Apr 27, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

Democratic and Republican members of the House of Representatives this week introduced the latest version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, a civil rights measure that calls for protecting gays and transgender persons from job discrimination.

With officials from the AFL-CIO and one of the nation’s largest insurance and financial services corporations standing beside them, gay Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) joined Reps. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) and Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) in predicting that Congress would pass the legislation this year.

But Frank and the other House members, speaking at a news conference Tuesday on Capitol Hill, said they were uncertain whether President Bush would sign or veto the bill and acknowledged that supporters most likely could not line up enough votes to overturn a presidential veto.

The White House has declined to comment on the president’s position on the legislation.

If Bush were to sign the legislation, it would mark the culmination of a period of more than 30 years since the late Bella Abzug, the Democratic House member representing New York’s Greenwich Village, introduced a gay civil rights bill considered the forerunner to ENDA.

In a separate development, opponents of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act introduced a flurry of hostile amendments Wednesday in a House markup hearing in an effort to undercut the bill’s protections for gays and transgender persons.

As the Blade went to press, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, was leading efforts among the committee’s Democratic members to fend off the amendments.

Most of the hostile amendments were expected to be introduced by conservative Republican members of the Judiciary panel, many of whom have expressed opposition to the bill’s main provision giving the federal government authority to prosecute anti-gay and anti-transgender hate crimes.

House Democratic leaders, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), have predicted the Democratic-controlled Judiciary Committee would approve the bill this week and send it to the full House, where it could come up for a vote as early as next week.

At the news conference Tuesday on ENDA, Rosalyn Pelles, an official with the AFL-CIO, and Steven Keyes, vice president for compensation, benefits and human resources for Nationwide Insurance Corporation, said ENDA enjoys widespread support from the nation’s labor unions and Fortune 500 corporations.

The lawmakers supporting the bill released a list of corporate supporters of the legislation that includes Microsoft Corp., Levi Strauss & Co., Coca-Cola Company, Charles Schwab & Co., Nike Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., among others.

“Corporate America is way ahead of the public sector on this,” Frank said.

“This is a protection against discrimination that has been tried in a number of states, beginning in Wisconsin more than 20 years ago, and it has worked extremely well,” Frank said.

“It has caused none of the problems that opponents inaccurately claimed it would and it has provided job protection for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people who ask simply to be allowed to do their jobs and be judged on their job performance,” he said.

“This legislation is first and foremost about fairness, about allowing all Americans to pursue their right to earn a living,” said Pryce, who was among the House Republican leadership team last year.

“Workplace discrimination of any kind is wrong, period,” Pryce said, “yet, in 33 states, it is legal to fire an employee based solely on the basis of his or her sexual orientation.”

Human Rights Campaign said in a statement that it also is legal to fire someone on the basis of his or her gender identity — or status as a transgender person — in 42 states.

Frank joined HRC and transgender advocacy groups in pointing to states like California, which have existing laws banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, saying such laws have not created problems for employers or other workers.

Churches exempt

Similar to past versions of ENDA, the latest version exempts the U.S. armed services and religious institutions, including churches and church-operated institutions and schools, from the sexual orientation and gender identity provisions. It also exempts employers with fewer than 15 employees.

In addition, the bill prohibits hiring quotas or affirmative action requirements on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and explicitly states that employers are not required to provide benefits to domestic partners of employees.

The bill’s main provision states, “It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer … to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment of ...