News
Veteran strategist takes helm of coalition to pass ENDA
McTighe says executive order would make issue a partisan one
Matt McTighe is campaign manager for Americans for Workplace Opportunity. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key).
For Matt McTighe, the strategy for passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is similar to the one he oversaw guiding the legalization of same-sex marriage in Maine: Having LGBT people tell their stories about the harms they face under current law.
“The big things are just the need for personal interactions, really trying to educate people using our own personal stories,” McTighe said.
The gay 34-year-old veteran political strategist, who in addition to leading the 2012 ballot campaign that brought marriage equality to Maine had a hand in efforts as a Gill Action Fund operative in defeating anti-gay marriage efforts in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, has been contracted through the fall to head the $2 million LGBT campaign known as “Americans for Workplace Opportunity.” The campaign has a singular goal: pass ENDA.
During an interview with the Washington Blade on Tuesday, McTighe said he wanted to bring the recent success the LGBT community has seen on marriage equality to ENDA in the wake of legalization of same-sex marriage at the ballot in three states and in legislatures in two states.
“We can take those same proven tactics and apply them to other issues that haven’t had as much resources behind them or as much as a concerted push behind them in recent years and see if we can get it done,” McTighe said.
Ian Grady, the Equality Maine communications director who worked with McTighe under the Maine marriage campaign, said his former boss’ ability to work with people of different political affiliations makes him “a great choice” to lead the new coalition.
“In Maine, while he led the efforts to secure marriage, he brought together people and groups from across the political spectrum to build the support we needed to win,” Grady said. “He’s a natural choice to lead this new, bi-partisan effort.”
Foremost on McTighe’s mind is ensuring successful, bipartisan passage of ENDA in the Senate, where a vote is expected in the fall. The campaign has identified several key states with undecided senators where it’ll concentrate on building grassroots support: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia.
With U.S. senators at home in their districts during August recess, McTighe said the immediate focus of the campaign includes efforts “to generate a high number of quantity contacts and quality contacts” of individuals and business leaders who have a personal connection to lawmakers and are able to talk with them about ENDA.
“And so far, that outreach has been going really well, we have a growing list of supportive companies, a growing list of faith leaders who are coming on board and some really high-profile prominent advocates on both sides of the aisle,” McTighe said.
Also on the agenda while Congress is on hiatus is updating the research and polling on ENDA, which McTighe says has remained stagnant for some time.
“The last real massive comprehensive poll on this was done in early 2011,” McTighe said. “So, we need updated research, we need updated numbers. Our guess is that support has only increased in recent years because we’ve seen support increase on marriage and growing acceptance of LGBT Americans across the country.”
Amid anticipated plans for town halls for lawmakers and their constituents, McTighe said he encourages ENDA supporters to question their representatives in Congress about ENDA “as long as they do it in a respectful way that gives them space.”
“It’s never helpful for them to do it in an accusatory way that’s going to put it on the defensive and frame it as, ‘Why aren’t you supporting this thing already?'” McTighe said. “Because the case is for some of these legislators, yeah, we wish all of them were supportive, but some of them just really haven’t had the exposure to the education.”
Three of the undecided senators on ENDA are Democrats: Sens. Bill Nelson (Fla.), Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.). Nelson has been quoted in the Tampa Bay Times about having concerns over the transgender protections in ENDA, including whether private business insurance policies would have to pay for gender reassignment surgery.
While expressing faith that Nelson would cast a vote in favor of ENDA based on the lawmaker’s record, McTighe said the way to bring the Florida senator on board is through additional education and lobbying from transgender constituents.
“I think the things that Sen. Nelson has said and certainly his past voting record shows that he’s open-minded, fair-minded who, I think, gets that these are his constituents, too, and anybody needs to be protected,” McTighe said.
McTighe said he’s “optimistic” that ENDA would find 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, but added “it’s not going to be easy” getting there and he wouldn’t predict the number of votes that would be ultimately won on the Senate floor.
