Politics
Gwen Walz addresses LGBTQ fundraiser in D.C.
Event took place 15 days before election

Gwen Walz, the first lady of Minnesota and wife of the state’s governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, spoke at an LGBTQ fundraiser Monday night at the law offices of Cohen Milstein in D.C.
Vice President Kamala Harris “and Tim know that it’s so important to have leaders who see you and who stand with you, and that’s why, throughout their entire careers, they have been staunch allies” of the LGBTQ community, Walz said.
She continued, “They were both early and vocal defenders of marriage equality. They both fought to make life safer for LGBTQ+ communities, and they both will never rest until full equality for all is the law of this land.”
However, “our opponents in this race see things a bit differently,” Walz said. “Trump and Vance are not fighting for everyone. And what they’re offering them with their Project 2025 agenda, no one is asking for. Especially when it comes to reproductive freedom. Their agenda would even put fertility treatments at risk.”
The issue is personal to the Walz family, she said, because she and her husband were only able to have children thanks to their access to fertility treatments. “And it was hard, really hard, but it was so worth it. We cannot imagine our lives without Hope and Gus and we cannot fathom anyone, anyone being denied the joys of parenthood.”
Walz said, “When it comes to decisions about our own bodies and our own lives, it is our choice, not JD Vance’s and, heaven forbid, not Donald Trump’s, right?”
“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I’m ready to just turn the page on these guys. But it is up to us, all of us, every one of us, to make that happen.”
“A new way forward,” Walz said, “It is within our reach. It is right — right — there. But we are going to have to fight for it, maybe harder than we’ve ever fought for anything before. But I’m taking my marching orders from the next president of the United States, Kamala Harris.”
Congress
Garcia elected top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee
Gay Calif. lawmaker vows to hold Trump-Vance administration accountable

U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on Tuesday was elected top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee in a vote that signaled the conference’s overwhelming support for a newer voice on Capitol Hill who will play a key role taking on President Donald Trump.
With a margin of 150-63, the 47-year-old openly gay congressman defeated U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), alongside U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) who exited the race after the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee backed Garcia.
Serving only since 2023, the congressman has had a remarkably quick ascent leading up to his election this week as ranking member of one of the most powerful House committees, awarded a leadership position serving under House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) and selected as a co-chair of former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Democratic members began jockeying for the top seat on the oversight committee this spring after the late-U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia stepped away amid news that his esophageal cancer had returned. He died in May.
Connolly last year fended off a challenge from one of the most well known House Democrats, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), though with a narrower margin that signaled intra-party tensions over whether leadership roles should still be awarded based on seniority.
Garcia positioned himself as a bridge between the two camps — a consensus candidate with executive managerial experience as the former mayor of Long Beach, Calif. At the same time, particularly since the start of Trump’s second term, the congressman has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of the new Republican regime.
In a statement on X Tuesday, Garcia thanked his colleagues and promised to “hold Donald Trump and his administration accountable.”
I'm honored to have been elected by @HouseDemocrats to serve as Ranking Member on @OversightDems.
— Congressman Robert Garcia (@RepRobertGarcia) June 24, 2025
We will hold Donald Trump and his Administration accountable for their corruption – and work to make our government more effective for the American people.
Let's get to work.
If Democrats win control of the House next year, the oversight committee will be able to exercise powers that are now available only to Republicans under the chair, U.S. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), which include the authority to investigate virtually any matter across the federal government, to issue subpoenas, and to compel testimony.
In the meantime, Garcia on Monday promised that Democrats on the committee would “vigorously fight” Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s (La.) plans “to dismantle the Government Accountability Office.”
Congress
Shaheen, Collins reintroduce bill prohibiting anti-LGBTQ discrimination in jury service
Senators note the absence of protections in federal courtrooms

