action on DADT. For me, Pride will also serve as a reminder that there are those in our community who cannot have any pride at the workplace, and must remain closeted. Going into next year, it will still be legal to fire people on the basis of sexual orientation (who you love) in 29 states, and on the basis of gender identity (your actual or perceived sex/appearance) in 38 states- over half the Union in both cases.
A few days ago, activists interrupted a hearing led by Chairman George Miller in the House Education and Labor committee, insisting that he bring ENDA up for a vote immediately. Jeremy Hooper has full coverage.
I was interested by Rep. Barney Frank's reaction (summarized below):
''What a stupid thing to do.''
...
Frank called the action ''immature, tacky'' behavior on Wednesday afternoon and said that ''George Miller and others are working hard'' to see the bill passed in the House.
...
''no help whatsoever''
...
Frank said, ''I understand people are frustrated and angry,'' but he ''genuinely'' didn't understand the purpose of the Get Equal protest.
''How does this help us get the bill passed?'' he asked. ''Who's mind are they going to change?''
On the one hand, as Rep. Jared Polis explained to the activists afterwards, Miller and our allies are taking care to not get into a situation like 2007, where we were in danger of a motion to recommit succeeding, which was aimed at stripping gender identity protections out of the bill. One thing I noticed when watching Rep. Polis' interaction with the activists is that they wanted it both ways: to have a committee vote immediately, but also to not lose the vote.
[Youtube video placed in the extended entry]
You can do things fast, or you can do them right. Leadership tends to not bring bills to a vote until they have the votes, although occasionally for making a broader point towards a goal even when it is known the votes are not in hand, in the case of the New Jersey State Senate on marriage equality. If you don't, in the case of New York State Senate on marriage equality, where we suffered an embarrassing 24-38 defeat, your cause can look very bad.
On the other hand, since Frank said this past Sunday a committee vote would occur "within the next two weeks" on this, and there is still no vote scheduled, and by my count such a vote has been now postponed twice since last fall, there is an understandable impatience and frustration out there at the pace of things. And there are two pressure points here: one is pressuring the Miller and the leadership (and rank and file) to not cave to what Joe Sudbay calls "political homophobia" in an election year, and bring up the bill when it has the votes. The other is pressuring members of Congress to actually support the bill, as Frank is right to say last month:
Frank pivoted from the protests to the work that he said remains ahead, saying, ''The only thing that's left for the community to do is the hard thing: Help us get the votes.''
I think the middle ground between what Frank is saying and what the activists are saying is that Frank believes we'll get a House vote on ENDA, while folks are skeptical that it'll actually happen, even if our side has the votes for passage. Both points are important, but with a cautious eye towards making sure to get the vote right. That means getting in touch with your member of Congress- even already supportive members of Congress who need to know this is a priority for their constituents. It is still legal to be discriminated in employment in 29 states on the basis of sexual orientation, and 38 states on the basis of gender identity. That's over half the Union. The switchboard is 202-224-3121. Here's the latest update on where members stand from The Bilerico Project. There are also five Northeastern Reps who are prime targets if you know someone from the district:
New Jersey (NJ)
Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11) 202-225-5034 973-984-0711
New York (NY)
Bill Owens (D-23) 202-225-4611 518-563-1406
Back in February, I wrote a piece referencing how labor union leaders- most notably, USW President Leo Gerard- were making headlines warning that union families would stay home if things didn't change, and calling for LGBT leaders to do the same, in part to get taken seriously. I wrote:
Legislative action, much less success, on any number of LGBT issues including Don't Ask, Don't Tell, is far from certain, and our side needs to be lighting a fire under the White House and Congress, and warning of apathy from LGBT voters, or the Newsweek prediction from December will come true.
Five days later, around the blogswarm aimed at HRC, I wrote on a list of bullet points what I'd really like to see from HRC:
Increased pushback by warning, like the labor unions are doing, that angry and apathetic LGBT voters will stay home in droves during the 2010 elections (here)
A week later, when WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to answer a direction question on whether the White House would like to see Congress pass repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell this year, I wrote:
And by the way, this is about the umpteenth opportunity of late for prominent LGBT organizations and advocates to take to the media and do the following: (a) Reiterate how critical it is that repeal, among other LGBT issues, is done before the 2010 midterms (b) Light a fire under Democrats' behinds by taking a page out of labor's book and warning that angry and/or apathetic base LGBT voters will stay home in droves, helping to cause another 1994. Stan Greenberg's polling demonstrated that from the 2008 elections to the 2009 off-year elections, Rising American Electorate voters- base Democrats, all- as percentage of the electorate dropped 9% in Virginia and 10% in New Jersey. There are a lot of reasons for that, but a big one is that they are demoralized by lack of action at the national level, and it played a role in losses across the board. And we all saw just how fired up Democrats were in Massachusetts.