The Senate vote has such prominence in McTighe’s strategy that he said he wouldn’t openly speculate about the strategy for passing ENDA in the House, saying it’s “premature” to talk about ideas like a discharge petition or the Senate inserting ENDA into a larger bill that the House would later pass.
“The biggest thing is that we know for sure that we’re not going to get anywhere until we actually have a successful bipartisan vote that actually comes to the floor and can overcome a filibuster in the Senate,” McTighe said. “To me, it’s pointless to speculate about what’s going to happen in the House, or what’s going to happen on the executive order in the administration until we really give it our all to get a full Senate vote.”
Still, McTighe said his work during the short-term on the Senate vote is meant to build support for success in the lower chamber of Congress.
“Even though I’m only contracted to oversee this effort through the Senate vote this fall, everything I’m doing and all the plans, field and research groundwork I’m putting into place is predicated on the notion that the coalition will need to keep the fight going in the House,” McTighe said.
McTighe said he sees a path forward in the House following a bipartisan vote on the Senate floor if other GOP lawmakers joins Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in supporting the bill.
“We think we’ve got a really good shot of getting anywhere between two to five more,” McTighe said. “If we can do that, and show that this isn’t a partisan issue, I think a lot of Republicans in the House are going to look at this and probably put some pressure on leadership that this is an issue that so many Americans support, this is an issue in every state you’ll see, in every poll you’ll see support growing, and the polls are only going in one direction.”
McTighe says executive order would ‘inject level of partisanship’ into debate
The campaign is focused on the Senate without looking for additional help beyond what the administration is currently offering. McTighe said he’s happy with the level of support from the administration and Obama’s position on the legislation is clear.
“I think the president has been great in expressing his support for this legislation and expressing his support for the pathway of trying to actually get a bill passed because the administration recognizes and has a long track record of supporting workplace protections,” McTighe said.
Notably, McTighe expressed a lack of interest in Obama issuing an executive order that would prohibit LGBT workplace discrimination among federal contractors, saying that kind of unilateral administrative action “injects a level of partisanship into whatever that debate is.”
“We want to embrace the legislative process here instead and actually work with the Senate, and work eventually with the House to get this passed because an executive order would only cover approximately 20 percent of the American workforce or less through federal contractors, whereas passing a full ENDA, which we’re only going to get to with a bipartisan majority, is going to cover everybody,” McTighe said. “The minute an executive order is invoked, now you’re going to make it a lot harder for people from whatever party the current administration is not in, so in this case Republicans coming on board, it makes it harder for them because now this is much more of a partisan issue.”
The Americans for Workplace Opportunity coalition includes more than 90 groups seeking to pass ENDA headed by a steering committee of eight prominent groups — LGBT-affiliated and otherwise — seeking to pass the legislation. The steering committee consists of American Civil Liberties Union, American Federation of Teachers, American Unity Fund, Human Rights Campaign, Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, National Center for Transgender Equality, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and the Service Employees International Union.
McTighe said these groups working under a single umbrella to pass ENDA is more effective than each of them working individually because a bigger pool of resources will be combined toward a larger goal.
“We know there’s a focus and we know that we’ve got significant resources that are going to be better spent and more effectively utilized because they’re going to all flow through one entity, and in this case it’s going to be overseen by me as campaign manager, and I can treat it as I would any other campaign, focusing on a deadline and a specific goal,” McTighe said.
Getting access to the steering committee, McTighe said, required organizational strength as well as shared belief that the tactics employed to win marriage equality are the right ones to pass ENDA.
“This is a very specific campaign where funding is being allocated for very specific purposes, so we’re working with the organizations that do that, that actually do that level of research-driven targeted field [work] with a tailored message and message-testing like what we’ve seen done with all the marriage states,” McTighe said.
Still, the steering committee lacks some groups known for their work on ENDA, including GetEQUAL, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, Log Cabin Republicans and Freedom to Work. Freedom to Work’s absence is particularly striking because that group is focused specifically on winning LGBT workplace protections.
