(From the top left) Robin Deibert, Jared Polis, Andrew Martin, Jim Neil and Linda Ketner (Photos courtesy of candidates)
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LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, March 07, 2008
Ten years after Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) became the first and only openly gay person to win election to a first-term seat in Congress, four gay men and a lesbian are running for Congress this year and political observers say each faces an uphill fight.
Although three other open gays, including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), have repeatedly won re-election to seats in the House of Representatives, each of them first won their seats before they publicly disclosed their sexual orientation.
Supporters of the gay congressional candidates running this year say they are hopeful that at least one or more of the five will break through what some have called a “glass ceiling” that has prevented another open gay from winning a first-term congressional seat since Baldwin’s victory in 1998.
A sixth gay candidate — lesbian Democratic activist Robin Deibert — lost her bid for a U.S. House
seat in Western Maryland’s 6th Congressional District in the Feb. 12 Democratic primary. Deibert, an information technology specialist and Army veteran, came in third place in a five-candidate race, receiving 9.9 percent of the vote.
Like Deibert, four of the five openly gay congressional candidates still in the running — three Democrats and one Republican — must overcome opponents from their own party in upcoming primaries in order to win the right to compete in the November general election.
Some of their supporters, especially backers of the gay Democrats, have complained that party leaders have shown a bias toward their straight opponents in the upcoming primaries. Supporters of the gay Democratic candidates have also expressed concern that national gay groups, such as National Stonewall Democrats and Human Rights Campaign, have yet to endorse any of the gay congressional candidates.
The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a Washington-based group that raises money for gay candidates, has so far endorsed only one of the congressional gay hopefuls — Colorado Democrat Jared Polis, who is running for that state’s 2nd District House seat in the Boulder area.
The seat became vacant after Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who has a strong record in support of gay rights, gave up the seat to become a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Democrats hold a solid majority in the district and Polis would be expected to win against a Republican challenger if he secures the nomination.
But he faces a hotly contested race for the nomination, with Colorado State Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald emerging as his main opponent. Polis, 32, founded and later sold an Internet service company, becoming a millionaire in the process. He has since founded two non-profit education organizations and taken on the role of a philanthropist — all while remaining active in Colorado politics.
His well-financed congressional campaign and his backing by a long list of prominent political leaders in Colorado and other states gives him the best shot among the openly gay candidates of winning a seat in Congress in 2008, according to political insiders. Baldwin is among those who have endorsed him.
With the exception of Polis’ race, where the seat he is seeking is vacant, the incumbents in the other four congressional races where gays are running have received “0” ratings on gay issues from HRC.
Accountant and government auditing specialist Andrew Martin, who is running for the Democratic nomination for the 3rd District House seat in Nevada, which includes parts of Las Vegas, said endorsements by national gay groups could be especially helpful in his race.
Martin has been praised by the head of the Stonewall Democrats of Southern Nevada, a subsidiary of the national Stonewall group, as a highly qualified candidate with more than 20 years of experience in financial oversight of large corporations and federal government agencies.
Yet Nevada Stonewall president Judy Corbisiero said rules set by state and county Democratic committees in Nevada prevent her group from endorsing candidates in primaries. The Nevada Stonewall group operates as an official component of the Nevada Democratic party.
Corbisiero has joined Martin in expressing concern that the state’s Democratic Party establishment rushed to endorse Martin’s primary opponent, former county prosecutor Robert Daskas.
Nevada political insiders say U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), one of the state’s most powerful politicians, handpicked Daskas on grounds that he would have a better shot at defeating incumbent Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.). Porter is considered vulnerable this year in a district where Democrats now outnumber Republicans.
“I have tremendous local support from people who are not part of the establishment,” Martin said. “Daskas is a decent man and a capable prosecutor, but he has no experience and knowledge on how things work in Washington.”
Martin points to his past experience working in Washington, where he helped conduct audits of multi-million dollar Department of Defense contracts as an accountant. He is now managing partner in the accounting firm Martin & Wall, which has offices in Las Vegas, Washington and Chicago.