LGBT voters are far from fired up and ready to go, and statements like this from the White House don't help. LGBT organizations and advocates should all be reminding them of their political best interests.
Finally, yesterday, two organizational leaders took the hint. From DC Agenda:
Allison Herwitt, legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, alluded to potential political consequences if the bills don't advance in this Congress.
"I do think that there will be many LGBT Americans frustrated and disappointed if any of these [bills] don't move," she said. "Even though we don't have a pro-LGBT majority in the House and the Senate - this is our highest majority that we have and we need to obviously capitalize on the members that we have in the House and the Senate to pass legislation. So, in short, I do think that there will be anger in the community."
Herwitt said this anger would likely manifest itself in LGBT voters feeling disconnected from Congress and from the Obama administration.
This disconnect, Herwitt said, could affect political donations or discourage people from getting involved in re-election campaigns as well as "not door knocking, literature dropping, all that kind of stuff."
Herwitt also urged a stronger voice from the White House in advocating for legislation like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Domestic Partner Benefits & Obligations Act, as well as repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
"I do think that it is important that the president and the administration do strongly indicate to the House and the Senate their support and their desire to move on ENDA, 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and DPBO," she said.
Michael Mitchell, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, voiced similar views.
"I think that we're seeing some - donors are starting to put their money elsewhere or holding off," he said. "I think that there are rank-and-file folks who are getting frustrated."
This is a start. As a community, you are only taken seriously if you can demonstrate that there are consequences to screwing with you. Labor has demonstrated this via SEIU 1199 and the Working Families Party pulling support from Rep. Arcuri after his no vote on health care. The immigrants rights' community has put out similar warnings via the America's Voice polling, demonstrating that comprehensive immigration reform was a critical issue to turning out the Latino vote, and to getting Latinos to pull the lever for candidates. A lot of this is played in parlor games in the media, and it was long past time LGBT organizational leaders started firing warning shots. And there's other ways to make these warnings, too. More of this, please.
It wasn't but a couple of days ago that we had a conversation about The Fear and the emails that are used to spread it, and I figured with that out of the way we had dealt with the topic, and that we'd move on to new things.
Well, we would be moving on, Gentle Reader, if it wasn't for the fact that an email came in today that was so ugly, so disturbing, and so indicative of what we are about to see as the battle over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) begins to heat up (ENDA being possibly the next "big contentious thing" that this Administration hopes to accomplish), that I had to interrupt my story schedule to bring it to your attention.
We're asking folks to contact Speaker Nancy Pelosi at 202-225-4965 and ask that she move the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (HR 3017) to a floor vote.
Dr. Jillian Weiss over at The Bilerico Project explains:
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, first introduced in 1994, would prohibit job discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. But LGBT people have never been able to achieve the enactment of the bill, known by the acronym of "ENDA".
Last year, the Administration's highest ranking gay official, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry, indicated that ENDA was highest priority on the LGBT civil rights agenda.
"If we can get ENDA enacted and signed into law, it is only a matter of time before all the rest happens," he said. "It is the keystone that holds up the whole bunch, and so we need to focus our energies and attention there."
Hearings were held in the House and in the Senate to demonstrate the need for the bill, and testimony was heard on the severe unemployment, underemployment and harassment experienced by LGBT workers. Witnesses testified to the scientific studies demonstrating this.
The reason that workers need this protection is that the LGBT community is a relatively small minority, estimated around 5% of the U.S. population, and prejudice is common, particularly in more conservative states.
She's right. 30 states do not have employment protections based on sexual orientation, and 38 states do not have employment protections based on gender identity. That's over half the Union. As Pam Spaulding wrote from North Carolina this morning:
Here in North Carolina, if you do not work for a private company or organization that has its own inclusive non-discrimination policy, you can be fired by your employer simply for being LGBT. All a homophobic supervisor has to say is the equivalent of "I hate fags, and don't want to work with one" and out you go - no questions asked, no recourse of any kind.
