National
Fresno activists wage lonely battle to oust congressman
California’s newly drawn 22nd District ‘safe’ for anti-gay GOP incumbent
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) received a ‘0’ rating on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard. (public domain photo)
Editor’s note: This is the second in an occasional series profiling congressional districts in which the incumbent is not supportive of LGBT rights. The articles seek to assess the chances of electing a supportive candidate to help advance pro-LGBT bills that have been stalled in Congress. Visit washingtonblade.com for the first installment on Maryland’s 6th District.
U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is one of 14 members of the U.S. House of Representatives from California who received a “0” rating on LGBT issues from the Human Rights Campaign’s 2010 Congressional Scorecard, which has a rating scale of 0 to 100.
Nunes and most of the other U.S. House members with a 0 rating in the state — all Republicans — represent districts inside or bordering on California’s Central Valley, a vast rural and agricultural region in the interior and eastern part of the state.
The region has traditionally elected conservative Republicans to Congress and to the California Legislature.
“The rabid homophobes come from rabid, red homophobic districts,” said Mark Leno, a gay State Senator from San Francisco and longtime LGBT rights advocate. “They’re going to get re-elected. So to waste time, energy and resources in those districts is just that, a waste,” Leno told the Blade.
“You have to look at party registration where it’s most possible for a Democrat to win, and that’s what the Democrats are doing,” he said.
The newly redrawn district includes precincts that voted overwhelmingly for Sen. John McCain in 2008, leading many observers to label the seat “safe” for Nunes.
But gay activist Jason Scott, a resident of Clovis, Calif., a small city that borders on the much larger City of Fresno, said he’s troubled that the national Democratic Party and national LGBT organizations appear to have written off the 22nd Congressional District and other Central Valley districts.
Scott is one of the organizers of Gay Fresno, an online LGBT news and resource service that covers Fresno and nearby cities and towns in the Central Valley region. Although he agrees that Nunes is likely to win re-election this year, Scott told the Blade residents of Nunes’ 22nd District have changed their views on LGBT issues in recent years.
“I don’t feel like the people he represents have the identical mindset that he does on gay rights,” Scott said.
Lesbian activist Robin McGehee, a Fresno resident who teaches communications at the College of the Sequoias in nearby Visalia, expressed a similar view. McGehee is co-founder of the national LGBT direct action group GetEqual and one of the lead organizers of the 2009 National March on Washington for LGBT Equality.
“It would be great if more of our state-based organizations and even national organizations were putting boots on the ground and resources in these congressional districts,” she said. “I think we can swing the vote because Nunes is really not liked as well as what would be expected in a farming community like this.”
McGehee added, “There are lots of liberal Democrats that are here. Nunes is the one who’s gotten all the resources. That’s the reason he’s been in that seat as long as he has.”
Nunes has voted against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the law that prohibited gays from serving openly in the U.S. military. According to the HRC Congressional Scorecard, Nunes has declined to back all of the LGBT supportive bills pending in Congress, including the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which calls for banning private sector employment discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity.
He also opposes legal recognition of same-sex marriage and has declined to support or co-sponsor legislation to repeal the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.
Jack Langer, director of communications for Nunes’ congressional office in Washington, said he would make inquires to determine if Nunes has changed his position on LGBT issues since the release of the HRC Scorecard in October 2010. Langer didn’t get back with a response by Wednesday afternoon.
HRC is scheduled to release an updated version of its Congressional Scorecard in October. People familiar with Nunes’ voting record and positions have said he doesn’t appear to have changed his views on LGBT issues.
Scott of Gay Fresno said he wrote a letter to Nunes’ office urging him to take a more supportive posture on LGBT-related issues. He said the response he received was a terse refusal to back any of the bills or positions he inquired about.
“I was surprised that the response I received went further than the Republican talking points you would expect from a member of Congress,” Scott said. “It looked like it came from one of the anti-gay groups.”
Scott said he knows of no local LGBT political advocacy groups in Nunes’ district or in any locations within the Central Valley. While the statewide group Equality California gets involved in some issues in the region, for the most part LGBT people in the region have been left to fend for themselves, Scott said.
