Congress
House Republicans attach anti-LGBTQ provisions to appropriations bills
Four Dems speak out against these efforts to the Blade
A contingent of some of the most conservative Republican members of the U.S. House have held up federal appropriations bills this week by demanding concessions including increasingly extreme anti-LGBTQ provisions.
“Every single one of the bills, in order to appeal to the fringes of their caucus, they put all kinds of anti LGBTQI riders,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan told the Washington Blade by phone just before joining an Appropriations Committee markup on Wednesday.
It is “the extreme elements of the Republican Party,” or “the fringes” who “care about this stuff,” said the congressman, who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus.
The riders have been proposed for must-pass spending bills as they move through the appropriations process – in areas from homeland security and defense to agriculture and foreign operations.
“They started out with really the attacks this session on the trans community, specifically gender affirming care, trans girls playing sports, but then, literally, we’ve seen it progress through the appropriations process to suddenly Pride flags are [made into] an issue,” Pocan said.
The GOP’s targeting of the LGBTQ community in the appropriations process also comes by way of the First Amendment Defense Act, proposed legislation that seeks to effectively prohibit the government from responding to anti-LGBTQ discrimination based on one’s belief that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman.
Pocan said that during a markup of a legislative branch appropriations bill, he told his Republican colleagues that if he were to “God forbid, pass, and my husband wanted to get his benefits that are due to any spouse,” there would be no recourse if those benefits were denied because of one’s opposition to same-sex marriage.
The congressman said he asked whether that would be fair, and “I watched people on the dais mouth ‘no’ and shake their head,” including those members who supported the rider that would enable people to deny those benefits in accordance with their position on marriage equality.
“They understand the real effects, but they don’t care because they need to try to get the certain elements or their caucus to vote for this stuff,” Pocan said. “And, bluntly, I don’t think those elements are gonna vote for this anyway, because they don’t understand how government actually works.”
“They’re not actually doing any policy and appropriations,” Pocan said. “They’re acting like accountants; they’re just cutting [funding] down to ’22 levels, which makes much of what they’re doing largely irrelevant compared to what the Senate will do.”
Some members, including those in the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, are dissatisfied with maintaining 2022 spending levels, the congressman noted, “so in the end it may just be abject failure.”
“There’s a very strong possibility that we don’t get these done and we have some kind of a CR,” Pocan said, referring to a temporary spending bill called a continuing resolution that Congress can pass to avoid a government shutdown that would otherwise be triggered by lapses in funding.
Another issue within the Republican conference, Pocan said, are intra-party divisions between, for instance, GOP members who are hawkish on foreign policy and eager to fund U.S. defense initiatives versus “those who just believe that government should be smaller.”
Add the “elements of the caucus that believe in the culture war issues,” the congressman said, “and, you know, it’s kind of like taking the Addams Family and saying, ‘what’s the average person?'”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), meanwhile, “hasn’t proven to be much of a leader during this time, either,” Pocan said.
Democrats who serve as the ranking members of three subcommittees of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations also denounced efforts by their GOP colleagues to attach anti-LGBTQ riders to their must-pass spending bills in emailed statements to the Blade. All are vice chairs of the Equality Caucus.
“The legislation coming before us is jammed with extremist attacks that undermine our LGBTQI+ servicemembers, veterans, and their families,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), the top Democrat on the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee, which, she noted, “has a longstanding tradition of bipartisanship.”
“Republicans this year,” said the congresswoman, “bent to far-right ideologues, adding provisions to ban gender affirming care, Pride flags, and other initiatives that impact the quality of life of our LGBTQI+ servicemembers.”
Despite the efforts by Republicans who “are dead set on wasting time marking up messaging bills with no chance of becoming law,” Wasserman Schultz promised that “my House Democratic colleagues and I won’t stand idly by as Republicans undermine the service of LGBTQI+ individuals who so bravely defend our nation every day.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Ill.) told the Blade, “During recent appropriations meetings, I’ve listened as my colleagues across the aisle insert cruel, dangerous anti-LGBTQI+ provisions into our funding bills on strictly partisan lines.”
“Republicans decided to strip Diversity and Inclusion funding, permit federal employees to discriminate against LGBTQI+ people, and ban medically necessary gender affirming care,” said the congressman, who is ranking member of the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Subcommittee.
“This is an outright assault on individuals who are simply asking for basic human rights and to be treated as equals in our country,” Quigley said, adding, “I have and will continue to fight back against these attacks” because “allowing these provisions to become law would tell the LGBTQI+ community that their existence is wrong – we will never let that happen.”
“LGBTQI+ people matter and our laws must reflect that truth,” said the congressman.
“House Republicans are using the FY24 Appropriations process as an opportunity to attack the rights of women, minorities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community,” said U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs.
“Their Appropriations bills would eliminate funding from diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, attack the LGBTQ+ community through banning Pride flags at Veterans Affairs facilities and military bases, undermine key programs to address the climate crisis, and much more,” said the congresswoman, who was a founding member of the Equality Caucus.
“Their efforts to disenfranchise our courageous servicemembers strictly based on how they identify or who they love is despicable,” she added.