The bottom line is this state's legislature has not shown it believes tax-paying, productive LGBTs deserve the same rights as other North Carolinians. Employment protections will happen at the federal level before our General Assembly will move to consider legislation of this kind.
This is a federal law- like the hate crimes law President Obama signed last year- that would apply universally.
Various sponsors promised that the bill would move to a vote in August, September, October, and November of 2009. But in order to go to a vote, the bill had to pass through the House Committee on Education and Labor. Markup was finally scheduled for November 18, 2009. At the last minute, the markup was postponed, and has still not been rescheduled.
As I wrote last year, Speaker Pelosi publicly told Democrats that she would not move controversial bills until the Senate went first. Meanwhile, the House Committee has stated its readiness to move, but is waiting for movement from the Speaker. That movement has not come. Meanwhile, LGBT Americans continue to suffer discrimination and harassment with no recourse. Some might say to wait until the health care is finished, but reconciliation is still going to take up time and attention over the next month, and there isn't much time left in the legislative calendar. There's can't be any more "wait".
Editorial note: I will be taking a break and going on vacation starting tonight, and back the week of the 15th. See you all then!
In last week's essay on constructive criticism in the LGBT movement, I wrote on how no one- neither external activists nor traditional legacy organizations- has a monopoly on good strategies and tactics in our movement. Everyone brings something to the table. I also wrote regarding how external netroots activists should listen to pushback and good ideas from our colleagues in legacy organizations. That doesn't mean just good theories of change, but also that folks should see and promote sound tactics when they see them.
And so in keeping up on my end of the stick, there are two important things I want to let everyone know about. The first is today's virtual lobby day HRC launched to coincide with yesterday's formal introduction of legislation to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. While it's important to keep calling for more media pressure and pushback, and to keep pressuring the Administration to commit to including repeal language in the defense authorization bill, our side must also do our part to build the votes, and now is a critical time to pressure lawmakers.
To that end- and particularly if you haven't done anything to support repeal- there are several things you can take a minute to do:
1. E-mail your House member and Senators. Then, perhaps more critically, follow-up with a phone call. The Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121. Ask them to support repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
2. Promote the action on Facebook (also for those with 100% supportive members). There are also a number of additional virtual actions you can do at HRC's action page here.
The second thing I want to mention is that in a great example of blog-legacy org collaboration, The Bilerico Project (where I occasionally cross-post) and Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (popularly known as PFLAG) are teaming up to offer scholarships to unemployed people who lost their jobs because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The scholarships, which are targeted at eight target states, cover travel to DC to attend National Center for Transgender Equality's ENDA lobby day on Tuesday, March 16th. The eight target states are:
Alaska
Arkansas
Florida
Indiana
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
West Virginia
If you or someone you know have lost your job because of who you are and are from one of these states, come to DC. One colleague of mine a few weeks ago noted to me is that ENDA activists don't have our Matthew Shepard or our Dan Choi- well-known examples in the media of how hate crimes and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, respectively, affect people. You could be that person on ENDA and help lots of other people.
Applications are due at midnight tomorrow night. More details can be found by clicking here. You can also donate to help bring even more people, and details on how to do that are in Jillian's post.
I like to have a lot of discussions around political strategy with friends, both politically-oriented folks as well as more detached friends. I was e-mailing with one fairly politically-oriented friend of mine back and forth through the day yesterday about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the question of issue prioritization.
He wasn't comfortable with me publishing his response or naming him, but his complaint boiled down to why the LGBT movement is prioritizing repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell- which, in his eyes, affects a tiny fraction of LGBT people in this country- over passage of other issues, notably the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), given that employment discrimination at people based on sexual orientation is still legal in 29 states, and legal based on gender identity or expression in 38 states.
I think this question is an important and valid one, and I have a number of thoughts on it.
While it is true that the momentum has shifted from ENDA towards DADT, the work to pass ENDA has not completely stopped. There are a number of organizations out there who are focusing almost entirely on ENDA, as well as activists in online spaces such as this one. Frankly, that is probably a good thing. There shouldn't be one collective hive mind directing everyone to do one thing. There is a diverse movement that is moving on many different issues at once, so calls for "the LGBT movement" to do something, aside from being vague and unproductive, don't mean a lot since "the LGBT movement" never moves in lockstep.
