Congress
As Calvert joins House GOP attacks on LGBT centers, Will Rollins is ready to take his seat
He tells the Blade CA-41 deserves better representation in Congress

Will Rollins, the gay Democrat vying for a second chance to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert (Calif.), spoke with the Washington Blade by phone on Thursday following the uproar over his opponent’s support for an anti-LGBTQ amendment to a spending bill that was advanced by conservative members of the House Appropriations Committee.
The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Subcommittee’s package contained a total of 2,680 Community Project Funding earmarks, all previously cleared by members from both parties, but just before its passage on Tuesday Calvert joined his Republican colleagues who removed funding for two LGBTQ centers in Pennsylvania and one in Massachusetts.
The decision to go after three CPF initiatives that provide housing and other support for LGBTQ people in need, none located in his district or state, was “pretty consistent” with Calvert’s “pattern of bigoted behavior towards the LGBTQ community,” Rollins said.
A former federal prosecutor who worked in counterterrorism and counterintelligence and was involved in the Justice Department’s pursuit of charges against participants in the deadly January 6 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, Rollins is set to square off against two other candidates in his party’s primary ahead of the November 2024 elections. According to Cook Political Report, new data shows Calvert’s seat has moved from red-leaning to a tossup.
Calvert has served in the House since 1993, representing California’s 41st Congressional District for less than a year since it was redrawn in 2022 to include more Democratic and LGBTQ constituents, many residing in the Palm Springs area. Rollins challenged him in last year’s midterm elections, decisively beating primary opponents but ultimately falling short in his gambit for Calvert’s seat by about 11,000 votes.
Reflecting on the 2022 race, Rollins noted that while “the turnout was relatively low, I was the only Democratic challenger in California to win independent voters and had the best performance of any Democratic challenger” in California as measured against the share of votes in the state for President Joe Biden in 2020.
As a first-time candidate with only five months between his Democratic primary and the general elections, Rollins added, he had nearly unseated a member of the House who enjoyed the advantages of the name recognition that comes with being California’s longest serving Republican member in that chamber.
In 2024, “we have enough support to flip the seat,” Rollins said — noting that the campaign now has 17 months to build awareness about his candidacy before voters cast their ballots, including by tapping into media markets that were prohibitively expensive in 2022.
Rollins told the Blade Calvert has a “fundamental misunderstanding of LGBTQ Americans” and is uninterested in learning about their lived experiences as sexual and gender minorities, as evidenced by his allyship with the GOP members whose move during Tuesday’s THUD markup provoked accusations by Democrats of rank anti-LGBTQ bigotry, igniting exchanges between lawmakers that became so heated the Committee was forced to recess three times.
At one point, out Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (Wis.), who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus and serves on the Appropriations Committee, advised Calvert that he would be wise to vote against his party’s anti-LGBTQ amendment lest he be looking for a path to retirement courtesy of the more diverse constituents he now represents.
Last month, Calvert, who chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, was criticized after passing an amendment to a military spending bill that, among other provisions, proscribes “any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially, on the basis that such person speaks, or acts, in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief, or moral conviction, that marriage is, or should be recognized as, a union of one man and one woman.”
In practice, Democrats on the Committee argued, this could provide a pathway for someone who is responsible for the disbursement of survivor benefits to deny them to gay and lesbian beneficiaries.
Showing voters the contrast between Calvert’s extreme positions on matters like LGBTQ rights proved successful in courting more support for his campaign last year, Rollins said, but these issues are galvanizing not just for LGBTQ communities and their straight allies in bluer areas like Palm Springs.
“Study after study has shown that where you discriminate against the LGBTQ community, whether it’s anti-gay laws in Georgia or anti-LGBT rules overseas, economic output decreases,” stunting small business growth and depressing wages, he said.
So, Rollins said, while it is difficult to conceive of an alternative explanation, let alone a benign one, for the actions this week by Calvert and his fellow ultraconservative Subcommittee members, “we also have to be making the argument that the attacks on us really are an attack collectively on our economic growth and on opportunity and equality.”
“When you’ve got a Party that is prioritizing making sure that gay seniors can’t get food when they need it, versus a Party that wants to make our streets safer, or a candidate who wants to raise wages in Riverside County,” Rollins said, regardless of their political affiliation “voters understand that those priorities are misdirected from the far right.”
Additionally, he said, “part of the job, too, has to be changing the terms of the debate because a lot of the premises that these Republicans are operating from are complete lies.” And while elected Republicans “definitely have some serious problems with the truth,” Rollins said “the good news for me in a purple district is that regular Republican voters,” many of whom are actually moderate, will stand up against extremism.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the House, echoed some of these arguments in a statement to the Blade: “Ken Calvert is determined to turn back the clock on LGTBQ+ rights.”
“Calvert’s bigoted pattern of anti-LGBTQ+ extremism is disqualifying, disgusting, and wildly out of step with the values and beliefs of everyday southern Californians,” the group said.
Critics question motivations for Calvert’s support of the Respect for Marriage Act
Rollins said that contrary to Calvert’s claims last year that his thinking on LGBTQ rights had evolved, the congressman is “willing to take calculated votes to keep himself in power, which he did before the [2022] midterms” by voting for the Respect for Marriage Act — a move Rollins characterized as “a pretty transparent attempt to wash away an anti LGBTQ career that’s lasted three decades.”