He said he respects the decision by Reid and other prominent Democrats in the state to back a candidate of their choice. But Martin said he was disappointed and “hurt” that none of them answered his phone calls seeking a chance to make a case for his candidacy.
Heather Urban, Daskas’ campaign manager, said Daskas supports most of the gay rights issues that Martin backs, saying Daskas would vote for hate crimes prevention legislation and an employment non-discrimination bill for gays. She said Daskas, similar to Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, supports civil unions rather than same-sex marriage.
Martin, who calls himself a fiscal conservative, said he favors civil marriage for same-sex couples, but would leave the decision about same-sex marriage up to the states. He points to his years of involvement in gay rights groups, including his membership in Stonewall Democrats of Southern Nevada.
One of the other gay candidates still awaiting endorsements from national gay groups, North Carolina businessman and financial analyst Jim Neil, is running in a hotly contested Democratic primary, where he is seeking the nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.). If he wins the primary, Neil would become the second openly gay person to ever receive a major party nomination for a U.S. Senate seat.
In 2000, Ed Flanagan, Vermont’s openly gay then-state auditor, won the Democratic nomination to compete for the Senate seat held by then-GOP Sen. Jim Jeffords, a pro-gay lawmaker who later left the Republican Party to become an independent. Flanagan won the Democratic primary, becoming the first openly gay person to be nominated by a major party for such a post. But he lost to Jeffords in the general election, receiving just 25 percent of the vote.
In neighboring South Carolina, lesbian businesswoman and philanthropist Linda Ketner so far is running unopposed for the Democratic Party nomination for the 1st District House seat, which includes most of Charleston.
One reason other Democrats haven’t jumped into the race, political observers have said, is because incumbent Rep. Henry Brown (R-S.C.) is considered the strong favorite to win re-election in the conservative, Republican-leaning district.
“It would be hard enough for anyone to beat Brown in that district, let alone a lesbian,” said Hastings Wyman, editor of Southern Political Report, an authoritative newsletter on politics in the South.
Wyman, who is gay, said Ketner is well known in the district as a prominent businessperson and community leader and appears to be poised to receive the backing of many party leaders and activists. As the daughter of Ralph Ketner, founder of the Food Lion supermarket chain, Ketner is financially independent and has the money to run a well-financed campaign, Wyman said.
Her biggest disadvantage is the demographics of the 1st District, whose solid Republican majority has prompted Democratic Party strategists in Washington to write it off and earmark party money and resources for other races, where Democrats have a better chance of winning.
Shadegg reconsiders
In Arizona, gay former state Rep. Steve May, a Republican, was among several Republicans who announced their candidacy in February for the 3rd District House seat near Phoenix after incumbent Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) said he decided not to seek re-election. But less than two weeks later, Shadegg changed his mind, saying an outpouring of phone calls and e-mails from supporters and House GOP colleagues persuaded him to run for re-election.
All of the Republican hopefuls except May dropped out of the race, saying they would yield to the popular Shadegg, who has held the seat for 14 years. In 2006, Shadegg beat Democrat Herb Paine with 59 percent of the vote in a year Democrats regained control over the House. Most political observers familiar with the district say Shadegg is poised to win another term by a comfortable margin.
“It’s time for a new direction in the way our district is represented,” May told the Arizona Republic in a May 21 interview.
He did not return a call from the Blade by press time, and Patrick Sammon, president of the national gay group Log Cabin Republicans, said he had not spoken to May since Shadegg announced he would run again for the seat.
“The bottom line is if he runs, we’re going to support him and do all we can to help him win,” Sammon said.
May served as an elected member of the Arizona House of Represen-tatives from 1999 to 2003. He lost his re-election bid in 2002 to a conservative Republican challenger in the primary by less than 300 votes.
He has been credited with playing an important role in defeating Proposition 107, the anti-gay marriage amendment on the Arizona ballot in 2006, when he served as co-chair of Arizona Together, the lead group in opposition to the ballot measure.
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