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LOU CHIBBARO J
Friday, October 05, 2007
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) this week postponed plans to bring a revised version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, to a vote in the House without protection for transgender persons, following a groundswell of opposition from gay activists.
Pelosi’s action came after representatives of more than 90 prominent national and state gay and transgender rights organizations presented her and all members of the House with a petition expressing strong opposition to any version of ENDA that does not include transgender protections.
“We ask you to keep working with us on an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that protects everyone in our community and to oppose any substitute legislation that leaves some of us behind,” the petition states.
Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders said they strongly support a trans-inclusive ENDA but they determined through an internal vote count of House Democrats that such a bill would be defeated on the House floor. Rather than sacrifice the entire bill, their initial response was to move forward with a “sexual orientation only” version of ENDA this year and push for a separate bill protecting transgender persons over the next few years.
Last week, Gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) took the lead in advancing that strategy by introducing a sexual orientation version of the bill, which covers gays and bisexuals, along with a second bill prohibiting job discrimination based on gender identity, which covers transgender persons. Frank called for a quick committee hearing on the transgender bill but acknowledged it didn’t have enough support to merit a vote this year.
Frank released a four-page statement in support of the two-bill strategy, saying he believes approving a sexual orientation version of ENDA this year would lead to the approval by Congress of transgender protections sooner than through what he called an “all or nothing” strategy proposed by the groups signing the petition.
The list of groups opposing a non-trans-inclusive ENDA was said to have exceeded 140 as of late Wednesday, drawing attention to a sharp rift between many of the nation’s leading gay and transgender groups and Democratic leaders in Congress who have long been their allies.
Signs that the rift had spilled over into the gay rights movement surfaced this week when the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay advocacy group, declined to join the other groups in calling on Congress to reject the sexual orientation-only ENDA.
In a statement Tuesday, HRC said its board voted to reaffirm the group’s 2004 position “not to support ENDA” without transgender protections.
But HRC President Joe Solmonese angered transgender activists and leaders of many of the other gay groups when he added that while HRC isn’t supporting a sexual orientation-only bill, the group will not “encourage members of Congress to vote against” such a bill.
Solmonese told the Blade that HRC would put itself in an untenable position to completely break from gay-supportive Democratic leaders in Congress should those leaders decide to move forward with a sexual orientation-only bill.
HRC’s decision prompted the only transgender member of the group’s board to resign in protest. Transgender activist Donna Ross, in an open letter, said HRC’s position amounted to an endorsement of a “divisive strategy” to separate transgender persons from the gay and lesbian community.
“I cannot align myself with an organization that I can’t trust to stand up for all of us,” Ross said in her letter.
In a separate statement, HRC board co-chairs Lawrie Demorest and Henry Robin said HRC was “deeply saddened” over Ross’s resignation. “We respect Donna’s decision and wish her only the best,” they said.
On Thursday, the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition announced plans to picket HRC’s annual National Dinner Saturday night in Washington.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), the only open lesbian in Congress, said she agrees with Pelosi’s assessment that Democrats don’t have enough votes to pass a trans-inclusive version of ENDA. But Baldwin has told gay leaders she informed Pelosi that she favors taking a vote on a trans-inclusive bill because it would inform the community of which members support or oppose the legislation.
Baldwin told the Blade this week that the controversy that erupted last week over whether the House should vote on a sexual orientation-only bill appears to have prompted more gays and transgender persons to contact their members of Congress in support of a trans-inclusive ENDA. Baldwin and Frank have said that prior to last week, many of their congressional colleagues told them they had not been hearing from constituents in support of ENDA.
“I would say there is significant evidence that the community’s activity over the last week has had a significant impact on Congress,” Baldwin said. “I want to make sure that this continues unabated.”
This week, Frank said it would be up to the gay and transgender leaders who oppose the two-bill strategy to generate the support needed to pass a trans-inclusive ENDA. He said that from talking to his House colleagues, it appeared unlikely that the votes needed to pass such a measure could be lined up over the next few weeks.
But if a consensus emerges among the gay and transgender groups in favor of an up or down vote on a trans-inclusive ENDA, Frank said he would not oppose such a vote.
