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Is a discharge petition ‘the only way’ to pass ENDA?

Gay lawyer who authored McCain-Feingold thinks so

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Trevor Potter, gay news, Washington Blade

Gay McCain-Feingold co-author Trevor Potter says a discharge petition is “the only way” to pass ENDA. (Photo courtesy of Caplin & Drysdale via Wikimedia Commons).

The gay co-author of the bipartisan campaign finance reform law known as McCain-Feingold says LGBT advocates could take a lesson from the way that measure passed into law — a discharge petition in the U.S. House — to advance the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Trevor Potter, a Republican attorney with Caplin & Drysdale who specializes in political law, told the Washington Blade on Tuesday that a discharge petition is “the only way” to get ENDA passed while Republicans remain in control of the House.

“Given the House GOP leader’s opposition to ENDA, and resulting refusal to schedule it for a floor vote, the ONLY way to get it passed in the House is by way of a discharge petition,” Potter said via email. “If the petition gets close to 218 signatures, then the leadership will negotiate.”

Asked whether those words should be considered an endorsement of a discharge petition, Potter replied, “I’m not in the business of endorsing strategies — just commenting on them and analyzing them. I’m just a lawyer, not a political strategist.”

Successful discharge petitions in Congress in rare, but some supporters of ENDA — most prominently the LGBT group Freedom to Work — are seeking a discharge petition as a way to get around the issue of House Republican leadership  withholding a floor vote on ENDA.

If 218 lawmakers sign the petition, ENDA would come to the floor regardless of what House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) have to say. That would mean in addition to the 178 sponsors of ENDA, 40 more lawmakers would have to sign the petition in the Republican-majority chamber.

The last successful discharge petition was in 2002: the House version of campaign finance legislation co-written by Potter that became known as the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

In addition to co-writing that law, Potter has a distinctive history as an openly gay person in support of McCain. He served as general counsel to the Arizona senator’s 2008 and 2000 presidential campaigns.

Asked whether he could see McCain voting in favor of ENDA, Potter declined to answer.

“Like all good lawyers, I don’t comment on my clients,” he said.

Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, said supporters of ENDA should take heed of Potter’s words as they look to pass the bill during the 113th Congress.

“Mr. Potter is way too modest,” Almeida said. “I understand that he basically co-wrote the McCain-Feingold legislation and was an author of the strategy to move it through both chambers of Congress. I’m impressed with the way they used the House ‘discharge petition’ to bring about the win on that legislation, and we should learn from their success as we push forward this year on ENDA.”

Still, Almeida cautioned against considering a discharge petition the “only way” to pass ENDA in the House and said other options are on the table.

“I don’t think a discharge petition is the only winning strategy, we might also choose to attach ENDA to another bill in the Senate, but the House discharge petition should definitely be on the table after we rack up a huge Senate vote total on ENDA this fall,” Almeida said. “If we all push hard, we could get to 60 Senate votes by September.”

Other LGBT groups and lawmakers who support ENDA aren’t overtly calling at this point for a discharge petition amid preparations for a full floor vote in the Senate in the months ahead.

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, spoke broadly about supporting the right strategy to pass the bill when asked about the discharge petition.

“NCTE is interested in pursuing every possible option at the right time in the right way,” Keisling said.

Stacey Long, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force director of public policy and government affairs, said the first matter at hand is success in the Senate before turning to the House.

“Our focus is building support for ENDA in the Senate and getting a floor vote done as soon as possible,”

Last week, Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said he didn’t know whether a discharge petition would be appropriate for ENDA.

“I think as we get closer and as we make progress in the Senate, we’ll see, as we get closer, what the right strategies will be ultimately to get this done and work with the leadership, and work with Leader Reid and Chairman Harkin, who have been instrumental, and Sen. Merkley, who have been instrumental in getting us to where we are today,” Griffin said.

During the Netroots Nation conference in San Jose, Calif., last month, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) entertained the idea of a discharge petition to pass ENDA, but doubted the votes are there for passage.

“We can do discharge, but we don’t have enough votes to pass it,” Pelosi said. “So that means we have to have mobilization outside from some of our Republican friends, who should think that this is a form of discrimination that we should be getting rid of. But this is certainly the next order of business for us.”

And in an interview with the Blade in November, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), the gay lawmaker who’s the chief sponsor of ENDA in the House, said a discharge petition could be an option, but noted that legislation is rarely passed through that method.

“We can certainly file one,” Polis said. “Certainly in my time in Congress and long before it, there has never been a successful discharge petition … There certainly hasn’t been one in my time, or in the immediate past before my time.”

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Top Congressional Democrats reintroduce Equality Act on Trump’s 100th day in office

Legislation would codify federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections

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Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Democratic members reintroduce the Equality Act, April 29 2025 (Washington Blade photo by Christopher Kane)

In a unified display of support for LGBTQ rights on President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, congressional Democrats, including leadership from the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, reintroduced the Equality Act on Tuesday.

The legislation, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, codifying these protections into federal law in areas from jury service to housing and employment, faces an unlikely path to passage amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress along with the White House.

Speaking at a press conference on the grass across the drive from the Senate steps were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), who is the first out LGBTQ U.S. Senator, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), who is gay and chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (N.H.), who is gay and is running for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.).

Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (Del.), who is the first transgender member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.), U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Ill.), and representatives from LGBTQ advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.