Congress
51 lawmakers sign letter to Rubio about Andry Hernández Romero
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) spoke about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker
Forty nine members of Congress and two U.S. senators, all Democrats, signed a letter Monday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding information about Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan national who was deported to El Salvador and imprisoned in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT
“We are deeply concerned about the health and wellbeing of Mr. Hernández Romero, who left
Venezuela after experiencing discriminatory treatment because of his sexual orientation and
opposition to Venezuela’s authoritarian government,” the lawmakers wrote. They urged the State Department to facilitate his access to legal counsel and take steps to return him.
After passing a credible fear interview and while awaiting a court hearing in March, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly transported Hernández out of the U.S. without due process or providing evidence that he had committed any crime.
In the months since, pressure has been mounting. This past WorldPride weekend in Washington was kicked off with a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and a fundraiser, both supporting Hernández and attended by high profile figures including members of Congress, like U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.)
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) was among the four members who wrote to Rubio about Hernández in April. On Friday, he spoke with the Washington Blade before he and his colleagues, many more of them this time, sent the second letter to Rubio.
“There’s a lot of obviously horrible things that are happening with the asylum process and visas and international students and just the whole of our value system as it relates to immigration,” he said, which “obviously, is under attack.”
“Andry’s case, I think, is very unique and different,” the congressman continued. “There is, right now, public support that is building. I think he has captured people’s attention. And it’s growing — this is a movement that is not slowing down. He’s going to be a focal point for Pride this year. I mean, I think people around the world are interested in the story.”
Garcia said he hopes the momentum will translate to progress on requests for proof of life, adding that he was optimistic after meeting with Hernández’s legal team earlier on Friday.
“I mean, the president, Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio — any of these folks could could ask to see if just he’s alive,” the congressman said, referring to the secretary of Homeland Security, whom he grilled during a hearing last month. ICE is housed under the DHS.
“People need to remember, the most important part of this that people need to remember, this isn’t just an immigration issue,” Garcia noted. “This is a due process issue. This is an asylum case. We gave him this appointment. The United States government told him to come to his appointment, and then we sent him to another country, not his own, and locked him up with no due process. That’s the issue.”
Garcia said that so far neither he nor his colleagues nor Hernández’s legal team were able to get “any answers from the administration, which is why we’re continuing to advocate, which is why we’re continuing to reach out to Secretary Rubio.”
“A lot more Democrats are now engaged on this issue,” he said. U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, both from California, joined Monday’s letter. “The more that we can get folks to understand how critical this is, the better. The momentum matters here. And I think Pride does provide an opportunity to share his story.”
Asked what the next steps might be, Garcia said “we’re letting his legal team really take the lead on strategy,” noting that Hernández’s attorneys have “already engaged with the ACLU” and adding, “It’s very possible that the Supreme Court could take this on.”
In the meantime, the congressman said “part of our job is to make sure that that people don’t forget Andry and that there is awareness about him, and I think there’s a responsibility, particularly during WorldPride, and during Pride, all throughout the month — like, this is a story that people should know. People should know his name and and people should be aware of what’s going on.”
Congress
Wasserman Schultz: Allies must do more to support LGBTQ Jews
A Wider Bridge honored Fla. congresswoman at Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday
Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Thursday said allies need to do more to support LGBTQ Jewish people in the wake of Oct. 7.
“Since Oct. 7, what has been appalling to me is that LGBTQ+ Jewish organizations and efforts to march in parades, to be allies, to give voice to other causes have faced rejection,” said the Florida Democrat at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. after A Wider Bridge honored her at its Pride event.
Wasserman Schultz, a Jewish Democrat who represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, added the “silence of our allies … has been disappointing.”
“It makes your heart feel hollow and it makes me feel alone and isolated, which is why making sure that we have spaces that we can organize in every possible way in every sector of our society as Jews is so incredibly important,” she said.
The Israeli government says Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival, when it launched a surprise attack on the country. The militants also kidnapped more than 200 people on that day.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed nearly 55,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7. Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, has said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who the Israel Defense Forces killed last October, are among those who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel.
A Wider Bridge is a group that “advocates for justice, counters LGBTQphobia, and fights antisemitism and other forms of hatred.”
Thursday’s event took place 15 days after a gunman killed two Israeli Embassy employees — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.
Police say a man who injured more than a dozen people on June 1 in Boulder, Colo., when he threw Molotov cocktails into a group of demonstrators who were calling for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages was yelling “Free Palestine.” The Associated Press notes that authorities said the man who has been charged in connection with the attack spent more than a year planning it.
Congress
Sen. Schiff proposes resolution urging DOD not to rename U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk
Pentagon reportedly plans to change the name of ship named for gay rights icon
U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Thursday introduced a resolution urging the U.S. Department of Defense not to rename ships that bear the names of civil rights leaders like gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk.
The move comes just after reports on Tuesday that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan to rename the U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk, with an announcement deliberately planned for Pride month on June 14.
The vessel, a replenishment oiler, is part of the John Lewis class fleet. The Pentagon is also considering renaming other ships in the fleet including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and USNS Harriet Tubman, according to CBS News.
“By naming these ships,” Schiff wrote in his resolution, “the United States Navy has appropriately celebrated notable civil rights leaders and their legacy in promoting a more equal and just United States.”
Milk was assassinated in 1978 while serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Prior to his election to the Senate last year, Schiff represented California districts in the U.S. House since 2001.
Part one of his resolution “strongly supports the naming of John Lewis-class fleet replacement oilers after the aforementioned civil rights leaders as a fitting tribute to honor their contributions to the advancement of civil rights,” while part two “strongly encourages the Department of Defense not to take any action to change the names.”
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