“Last week, they told me pull it back,” Frank said. “We’d rather hold off on a vote.”
Frank said he and other House Democratic leaders believe it would be harmful in the long run to lose a vote on the transgender question because lawmakers who vote against it would be less likely to change their votes later once they are on record opposing it.
“No one wants to be labeled a flip-flopper,” he said.
Frank and HRC’s Solmonese said they also worry that once marginally supportive House members see that a vote on a trans-inclusive ENDA is losing, they are likely to “jump ship,” causing the measure to lose by a far larger margin.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said gay and transgender groups throughout the country were seizing on Pelosi’s two- to three-week postponement of a vote on ENDA to build support for a trans-inclusive bill.
“I’m feeling very optimistic,” she said. “Our allies on the Hill are hearing from people. The LGBT community is really motivated in letting members of Congress know how they feel about this, that they want a single, unified bill.”
The row over ENDA began last week when Pelosi and Frank disclosed that an internal Democratic “whip” count of House Democrats showed there was not enough support to pass the legislation if it was trans-inclusive.
The version of the bill introduced earlier this year calls for banning job discrimination based on sexual orientation, which is defined to include gays and bisexuals, and gender identity, which covers transgender persons.
Frank said the whip count showed that a minority of Democrats opposing a transgender provision in the bill would give Republicans enough votes to kill a trans-inclusive bill.
With Pelosi’s consent, Frank introduced a new “sexual orientation-only” version of ENDA along with a separate bill that would ban job discrimination based on gender identity. The sexual orientation version was to be moved forward for a vote in the House as soon as next week. Frank called for hearings on the gender identity bill but said it did not have enough support to bring up for a vote any time soon.
Pelosi’s action on Monday placing a temporary hold on the sexual orientation-only bill came in the form of a two-sentence, joint statement released by her office, which announced that a final draft of the bill would be worked out in committee “later this month” followed by a vote in the full House.
“This schedule will allow proponents of the legislation to continue their discussions with members in the interest of passing the broadest possible bill,” the statement said.
Signing on to the statement, in addition to Pelosi, were Frank, Baldwin and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, which has jurisdiction over ENDA.
On Wednesday, HRC said it was stepping up its own ongoing lobbying efforts on ENDA by launching a “full-scale, nationwide call to action in support of a fully inclusive” bill.
Donna Rose a transgender activist, resigned from the HRC board this week after the organization decided it wouldn’t urge members of Congress to reject a version of ENDA that excludes trans people. (Photo courtesy of Donna Rose) |
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The group said it was calling on its “more than 700,000 members and supporters” to begin an immediate campaign to urge their members of Congress to vote for an ENDA version that “protects the entire GLBT” community.
Keisling said that losing a vote or withdrawing ENDA completely until after the 2008 elections would result in the same legislative outcome because no bill is likely to be enacted into law this year. She noted that most observers don’t believe ENDA has the 60 votes needed to pass in the Senate, where it must overcome a certain filibuster by Republican opponents.
She noted that most political observers also expect President Bush to veto the measure if it should clear a Senate filibuster, and almost no one thinks there are enough votes to meet the two-thirds majority threshold needed to override a presidential veto.
“Almost everybody believes nobody will be protected by the end of this year,” Keisling said.
Solmonese said passing any form of ENDA in the House now would set an important precedent that would improve chances of enacting the bill into law in the near future, even if it doesn’t make it into law this year. He said House approval of a sexual orientation-only ENDA would also expedite the passage of a transgender bill.
Frank said Republican opponents would most likely orchestrate the defeat of a trans-inclusive bill by using a parliamentary tactic on the House floor known as a motion to recommit the bill. Frank and Capitol Hill observers said the motion to recommit would most likely call for a separate up or down vote on whether or not to remove transgender protections from the bill.
According to Frank, it might also call for an exemption to ENDA that would allow elementary schools to fire and refuse to hire transgender persons as teachers, opening up a heated debate on the House floor that would give anti-gay lawmakers an opportunity to “bring up all the negative stereotypes” about transgender persons and gays.
He said the Democratic whip count showed such a motion would likely pass by a significant margin, forcing ENDA supporters to decide whether to accept “a horrible provision” or kill the entire bill.
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