Responding to a question from the Washington Blade on the decision to reintroduce the bill as Trump marks the hundredth day of his second term, Takano said, “I don’t know that there was a conscious decision,” but “it’s a beautiful day to stand up for equality. And, you know, I think the president is clearly hitting a wall that Americans are saying, many Americans are saying, ‘we didn’t vote for this.'”

A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday showed Trump’s approval rating in decline amid signs of major opposition to his agenda.

“Many Americans never voted for this, but many Americans, I mean, it’s a great day to remind them what is in the core of what is the right side of history, a more perfect union. This is the march for a more perfect union. That’s what most Americans believe in. And it’s a great day on this 100th day to remind our administration what the right side of history is.”

Merkley, when asked about the prospect of getting enough Republicans on board with the Equality Act to pass the measure, noted that, “If you can be against discrimination in employment, you can be against discrimination in financial contracts, you can be against discrimination in mortgages, in jury duty, you can be against discrimination in public accommodations and housing, and so we’re going to continue to remind our colleagues that discrimination is wrong.”

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was sponsored by Merkley, was passed by the Senate in 2013 but languished in the House. The bill was ultimately broadened to become the Equality Act.

“As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has always taught me,” Takano added, “public sentiment is everything. Now is the moment to bring greater understanding and greater momentum, because, really, the Congress is a reflection of the people.”

“While we’re in a different place right this minute” compared to 2019 and 2021 when the Equality Act was passed by the House, Pelosi said she believes “there is an opportunity for corporate America to weigh in” and lobby the Senate to convince members of the need to enshrine federal anti-discrimination protections into law “so that people can fully participate.”

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George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud case

Judge: ‘You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.’

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Former U.S. Rep. George Santos (Washington Blade photo by Christopher Kane)

Disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty last year to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. 

“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” said Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”

The first openly gay GOP member of Congress, Santos became a laughing stock after revelations came to light about his extensive history of fabricating and exaggerating details about his life and career.

His colleagues voted in December 2023 to expel him from Congress. An investigation by the U.S. House Ethics Committee found that Santos had used pilfered campaign funds for cosmetic procedures, designer fashion, and OnlyFans.

Federal prosecutors, however, found evidence that “Mr. Santos stole from donors, used his campaign account for personal purchases, inflated his fund-raising numbers, lied about his wealth on congressional documents and committed unemployment fraud,” per the New York Times.

The former congressman told the paper this week that he would not ask for a pardon. Despite Santos’s loyalty to President Donald Trump, the president has made no indication that he would intervene in his legal troubles.

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Democratic lawmakers travel to El Salvador, demand information about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker

Congressman Robert Garcia led delegation

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Andry Hernández Romero (photo credit: Immigrant Defenders Law Center)

California Congressman Robert Garcia on Tuesday said the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador has agreed to ask the Salvadoran government about the well-being of a gay asylum seeker from Venezuela who remains incarcerated in the Central American country.

The Trump-Vance administration last month “forcibly removed” Andry Hernández Romero, a stylist who asked for asylum because of persecution he suffered because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs, and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.

The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”

Garcia told the Washington Blade that he and three other lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) — met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan and embassy staffers in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital.

“His lawyers haven’t heard from him since he was abducted during his asylum process,” said Garcia.

The gay California Democrat noted the embassy agreed to ask the Salvadoran government to “see how he (Hernández) is doing and to make sure he’s alive.”

“That’s important,” said Garcia. “They’ve agreed to that … we’re hopeful that we get some word, and that will be very comforting to his family and of course to his legal team.”

The U.S. Embassy in El Salvador in 2023. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Embassy of El Salvador’s Facebook page)

Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari traveled to El Salvador days after House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) denied their request to use committee funds for their trip.

“We went anyways,” said Garcia. “We’re not going to be intimidated by that.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on April 14 met with Trump at the White House. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) three days later sat down with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador on March 15.

Abrego was sent to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. The Trump-Vance administration continues to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered it to “facilitate” Abrego’s return to the U.S.

Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari in a letter they sent a letter to Duncan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanded “access to” Hernández, who they note “may be imprisoned at” CECOT. A State Department spokesperson referred the Blade to the Salvadoran government in response to questions about “detainees” in the country.

Garcia said the majority of those in CECOT who the White House deported to El Salvador do not have criminal records.

“They can say what they want, but if they’re not presenting evidence, if a judge isn’t sending people, and these people have their due process, I just don’t understand how we have a country without due process,” he told the Blade. “It’s just the bedrock of our democracy.”

President Donald Trump greets Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14, 2025. (Public domain photo)

Garcia said he and Frost, Dexter, and Ansari spoke with embassy staff, Salvadoran journalists and human rights activists and “anyone else who would listen” about Hernández. The California Democrat noted he and his colleagues also highlighted Abrego’s case.

“He (Hernández) was accepted for his asylum claim,” said Garcia. “He (Hernández) signed up for the asylum process on an app that we created for this very purpose, and then you get snatched up and taken to a foreign prison. It is unacceptable and inhumane and cruel and so it’s important that we elevate his story and his case.”

The Blade asked Garcia why the Trump-Vance administration is deporting people to El Salvador without due process.

“I honestly believe that he (Trump) is a master of dehumanizing people, and he wants to continue his horrendous campaign to dehumanize migrants and scare the American public and lie to the American public,” said Garcia.

The State Department spokesperson in response to the Blade’s request for comment referenced spokesperson Tammy Bruce’s comments about Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador.

“These Congressional representatives would be better off focused on their own districts,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, they are concerned about non-U.S. citizens.”

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