Congress
Republicans select Rep. Jim Jordan as new nominee for Speaker
‘House Republicans have just elected a speaker nominee who in 16 years in Congress hasn’t passed a single bill’

In a secret ballot Friday afternoon, House Republicans voted 152-55 and selected House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as Speaker nominee. Jordon won out over Georgia Republican Rep. Austin Scott after previously losing himself to Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Scalise announced Thursday that he ended his bid to become the next House Speaker after it became apparent that he would not be able secure the needed 217 votes in a floor vote by the entire GOP conference.
Jordan will attempt to unite his GOP colleagues in the deeply divided House majority although his selection as nominee was met with immediate opposition including several supporters of House Majority Leader Scalise, and who have vowed to oppose Jordan at all costs.
Like Scalise, Jordon will need 217 of 221 Republicans to vote for him. He can only afford to lose five votes.
Leader of the House Democratic Caucus and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, (D-NY) speaking on the steps of the Capitol with House Democrats arrayed behind him said of Jordon, a prominent ally of former President Trump:
“House Republicans have just elected a speaker nominee who in 16 years in congress hasn’t passed a single bill, because his focus has not been on the American people, his focus has been on peddling lies and conspiracy theories and division.”
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said he will be a no on Jordan’s Speakership on the House floor — and warned that the Ohio Republican has a tough road ahead to build support.
The lack of a Speaker comes at a critical time as without appropriations measures the U.S. will be unable to send more aid to the Israelis fighting Hamas in Gaza in the war that has broken out and the American nation is rapidly approaching another government shutdown deadline as the current temporary funding to keep the government funded will expire in under thirty days.
Jordon’s ties to Trump has proven problematic. Jeffries lambasted the Republicans for choosing what he termed the chairman of the “Chaos Caucus” – a reference to Jordan’s role as a leader and founder in the hardline House Freedom Caucus, a group that former Republican Speaker John Boehner once labeled “legislative terrorists.”
“House Republicans now have a choice,” Jeffries said. “On the one hand, House Republicans continue to triple down on the chaos, the dysfunction and the extremism that has been visited upon the American people.”
“On the other hand, traditional Republicans can break away from the extremism, partner with Democrats on an enlightened bipartisan path forward so we can end the recklessness and get back to doing the business of the American people,” the House Minority Leader added.
Axios reported Friday that former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) warned Friday that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) ascending to become House Speaker could cost the party their majority in the chamber.
On a social media post Cheney said: “Jim Jordan was involved in Trump’s conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes. If Rs nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to.”
Jim Jordan was involved in Trump's conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes. If Rs nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to.
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) October 13, 2023
Although House Democrats are opposed to a Jordon speakership and are not generally inclined to offer a path out of the fight, Politico reported Friday after the vote selecting Jordon, that four top centrist Democrats sent a letter to Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-NC), floating a way to giving him “temporary, expanded authorities” — in exchange for concessions.
In a letter to McHenry that was obtained by POLITICO, Democrats told him they support giving him “temporary, expanded authorities” that would allow the House to take up the most urgent bills — namely, government funding plans.
POLITICO reported that specifically, the Democrats are proposing to let McHenry bring up any emergency aid for Ukraine or Israel, a short-term bill that extends government funding through Jan. 11, or general consideration of fiscal 2024 spending bills. Those powers should be limited to 15-day increments, they proposed, with extensions possible if the House GOP continues to remain without a leader.
In exchange, the Democratic quartet suggested, their party would be allowed to fill up 50 percent of the House’s suspension calendar — which is reserved for noncontroversial bills and requires two-thirds votes for passage, not simple majorities.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) said finding a short-term solution to get legislation passed isn’t “about a win” for the Democrats.
“I’m dead serious when I say this, like this isn’t really about a win. This place is not functioning,” she told reporters late Friday.
Jordon has a lengthy anti-LGBTQ+ record since first being elected to the House in 2006 to represent a deeply conservative rural district in northern Ohio, including:
- Voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, which repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and requires the U.S. federal government and all U.S. states and territories to recognize the validity of same-sex and interracial civil marriages in the United States. Jordan claims that the act wasn’t necessary because the Supreme Court is not going to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision that legalized marriage equality in all 50 states. He also claimed the bill was an attempt to delegitimize the Supreme Court. The law went into effect in December 2022.
- Accused by former wrestlers he coached more than two decades ago at Ohio State University of failing to stop the team doctor from molesting them and other students.
- Led the House Republicans in debate against the Equality Act, a bill to expand anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people. He entered into the record the statement against the legislation from Log Cabin Republicans, which called the bill “insidious” and described the “extreme changes it will make would irreparably harm America…”
- Introduced a bill in 2009 that would disallow Washington, D.C., from recognizing gay marriages performed legally elsewhere, in response to D.C.’s city council voting to recognize those marriages.
- Named in Human Rights Campaign’s “Hall of Shame” in 2014, a report that identifies “elected officials as the most anti-equality members of Congress by looking at their voting records in this and previous Congresses, their introduction and co-sponsorships of anti-LGBT legislation, and their public statements.”
- Led the fight to try to block the District of Columbia from recognizing same-sex marriages.
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.
-
Books4 days ago
Chronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’
-
U.S. Federal Courts4 days ago
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
-
Opinions4 days ago
We must show up to WorldPride 2025 in D.C.
-
District of Columbia3 days ago
Ruby Corado sentencing postponed for third time