That said, there is the question of resources. As I wrote when raising questions about the timing of the National Equality March and being spread thin, I have never been a "we can walk and chew gum at the same time"- you have to have enough gum to go around for every issue movement, and there isn't enough.
The answer to that is that sometimes this is out of activists' hands. President Obama mentioned DADT in the State of the Union (and did not mention ENDA). The result was increased chatter on DADT for the next several days on cable news, in op-ed pages, polling firms choosing to poll on the issue and release the results, and people like me writing about all of it. All of that led to John McCain's comments, Colin Powell and Dick Cheney choosing to speak out, and so forth. In other words, the President helped kick start the momentum- momentum we haven't had since 1993, in my view- and now that it's there, it's important to take advantage of it. You could say that activists like me calling for the President to discuss repeal in the speech, and institutions lobbying for the same, helped lead to all of that, but there wasn't any one major decision that "okay, the LGBT movement is going to collectively shift to Don't Ask, Don't Tell! Go!". Thus, another reason why attacks on "the LGBT movement" aren't entirely accurate. President Obama played a major role in starting this momentum, and when it's there, you have to grab it, and channel resources to that effect.
The third point I want to mention is on the question of resources and enthusiasm. The question was raised in the same way around how activists working on marriage equality were "sucking the energy out of the room" around ENDA. On this, I turn to the words of Kos- "it's a big internet". If you don't like the direction being taken in terms of strategy or prioritization, you can always do it your own way. I also would refer back to what Chris wrote here- "how to start your own netroots organization". One thing I mentioned in Dallas at a panel on the blogopshere is that a number of institutions- including OpenLeft- have sprung up in response to disagreement with the strategy or prioritization taken by other institutions. Hell, that's one big reason people started blogging. Now OpenLeft even has its own tools like an e-mail list and a fundraising apparatus, and with your help, together we got a public option in merged Senate bill, elected Rep. Donna Edwards in the face of establishment backing for Al Wynn, got every major 2008 Senate Democratic challenger to come out in favor of net neutrality, and other wins, not to mention some close losses like in Maine, and changing the debate on issues like no residual forces in Iraq. All of that came because a number of us didn't like the way other institutions were acting, so we built our own, and so can you.
The bottom line is that there are entirely valid questions about channeling resources and issue prioritization. Some of it is in activists' hands, and some is not, but there is no collective focus on just one issue, nor is it wise to just ignore all of the momentum on Don't Ask, Don't Tell and insist on focusing on ENDA. Opportunities must be taken as they come.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has privately told her politically vulnerable Democratic members that they will not vote on controversial bills in 2010 unless the Senate acts first.
After a year of bruising legislative victories that some political analysts believe have done more to jeopardize her majority than to entrench it, Pelosi is shifting gears for the 2010 election.
The Speaker recently assured her freshman lawmakers and other vulnerable members of her caucus that a vote on immigration reform is not looming despite a renewed push from the White House and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The House will not move on the issue until the upper chamber passes a bill, Pelosi told the members.
But according to Democrats who have spoken to Pelosi, the Speaker has expanded that promise beyond immigration, informing Democratic lawmakers that the Senate will have to move first on a host of controversial issues before she brings them to the House floor.
"The Speaker has told members in meetings that we've done our jobs," a Democratic leadership aide said. "And that next year the Senate's going to have to prove what it can accomplish before we go sticking our necks out any further."
[...]
Pelosi's promise could dim the prospects for other White House priorities as well, including the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) - known as "card check" - and the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" prohibition on gays serving openly in the military.
"There's not going to be a ton of stuff legislatively next year either way," a House leadership aide said. "But on EFCA - even though the House has demonstrated its ability to pass it - and on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Senate is definitely going to have to act first."
If the report is accurate, that can spell trouble for plenty of issues. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is certainly one- the Senate companion bill to the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2009 (which may be rolled into the defense authorization bill) doesn't even have a Senate sponsor yet. I also feel this further jeopardizes ENDA, the House markup of which has already been postponed into next year.
As an organizing mechanism, it raises an interesting question. Perhaps the famous instance of the "make the Senate go first" theory comes as a result of the BTU tax episode, a 1993 energy tax whose chief proponent was then-VP Gore. The House voted first on it and the Senate never took it up, hanging lots of House members out to dry and helped defeat them in 1994 over that vote, or so the story goes.
