A group of 45 Senate Democrats sent a letter Thursday urging leadership to reject the 55+ anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ measures that Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives have attached to must-pass FY25 spending bills, while also arguing that the “poison pill” policy riders must be kept out of the appropriations process moving forward.

The letter was addressed to the Senate’s Democratic and Republican leaders, Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.), along with the chair and vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). Among the signatories are 11 of the committee’s 14 Democratic members — including Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), and Cory Booker (N.J.), who led the effort.

The House, meanwhile, voted on Wednesday to approve the major annual defense funding bill, with a provision that would prohibit the children of U.S. service members from accessing gender-affirming health treatments under the Pentagon’s TRICARE program.

From here, the National Defense Authorization Act will face two major roadblocks that, for the past two years, have doomed other appropriations bills that were packed with partisan policy riders and passed by the House under the Republican leadership: first, the Senate’s Democratic majority, and second, President Joe Biden and his promise to veto legislation that would undermine reproductive rights or target trans and LGBTQ communities.

Of course, a path forward for these bills will become far clearer and easier next month when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House and the 119th Congress is seated with Republicans reclaiming control of the upper chamber.

In their letter, the senators explained that appropriations funding in recent years has typically been passed by the Senate in committee, usually with wide bipartisan margins, but the process is undermined when their conservative counterparts in the lower chamber pack the bills with right-wing policy riders.

Relative to concerns about harms to the legislative process, however, the authors placed a greater emphasis on the case for rejecting these measures because they are “partisan, discriminatory, and harmful.”

For instance, the letter notes that as House Republicans seeking to use the appropriations process as a vehicle for opening the door to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, or to ban access to transgender medical care, LGBTQ Americans are facing an unprecedented onslaught of legislative attacks, with 42 state legislatures introducing more than 574 anti-LGBTQ bills this year alone.

Additionally, the senators wrote, policy riders that would further restrict access to reproductive healthcare come as Americans are reeling from the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs, which overturned protections that were first established when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1933. As a result, the letter notes, total abortion bans are now enforced in 13 states with a handful of others setting early gestational limits.

Troy Masters, publisher of the Los Angeles Blade, died unexpectedly on Wednesday Dec. 11, according to a family member. He was 63. The cause of death was not immediately released.

Masters is a well-respected and award-winning journalist and publisher with decades of experience, mostly in LGBTQ media. He founded Gay City News in New York City in 2002 and relocated to Los Angeles in 2015. In 2017, he became the founding publisher of the Los Angeles Blade, a sister publication of the Washington Blade, the nation’s oldest LGBTQ newspaper.

His family released a statement to the Blade on Thursday. 

“We are shocked and devastated by the loss of Troy,” the statement says. “He was a tireless advocate for the LGBTQ community and leaves a tremendous legacy of fighting for social justice and equality. We ask for your prayers and for privacy as we mourn this unthinkable loss. We will announce details of a celebration of life in the near future.”

The Blade management team released the following statement on Thursday:

“All of us at the Los Angeles Blade and Washington Blade are heartbroken by the loss of our colleague. Troy Masters is a pioneer who championed LGBTQ rights as well as best-in-class journalism for our community. We will miss his passion and his tireless dedication to the Los Angeles queer community.

“We would like to thank the readers, advertisers, and supporters of the Los Angeles Blade, which will continue under the leadership of our local editor Gisselle Palomera, the entire Blade family in D.C. and L.A., and eventually under a new publisher.”

Troy Masters was born April 13, 1961 and is survived by his mother Josie Kirkland and his sister Tammy Masters, along with many friends and colleagues across the country. This is a developing story and will be updated as more details emerge.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to pass the annual military appropriations bill with a rider that would prohibit the children of U.S. service members from accessing gender-affirming health treatments under the Pentagon’s TRICARE program.

After clearing the floor vote with a comfortable margin of 281-140, the bill’s future is uncertain provided that Senate Democrats are unlikely to move on a National Defense Authorization Act that contains a discriminatory, partisan policy advanced by House Republican leadership and President Joe Biden promising to veto any legislation that targets transgender rights.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reportedly insisted on amending the NDAA to add the anti-trans policy after a final version of the bill had already been negotiated by the chairs and ranking members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees over the weekend, earning a sharply worded rebuke from the later committee’s top Democrat, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.).

“Blanketly denying health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a biased notion against transgender people, is wrong,” the congressman wrote. Johnson is “pandering to the most extreme elements o this party to ensure that he retains his speakership,” he said, and in the process the GOP leader has upended “what had been a bipartisan process.”

Just after the NDAA was passed, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson shared a statement with the Washington Blade.

“Military servicemembers and their families wake up every day and sacrifice more than most of us will ever understand. Those families protect our right to live freely and with dignity — they deserve that same right, and the freedom to access the care their children need.

Today, politicians in the House betrayed our nation’s promise to those who serve. Not since the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ passed almost 30 years ago has an anti-LGBTQ+ policy been enshrined into federal law.

For the thousands of families impacted, this isn’t about politics. It’s about young people who deserve our support. Those who have courageously stepped up to serve this country should never have their families used as bargaining chips.

Now, the Senate has the opportunity to reject this and any bill that includes these dangerous anti-trans, anti-military family provisions, and remember the fundamental promise of our democracy: That everyone deserves dignity, respect, and the right to healthcare.”