McTighe emphasized that each of these organizations is part of the larger 90-group coalition to pass ENDA and emphasized that inclusion on the steering committee “really depends on the tactics” that these organizations pursue.
“I look at it as a pie; this is one slice of the pie,” McTighe said. “There’s a much bigger movement, and this is true of every movement and every campaign. There are going to be groups that are supportive, some of them are going to be part of the coalition some might be on a board, some might be on a separate advisory board.”
Asked whether he was happy with Freedom to Work’s contributions to the effort to pass ENDA, McTighe replied, “I haven’t had a lot of firsthand experience working with Freedom to Work, but everything that I’ve seen, I know they’re really dedicated to this issue, and I look forward to working with them as part of the broader coalition that we’re all going to be working in.”
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, said he hasn’t met McTighe, but looks forward to collaborating as part of the effort to pass ENDA.
“I’ve never met Mr. McTighe, but I’ve heard really wonderful things about him from our contacts at the Gill Foundation, in Maine, and elsewhere in our movement,” Almeida said. “I’m looking forward to learning more about AWO’s efforts, especially since Freedom to Work has a full docket of lobbying, litigation, field organizing, Republican outreach, Spanish-language Latino outreach, collaboration with faith and business leaders, and social media efforts that we will roll out in September.”
The presence of another group on the steering committee, the ACLU, is also noteworthy because that group is the chief organization that’s seeking to narrow a religious exemption to enable a greater number of meritorious cases for LGBT workplace discrimination. McTighe denied the group’s inclusion means the campaign would share this goal, nor did the issue come up during negotiations in bringing the ACLU on board.
“The opportunities to amend it — whether it was in the committee process, or previous years, or in the early drafting stages — some of these organizations had positions were they were really trying to advocate for narrow exemptions or different wording or additional language, but in the case of coming together in the steering committee, we’re united in trying to get a bill passed that’s already passed the committee and that’s the version that’s out there right now,” McTighe said.
But the main message that McTighe had for supporters of ENDA was that people need to make clear the federal employment non-discrimination protections don’t exist to grow the number of voices calling for its passage.
“You need to get those same people who are shocked and even outraged when they hear protections don’t currently exist … trying to contribute in a productive way whether it’s supporting the organization — supporting Americans for Workplace Opportunity in this case — also just talking to the legislators, telling them them in an open-minded way why they care about it,” McTighe said.
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Congratulations to Raffi Freedman-Gurspan on being appointed Associate Director, Federal Funding & Infrastructure Office, at the Massachusetts Executive Office for Administration & Finance. Freedman-Gurspan will be returning to her hometown of Boston and joining Gov. Maura Healey’s Administration. Freedman-Gurspan served in both the Obama and Biden administrations as well as worked in LGBTQ and redistricting advocacy during her 11 years in D.C.
Freedman-Gurspan was the first openly transgender person on the White House staff when she worked for President Obama. She most recently served at the U.S. Department of Transportation in former Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s office, as Deputy Director of Public Engagement. Previously she worked with the National Redistricting Action Fund/The All On The Line Campaign, as Deputy States Director. She worked for the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) as Director of External Relations. In the Obama White House, she worked in the Office of Public Engagement, as Senior Associate Director. She was the White House Liaison to the LGBTQ community responsible for management of all public inquiries on matters regarding LGBTQ people, including recommending public responses to senior leadership, assisting in drafting administration talking points, and coordinating stakeholder engagement with the White House offices. She worked with the White House, Presidential Personnel Office (PPO), as Outreach and Recruitment Director.
Prior to that she was on the staff of Commonwealth of Massachusetts, House of Representatives Office of State Rep. Carl Sciortino, as legislative director, and worked for the City of Somerville, Health Department, Office of Commissions, Somerville, Mass., as LGBTQ Liaison.