I'm not sure it should always be so, though. I've watched in the ongoing New Jersey fight around the marriage equality bill how they don't have the votes in the State Senate after it passed committee, so they're buying time by making the Assembly pass it first, in part to do more lobbying, and in part in the hopes that the Senators will look at the Assembly vote and get some cojones. That option should always be available at the Congressional level.
Carl Hulse also reports that House Democrats are frustrated at the pace of business in the Senate. Never acting on critical bills like immigration, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, ENDA and others until the Senate does is a good recipe for never getting anything done and even more frustration, including from the "base". The Senate has and always will move at a pace just slower than molasses. While it's true the House can take up and pass bills much quicker, that doesn't always ring true, as we've seen in the drawn-out negotiations over health care and the recently-passed financial reform bills on the House side, both of which took months. The Senate could take a long time to pass a bill that, if it's complicated like immigration reform, could completely change the House approach, leading to a long process there. I'm not a fan of the House sitting idly by waiting for the Senate to send them important pieces of legislation. Plus, sometimes the House going first can influence what the Senate bill will look like, and with the House generally being more liberal, that can be advantageous. There needs to be a balance between legislative organizing and electoral protection.
Dr. Jillian Weiss, who has been writing frequently about the progress of ENDA in Congress, has a piece up over the postponement of the markup in the House. In it, she blames marriage equality activists such as myself for paying too much attention to, um, marriage equality:
It is 5 minutes to midnight on ENDA, with still a possibility of getting a vote this year if everyone pulls together, and what happens? Do we have LGBT and progressive media exploding with articles of protest and telling people how to lobby Congress effectively to get this moving?
Nope. Instead, a NY marriage vote that was known to be doomed sucks all the oxygen out of the room. The D.C. city council preliminary vote on marriage and a possible marriage vote in NJ are also in the news. But unlike most mornings when I crank up my Google machine, there are no news articles this morning on ENDA, anywhere.
A couple of things:
1. Let me say first that I immensely respect Jill's work on this issue, which has been tremendous. Let me also ask that you call Chairman Miller's office at (202) 224-3121 and ask that he take up ENDA as an urgent priority.
2. I reject blame placed upon people who choose to focus on an issue and pound on it. In the first place is prioritization. By my own estimate, probably 80% of my posts and online organizing in the past three months have related to marriage equality. I focused on marriage in the Corzine race, Maine, New York State, DC, California, and New Jersey. I did this in part because of prioritization. At least 4/6 of those fights, in my view, were a more urgent priority than ENDA. Maine and Corzine happened on Nov 3rd and there is no way to change that. A deal was cut to have a vote in NYS before the end of the year. NJ needs to happen lest we get screwed the next several years by Christie. That's not mine or anyone else's fault, that's the nature of the beast and the timeline of elections, and that is part of the reason I chose to focus on them over ENDA.
3. I chose ME as my priority just as Jill is entitled to choose ENDA as hers. Yet it's my fault, in part, that a markup got postponed because I asked people to focus on equally- perhaps more important and urgent- fights? By Jill's logic, I suppose I'm entitled to write a post blaming Jill for helping lose NYS because she "sucked all the oxygen out of the room" at The Bilerico Project around ENDA. I suppose it's also my fault we don't have the votes on DOMA, DADT hasn't advanced and children are still starving in Africa because I've been asking folks to help with other issues.
ENDA is not the only important fight in the world. I would also direct attention to Chris' piece last night on how to build your own netroots organization. If you are upset by the perpetual suckitude of marriage activists like me for, you know, working on marriage too much, go build your own effort, and I am more than happy to help where I can.
4. I raised money to go to Maine in part because I didn't see enough attention being paid to the race- most of the energy was around health care- just as Jill said she started working on ENDA because no one was working on it, so I respect that. But I would never write a post blaming bloggers like Chris or Mike or anyone else for helping lose Maine because they think health care is important, and it captured people's attention. They have a right to care about what they want, as do readers like you. It's not like they or I were sitting on our asses when we could have helped. And you have to actually reach out and ask for help, sometimes.