U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) reintroduced a bill on Wednesday that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity during the federal jury selection process.
The bipartisan Jury Access for Capable Citizens and Equality in Service Selection (ACCESS) Act would enshrine protections for LGBTQ Americans who are serving or who might be selected to serve on juries, alongside rules proscribing discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and economic status that are already enforced in federal courtrooms.
Co-sponsoring the bill with Shaheen and Collins are U.S. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.)
“Serving on a jury is a civic duty that no one should be prevented from fulfilling because of who they are or who they love,” Shaheen said in a press release. “It’s preposterous that under current law there are no protections prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ+ jurors in federal courts and Congress must take action to rectify this injustice.”
“Serving on a jury is a fundamental right and obligation that no individual should be prohibited from fulfilling based on their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Collins. “I have long worked to fight discrimination, and I am proud to join this effort to help eliminate bias from our judicial system.”
Amid the absence of nationwide protections, the release notes that only 17 states “prohibit exclusion from jury service in state court based on sexual orientation” while “just 12 protect against discrimination based on gender identity.”
This spring, Democratic lawmakers from the House and the Senate, including leadership from both chambers, reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ inclusive federal nondiscrimination rules in a range of contexts from employment and housing to public accommodations and education.
Shaheen and Collins were integral to the bill’s inclusion of protections applying to jury service.
Congress
Torres: gay Venezuelan asylum seeker is ‘poster child’ for Trump’s ‘abuses against due process’
Congressman spoke with the Blade Thursday

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York told the Washington Blade during an interview Thursday that his party erred in focusing so much attention on demands for the Trump-Vance administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. when the wrongful deportation of Andry Hernández Romero “was much more egregious.”
Hernández is a gay Venezuelan national who was deported to El Salvador in March and imprisoned in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.
“In the case of Andry, the government admits that it has no evidence of gang membership, but he was deported without due process, without a notification to his attorney, without a court hearing to contest the allegations against him, without a court order authorizing his deportation,” the congressman said.
“He had not even the slightest semblance of due process,” Torres said. “And even though he had a court hearing scheduled for March 17, the Trump administration proceeded to deport him on March 15, in violation of a court order.”
“I think we as a party should have held up Andry as the poster child for the abuses against due process, because his case is much more sympathetic,” Torres said. “There’s no one who thinks that Andry is a gang member.”
“Also,” the congressman added, “he’s not a quote-unquote illegal immigrant. He was a lawful asylum seeker. He sought asylum lawfully under the statutes of the United States, but he was deported unlawfully at the hands of the Trump administration.”
Torres was among the 49 members of Congress who joined with Democratic U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California in writing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanding information about Romero, including proof of life.
The lawmakers urged the State Department to facilitate his access to legal counsel and take steps to return him, expressing fear for his safety — concerns that Torres reiterated on Thursday.
“Jails and prisons can be dangerous places for gay men, and that is especially true of a place like CECOT,” the congressman said. “He fled Latin America to escape violent homophobia. There are a few places on earth that have as much institutionalized homophobia as jails and prisons, and so I do fear for his safety.”
“I released a video telling the story of Andry,” Torres noted, adding, “I feel like we have to do more to raise awareness and the video is only the beginning … And you know, the fact that Abrego Garcia is returning to the United States shows that the administration has the ability to bring back the migrants who were unlawfully deported.”
ICE deported the wrong guy. Now they're trying to hide it.
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorresNY) June 11, 2025
Free Andry. pic.twitter.com/G4hK33oJpw
Torres spoke with the Blade just after Padilla was forcibly removed from a federal building in Los Angeles after attempting to question U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a press conference on immigration Thursday.
Footage of the senator being pushed out of the room, onto the floor, and handcuffed by officers wearing FBI identifying vests drew outrage from top Democrats in California and beyond.
“It’s the latest reminder that Donald Trump and his administration have no respect for anything or anyone but himself,” Torres told the Blade. “And every bit as outrageous as Donald Trump himself has been the enabling on the part of the congressional Republicans who are aiding and abetting his authoritarian abuses.”
“We have to be vigilant in resisting Donald Trump,” the congressman said. “We have to resist him on the streets through grassroots mobilization. We have to resist him in the courtrooms through litigation. We have to resist him in the halls of Congress through legislation.”
Torres added that “we have to win back the majority in 2026” and “if Republicans have no interest in holding Donald Trump accountable, then those Republicans should be fired from public office” because “we need a Congress that is able and willing to hold Donald Trump accountable, to stand up to his authoritarian assault on our democracy.”
Resisting is “a matter of free speech,” he said, noting that the president’s aim is to “create a reign of terror that intimidates people into silence,” but “we cannot remain silent. We have to unapologetically and courageously exercise our right to free speech, our right to assemble peacefully, and our right to resist an authoritarian president like Donald Trump.”