Freedman-Gurspan served on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the Presidentially Appointed Council; and as a member, and Board Member, Boston University, College of Arts and Sciences, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Norwegian, concentration in Nordic Studies, from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn.
District of Columbia
Murdered Israeli embassy officials were supporters of D.C.’s LGBTQ synagogue
Bet Mishpachah calls fatal shooting outside Capital Jewish Museum ‘devastating’
The two Israeli embassy officials who were shot to death outside D.C.’s Capital Jewish Museum Wednesday evening, May 21, were strong supporters of Bet Mishpachah, D.C.’s LGBTQ supportive synagogue, according to a statement it released.
“We are especially devastated by the loss of our dear colleague and friend of Bet Mishpachah, Sarah Milgram, and her soon to be fiancé, Yaron Lischinsky,” the LGBTQ synagogue said in a May 22 statement.
“Sarah was the liaison between Bet Mishpachah and the Israeli Embassy, working closely with our staff and clergy,” the statement says. “Her warmth, professionalism, and deep commitment to building bridges within the Jewish community made her not only a trusted partner but a beloved part of our extended congregational family,” according to the statement.
A statement also released on May 22 by the office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia says Chicago resident Elias Rodriguez, 30, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder along with other weapons related charges in connection with the shooting deaths of Milgram and Lischinsky.
Officials with the D.C. police and the FBI, which has joined D.C. police in continuing to investigate the case, have said Rodriquez arrived in D.C. from Chicago one day prior to the shooting and appears to have targeted an event taking place at the Capital Jewish Museum for violence at the time it was hosting an event called “Young Diplomats Reception,” in which Israeli Embassy officials were in attendance.
Police and FBI officials have said Rodriguez allegedly shot Milgrim and Lischinsky after they left the Capital Jewish Museum at the conclusion of the event. The museum is located at 575 3rd Street, N.W.
“Surveillance footage reportedly shows Rodriquez walking past the victims before turning and firing multiple rounds,” the U.S. Attorney’s statement says. “After the victims fell, he allegedly continued firing at close range, including as one attempted to crawl away,” it says, adding, “Investigators recovered a 9 mm handgun and 21 spent shell casings at the scene.”
Police have said Rodriguez walked into the Capital Jewish Museum after the shooting and was detained by security guards until D.C. police arrived. Witnesses said he began to shout, “free, free Palestine” before police took him into custody.
“Make no mistake, this attack was targeted, antisemitic violence,” said Steven Jenson, an FBI assistant director working on the investigation. “The FBI will continue to pursue all leads and use all available resources to investigate this heinous murder,” he said in the statement.
The fatal shooting took place five days after the Capital Jewish Museum opened a special exhibition called “LGBT Jews in the Federal City” on May 16. “This landmark exhibition explores a turbulent century of celebrations, activism, and change in the nation’s capital by D.C.’s LGBTQ+ Jewish community,” the museum said in a statement announcing the exhibition.
Photos and documents related to Bet Mishpachah make up a prominent part of the exhibition.
During a May 22 press conference organized by the U.S. Attorney for D.C., Jeanine Pirro, to provide an update on the investigation into the two murders, Pirro and FBI official Jensen referred to the two murders as a hate crime and terrorist act.
In response to a question from the Washington Blade asking if investigators were looking into whether the LGBTQ exhibition at the Capital Jewish Museum might have played some role in Gonzales’s motive for targeting the museum, Pirro responded to the question.
“So, we are looking into absolutely everything,” she said. “There is so much information we’re looking at. And I must tell you, coming from New York, I’ve never seen the cooperation and coordination that I’m seeing here. It was immediate. It was instant. It was coordinated. And my hat’s off to this area. We’re going to clean it up, thank you,” she said in ending the press conference.
Josh Maxey, Bet Mishpachah’s executive director, said he and Israeli Embassy official Milgram became friends during their two-and-a-half-year interaction working on joint events between the embassy and Bet Mishpachah.