5. On her organizing in general, we've gotten pretty good at whip counts here at OpenLeft recently. For Jill to list 45 Senators as "unconfirmed" over ENDA is odd. Who in the world expects bigots like McConnell and Sessions and Cornyn, who have opposed ENDA and every other piece of LGBT rights legislation for years, to suddenly come around? Not only does this amount to a waste of people's resources, when a Texas activist thinks it's suddenly important to spend time lobbying Cornyn, but it makes things seem not as up to date as they should be. Fixing this would help.
So I find this kind of circular firing blame game unhelpful. I have limited time to write and mobilize, and a right to prioritize issues. We all do. ENDA is far from over, and blaming activists like me for a House committee markup postponement is misdirected. Better would be to channel the losses over marriage into "hey folks, we just got screwed on marriage in multiple places and we're about to get screwed on ENDA- let's make sure we don't" activism. And to build your own efforts through methods like Chris' recommendations, reach out, and stop saying your priorities are more important than others'.
This is part two of an interview with Rea Carey, the Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Part one focused on the No On 1 campaign in Maine, the push to repeal Prop 8 in 2010 in California, and the marriage equality movement in general. This part focuses on the state of LGBT rights at the federal level, the Obama administration, and Congress.
Among the highlights:
Rea refusing to accept any half-measure on the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Although criticizing the Obama administration in many respects, Rea declining to call on the Obama administration for an apology over numerous slights towards the LGBT community
Rea commenting on the AMERICABlog donor boycott
The one comment I have is that I disagree on the refusal to call on the administration for an apology over what we all agreed were horrendous mistakes, with the rationale of "I don't know that the administration sees those as mistakes" (see the transcript for more). Glenn Beck called the President a racist, and he should apologize, regardless of whether he saw it as a mistake. LGBT advocates should call for the same from the Administration if serious mistakes were made.
Overall, though, NGLTF is taking a pretty strong stance in terms of language regarding the slow pace of LGBT issues in Congress, on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and with the Democratic Party in general, which is great.
Full transcript below the fold.
Q: Turning to the Administration and Capitol Hill, recently John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay launched a donor boycott of the DNC. Is NGLTF going to endorse the boycott?
I know I've written a bit on how I felt about Ted's passing, and I'm sure you've read and seen many others. But I just I had one more thought I wanted to share.
The more I thought about it today, the more I realized something. He came damn close to passing a lot of other legislation, too. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act in 2006 (it passed with a filibuster-proof majority in 2006, but didn't pass the Republican-led House). The Matthew Shepherd Hate Crimes Act, on which he was the lead sponsor along with Gorden Smith, which has passed the House but failed to advance in the Senate (it's currently moving). The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, too, which should pass in the next year. And that's just this decade- I'm sure I'm missing others in the past, please leave others you know of in in the comments. It's like Jack Nicklaus, who came in or tied for second in seventeen different majors. It's remarkable, but it goes overlooked among all his wins.
The other thing I thought about, in part inspired by HRC President Joe Solmonese's tribute, is that he also helped to stop a lot of bad from happening. Most people think of Robert Bork, which was a huge victory. I'm also thinking of, as Joe pointed out, stopping Jesse Helms' efforts to effectively force HIV+ individuals to live like sex offenders, or from using taxpayer money to fund programs designed to stop the "spread" of homosexuality. I learned that in 1994, he took the lead on defeating a proposed amendment requiring written parental consent before unemancipated minors could receive condoms or other contraceptives through any program that receives federal funds. This helped stop the spread of HIV and other STDs among both gay and straight youth.
Because so much of EMK's legacy focuses on his gigantic legislative achievements, we forget that he led the efforts to defend program after program from Reagan's cuts, and even dragged himself down to DC last summer to vote against Medicare cuts to doctor reimbursements, something that moved so many Republicans they switched their votes enough to make the vote veto-proof. These things, I think, are important to remember, too.
If you'll permit me to share one personal thing, it's that his passing makes me feel a bit the same as I did about LeRoi Moore, a founding member and longtime woodwind player for Dave Matthews Band (I'm a huge fan). As I wrote this morning, EMK inspires political activism in me, while LeRoi inspired music in my life. After LeRoi tragically died from complications relating to an ATV accident last summer, DMB opened nearly every show for the rest of that summer's tour with their epic song, Bartender. I think because it fits so well. It touches on the themes of death, remembrance, and legacy, and it moved me a great deal last summer. I listened to it on the way home tonight after I met up with another former EMK intern to talk about him, and found myself feeling the same way. It's a dark song with an uplifting, moving part right at the middle, and then a pennywhistle solo that makes you feel like there's hope even after all the mourning. The lyrics mean a lot in the context of his passing, too.