Speaking to the Blade by phone on Thursday, gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who serves as ranking member of the U.S. House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and a co-chair of the Equality Caucus, said Calvert’s tendency to vacillate between whichever positions are most politically expedient has been on display throughout his 30-year tenure in the House.
The two ran against each other in 1992 and 1994, with Calvert winning both races, and they have served together in California’s Congressional Delegation since Takano first took office in 2013.
Takano said that when Calvert faced off against six opponents in 1992 and ultimately beat him in the general election by fewer than 600 votes, the Republican candidate had “assured key women in the community that he would moderate on social issues like abortion.”
By contrast, Takano said, today “the reality is he cannot survive a Republican primary” without embracing far-right positions, particularly on social issues. Because the GOP has become more extreme since 1992, Takano said, “for [Calvert] to stay in politics, he has to be representative of that extremism.”
The California Democrat contrasted the act of political bravery, and by an elected Republican with unambiguously conservative bona fides, with Calvert — a politician who made a “Faustian bargain” selling his soul to stay in Congress.
“Mark Sanford and I disagreed on a lot of stuff,” Takano said, referring to the Republican former politician who served as Governor of South Carolina and represented the state’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House from 2013 to 2019.
Takano recalled how Sanford came to the defense of “Hamilton” creator Lin Manuel Miranda when then-President Donald Trump attacked the Broadway star — “punching down at a citizen” — because Miranda had “made this appeal to Mike Pence to remember that he was Vice President for all of America.”
“From that moment on, Mark Sanford was on the pathway to lose his primary,” Takano said.
Calvert and conservative LGBT group defend his vote for the appropriations amendment
On Friday, Calvert shared a statement with the Blade about Tuesday’s appropriations markup: “I voted along with every Republican colleague on the Appropriations Committee to remove funding for three facilities in the FY2024 THUD appropriations bill due to objections over political activism by some facilities that include pro-communism propaganda, gender affirming care with no age specification, and sexually explicit material for children,” the congressman said.
“I believe most of my constituents, regardless of sexual orientation, do not believe that U.S. taxpayer dollars should be used on activities that undermine the foundations of our country. I do not condone discrimination of any kind and I will always vote my conscience,” he said.
Calvert did not answer questions about why he deserves the support of LGBTQ voters and their allies in his district or whether he encountered blowback from any LGBTQ conservative constituents over his vote on Tuesday.
Responding to the statement, Rollins said “Actions speak louder than Ken’s empty words. He’s voted to ban LGBTQ+ Americans from serving openly in the military, to prohibit us from adopting children, and to allow employers to fire people simply for being LGBTQ+.
Rollins noted that Calvert also voted against the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, adding that “The silver lining of these votes – and his latest vote this week – is that they will seal his loss in 2024 because LGBTQ+ Americans are just as foundational to our country as the belief that all of us must be free to control our own lives and destinies.”
Speaking with the Blade on Thursday, Log Cabin Republicans President Charles Moran disputed the allegations against Calvert along with the characterizations of his behavior and motivations that were provided by Rollins and Congressional Democrats.
Last year, Moran said, Calvert focused on strengthening relationships with his LGBTQ constituents, including through meetings with individuals and groups like Log Cabin, in a deliberate and sincere effort to better understand the community and its needs.
“I had drinks with him immediately following the vote” on the Respect for Marriage Act, Moran said. “And he presented to me a card [on which] he [had written] down the final vote total, and he handed it to me when we sat down because he was proud” to join his 46 House GOP colleagues who also backed the bill.
Moran noted that in 2020, Philadelphia’s William Way LGBT Center, one of the three CPFs whose funding was removed from Tuesday’s appropriations package, had welcomed participation from the city’s Log Cabin Republicans chapter in a forum about public health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic before reversing course and disinviting the group in response to pushback.
While he had not yet discussed the THUD amendment with the GOP members behind it or with their Congressional offices, Moran said that they likely had legitimate reasons for removing the earmarks — objections over issues like the practice by at least one of these organizations of discriminating against conservatives.
A choice between the status quo and the promise and potential of new leadership
At the same time, Calvert has arguably sought to police political speech by, for example, restricting the ability of institutions like the U.S. Armed Forces to administer programs centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion — provisions that were a major component of the amendment he passed along with the House’s Defense spending bill in June.
Takano, who has served as the Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s top Democrat since 2019, noted that the need for “affirmatively cultured” diversity in the military has been shown through, for instance, the “conflicts that arose during the Vietnam War era between an un-diverse white officers’ corps and Black and Brown grunts.”
Maintaining the status quo, therefore, runs contrary to the national interest, he added.
Today’s Congressional Republicans “don’t want to see LGBTQ service members [being] made to feel welcome, and they don’t want the officers to be trained in order to be sensitive to the backgrounds of service members of color and service members who are LGBTQ or service members who are women,” Takano said.
When it comes to next year’s race for California’s 41st District, Takano praised Rollins — a candidate whose reasons for running are “so admirable,” the congressman said, “because at its root, his efforts flow from a very high-minded devotion to our democracy, and in my mind, democracy includes space and protection for all people – LGBTQ people included.”
Rollins told the Blade that while he is appalled by Calvert and other Congressional Republicans’ “blatant targeting of a very small minority,” he is confident that it will add fuel to voters’s desire for change, including through new leadership in the Congress.
Congress
Top Congressional Democrats reintroduce Equality Act on Trump’s 100th day in office
Legislation would codify federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections

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.”
Congress
Democratic lawmakers travel to El Salvador, demand information about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker
Congressman Robert Garcia led delegation

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.”

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.”

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.”
Congress
Goodlander endorses Pappas’s Senate bid
Announcement puts gay congressman on the path to securing his party’s nomination

U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.) on Thursday announced she will not run to represent her state in the U.S. Senate, endorsing gay U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas’s (D-N.H.) bid for the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, putting him on the path to secure the Democratic nomination.
“We are in the fight of our lifetimes right now, of a moment of real crisis and challenge,” she said. “I feel humbled and grateful to so many people across our state who have encouraged me to take a look at the U.S. Senate, and after a lot of thought and conversations with people I love and people I respect and people who I had never met before, who I work for in this role right now, I’ve decided that I’m running for re election in the House of Representatives.”
When asked by a reporter from the ABC affiliate station in New Hampshire whether she would endorse Pappas, Goodlander said, “Yes. Chris Pappas has been amazing partner to me in this work and for many years. And I really admire him. I have a lot of confidence in him.”
She continued, “He and I come to this work, I think with a similar set of values, we also have really similar family stories. Our families both came to New Hampshire over 100 years ago from the very same part of northern Greece. And the values that he brings to this work are ones that that I really, really admire. So I’m proud to support him, and I’m really excited to be working with him right now because we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Today in Salem @MaggieG603 tells @WMUR9 she is not running for U.S. Senate & endorses @ChrisPappasNH #NHPolitics #NHSen #NH02 #WMUR pic.twitter.com/W2CMrhRuIC
— Adam Sexton (@AdamSextonWMUR) April 17, 2025
“Maggie Goodlander has dedicated her career to service, and we can always count on her to stand up to powerful interests and put people first,” Pappas said in a post on X. “I’m so grateful to call her my friend and teammate, and I’m proud to support her re-election and stand with her in the fights ahead.”
Earlier this month, former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, announced he would not enter the Senate race, strengthening the odds that Democrats will retain control of Shaheen’s seat.
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