“This became a wonderful two and a half years journey of putting events together, of hosting events together, doing different programs for the community,” Maxey told the Blade. Among the activities the two worked on, he said, was the embassy’s annual LGBTQ Pride event.
Maxie said his own grieving over the death of Milgram and her boyfriend Lischinsky was heightened by the fact that he spoke with her by phone on the day of the shooting shortly before she arrived at the Jewish Museum over plans about this year’s LGBTQ Pride events.
“Sarah really championed us to be included in Israeli events,” Maxey said. “And so, I am just devastated that this true embodiment of an ally was so viciously and violently taken away from us.”
Delaware
Delaware marriage equality bill advances out of committee
Measure will now go before full state Senate
The bill that would amend Delaware’s state constitution to codify same-sex marriage advanced out of the Senate Executive Committee on Wednesday and now goes to the Senate chamber for a vote. If passed, the vote would go on to the House.
Three members of the committee voted favorable and one voted on its merits, meaning the member recommends the chamber take action on the legislation but does not take a position on what action should be taken.
Senate Bill 100 was introduced in April by Democratic Sen. Russ Huxtable of the sixth district of Delaware and has 21 co-sponsors. It is the first leg of an amendment to the Delaware Constitution. The act would “establish the right to marry as a fundamental right and that Delaware and its political subdivisions shall recognize marriages and issue marriage licenses to couples regardless of gender.”
Senate Substitute One was adopted in lieu of the original bill on May 16. SB 100 originally focused exclusively on marriage equality relating to gender and the bill was tweaked to include protection for all classes that fall under Delaware’s Equal Rights Amendment, including race, color, national origin, and sex.
The Wednesday committee meeting heard testimony on SS 1 for SB 100 from individuals and organizations, including John Reynolds, Deputy Policy and Advocacy Director of Delaware’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“After hard fought recent victories, the rights of LGBTQ Americans are under attack in many places across our country,” Reynolds said during his testimony. “It is important that Delaware be proactive and serve as a firewall protecting individual civil liberties. SS 1 for SB 100 is an example of this important work cementing the protections for marriage equality in our state constitution.”
According to Sen. Huxtable, the ACLU helped provide feedback on some of the bill’s language. Reynolds said the ACLU thought it was important to testify because this is a moment when so much is changing.
“These attacks are not just on specific communities, they’re on this concept of equality and liberty,” Reynolds told the Washington Blade. “We need to build these firewalls to both prevent harm to folks on the frontline of these attacks but also ensure that we don’t set very problematic and damaging standards that can be used to roll back protections for large [swaths] of our population.”
SS 1 for SB 100 requires a vote of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly to pass. If passed, the next General Assembly after the next general election also has to pass it. Delaware is the only state in the country that can amend its state constitution without a vote of the people.
The Respect for Marriage Act was passed by the United States Congress in 2022 and signed into law by then-President Joe Biden. It codifies the right to same-sex and interracial marriage, requiring all states to recognize validly performed marriages from other states, regardless of whether they allow same-sex marriage within their own borders.
In Virginia, a bill codifying marriage equality was signed into law in 2024. California, Colorado and Hawaii have also passed amendments to codify same-sex marriage into their constitutions.
“We at the ACLU of Delaware are very excited that SS 1 for SB 100 passed out of committee yesterday,” Reynolds said. “It represents both Sen. Huxtable and the Delaware Legislature’s clear commitment to proactively protecting people’s rights within the LGBT community and outside to ensure that in this moment of uncertainty, we don’t sit idly by and wait for the worst to happen but take control of the things that we can to build the communities that we want.”
Calendar: May 23-29
Comings & Goings
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Murdered Israeli embassy officials were supporters of D.C.’s LGBTQ synagogue
US hate groups fuel anti-LGBTQ rights movement in Africa
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
WorldPride events round-up
Pope Leo XIV: Family based on ‘stable union between a man and a woman’
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