I posted a particularly great live version below, I hope you'll take a listen. Lyrics are posted here.
As an assistant Cook County State's Attorney, I have spent the last 10 years ensuring that people are equally protected under the law.
I believe it is one of the bedrock principles of our country that every American is entitled to be treated fairly regardless of their age, gender, race, national origin or religion. The Employee Non-Discrimination Act (HR 3685), or ENDA, simply makes it illegal to discriminate against any American in the workplace because of his or her sexual orientation.
No American should be subject to employment discrimination or have their right to work revoked because of sexual orientation.
Congress has a responsibility to ban any form of discrimination in the workplace in order to protect the rights of all workers against the biases of their employers.
First, the good news. On Thursday the Matthew Shepard Act passed the Senate with a 60 vote (filibuster proof) majority. Every Democrat voted in favor of the legislation, as did both independents and nine Republicans: Coleman (MN), Collins (ME), Gregg (NH), Lugar (IN), Smith (OR), Snowe (ME), Specter (PA), Voinovich (OH), and Warner (VA). In case you were wondering, that means Craig (ID) voted no, like he always does when it comes to legislation that would protect him gay people. No word yet on whether Bush plans a veto. Additionally, ENDA is poised to pass the House for the first time in the 30 years since its introduction.
Unfortunately, there is also some not-so-good news. This year transgender inclusive language was added to ENDA. Yesterday the gender identity provision was dropped to ensure passage of the bill, a move that was opposed by all the major gay rights organizations. Barney Franks issued a statement explaining the decision. It's very long, but I've excerpted some relevant sections:
"We are on the verge of an historic victory that supporters of civil rights have been working on for more than thirty years: the passage for the first time in American history by either house of Congress of legislation declaring it illegal to discriminate against people in employment based on their sexual orientation. Detracting from the sense of celebration many of us feel about that is regret that under the current political situation, we do not have sufficient support in the House to include in that bill explicit protection for people who are transgender. The question facing us - the LGBT community and the tens of millions of others who are active supporters of our fight against prejudice - is whether we should pass up the chance to adopt a very good bill because it has one major gap. I believe that it would be a grave error to let this opportunity to pass a sexual orientation nondiscrimination bill go forward, not simply because it is one of the most important advances we'll have made in securing civil rights for Americans in decades, but because moving forward on this bill now will also better serve the ultimate goal of including people who are transgender than simply accepting total defeat today.
… "Leaders in the GLBT community, who strongly support the inclusion of transgender, now acknowledge that this would be the case - namely that the transgender provision would lose - so their proposed alternative was simply to withhold the bill from the House altogether.
"That is, their recommendation was that the Speaker simply announce that she was not going to allow the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to come up at all. I believe that would be a disaster - politically, morally, and strategically. While their reason for this would be the debate over how ultimately to achieve transgender inclusion, the impression that would be given to the country was that Speaker Pelosi, the first Democratic Speaker in thirteen years, and a lifelong strong supporter of LGBT rights, had decided that we could not go forward on what had been the major single legislative goal of gay and lesbian people for over thirty years.
…
"First, I would note that since I first became a legislator thirty-five years ago, I have spent a lot of time and energy helping enact legislation to protect a variety of groups from discrimination. In no case has any of those bills ever covered everybody or everything. Antidiscrimination legislation is always partial. It improves coverage either to some group or some subject matter, but never achieves everything at once. And insistence on achieving everything at once would be a prescription for achieving nothing ever.
I'm enough of a pragmatist to see Frank's point, but I still don't feel like celebrating. In my little (younger, urban, predominately lesbian) corner of the LGBT community, the distinctions being made in the bill don't really make a lot of sense. The boundaries between the lesbian community and transgender community (at least in my world) tend to be pretty fluid and in day-to-day life the distinction is not always salient. So it's hard to work up too much enthusiasm for a bill that will leave a lot of people out in the cold, and my sense is that those who remain unprotected will be those who are most vulnerable to being fired from their jobs in the first place. So thanks, but no thanks. Apparently Rep Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis) (the only other out LGBT member of Congress) feels the same, as she has dropped her co-sponsorship of the bill.
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