He and McGehee said an effective advocacy campaign for LGBT equality, especially through TV ads, could have resulted in far more votes in the Central Valley against Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure approved by California voters that bans same-sex marriage in the state constitution. McGehee said the No on 8 campaign had little or no presence in the Central Valley other than to provide campaign signs.
“I think voter education is an important part of this,” Scott said, adding that a concerted effort by national and state advocacy groups to promote LGBT rights in the region would significantly boost the chances for electing pro-LGBT candidates to Congress and state offices in the Central Valley region.
Leno, the gay state senator, points to a plan developed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that strategically targets eight congressional districts in California that are held by Republicans or are vacant due to redistricting.
The plan, dubbed “Red to Blue 2012,”calls for sending money and logistical support to the Democratic candidates running in those districts from the National Democratic Party and Democratic contributors from across the country.
One of the targeted races is in the newly created 41st District in the Los Angeles area, where gay Democrat Mark Takano is said to have a good chance of winning in an area with a solid Democratic majority. Takano is receiving logistical and financial support under the Red to Blue campaign.
Another district targeted is the redrawn 36th in the Palm Springs area, which is held by Republican Mary Bono Mack. The Log Cabin Republicans endorsed Bono Mack in 2010 but have yet to do so this year, according to an endorsement list on the group’s website.
Bono Mack received a rating of 53 on the HRC Scorecard in 2010, the highest rating of any Republican in the state.
The newly drawn 22nd Congressional District where Devin Nunes is running for re-election to his sixth term in office is not one of the districts targeted in the Red to Blue 2012 campaign. The Red to Blue 2012 campaign is targeting just three of the 14 California districts where the GOP incumbent had a 0 HRC Scorecard rating. The three targeted districts are not in the Central Valley region.
Nunes is being challenged by Democrat Otto Lee, a Chinese-American businessman and U.S. Navy veteran who served in the first Gulf War and later, as a commander in the Navy Reserves, was recalled to active duty during the Iraq war.
Lee is a former city council member and former mayor of Sunnyvale, Calif., in the state’s Silicon Valley area, which is located more than 100 miles away from the 22nd Congressional District. The fact that he and his family moved to the district earlier this year has prompted Nunes supporters to call him a carpetbagger.
Brandon Fisk, an official with the Fresno County Democratic Party Central Committee, said voters would likely view Lee’s experience as an accomplished businessman, Navy Reserves commander, and “public servant” in Sunnyvale as an asset that will help him better serve as a congressman in the Fresno area.
“Nobody called him a carpetbagger when he served in Iraq,” Fisk said.
Scott and McGehee said that although Lee has not mentioned LGBT issues in his campaign speeches he has made it known in the district that he would be supportive on LGBT issues in Congress. Scott said the Lee campaign reserved space to set up a booth at an LGBT Pride festival scheduled for Saturday in Visalia.
Although Congress in the past three-and-a-half years has passed legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and to approve a hate crimes law that allows the federal government to prosecute hate crimes against LGBT people, all other LGBT supportive bills have remained stalled in committee.
Some LGBT advocates have said they are especially troubled over the inability of the Democrats to arrange for the passage of ENDA when they controlled both the House and Senate in 2009 and 2010. Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) have said Democratic supporters, who far outnumbered Republicans committed to backing ENDA, had the votes to pass the bill itself but not to defeat one or more hostile amendments expected to be introduced by opponents of the bill.
Frank said a head count taken by House Democratic leaders found that supporters would fall short by a dozen or more votes in an effort to defeat an amendment calling for banning transgender people from certain jobs such as schoolteachers.
It was due to that uncertainty that Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders chose not to bring up ENDA for a vote at the time, according to Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill.
Most political observers say ENDA and most other LGBT bills would have little or no chance of passing in the next two years if Republicans retain control of the House. Pelosi and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s leaders say they are hopeful that Democrats will win the 25 House seats they need to regain control of the House in the November election.
McGehee and other LGBT advocates, however, say if Democrats win a majority in the House, nearly all of the new members making up their majority will likely be from swing districts with many conservative, Republican leaning voters. Unless advocacy groups and the Democrats do the outreach work needed to change the hearts and minds of voters on LGBT issues in places like California’s Central Valley, Democrats may not be able to garner the votes needed to pass ENDA and other gay bills, the advocates say.
“Could we do more about this?” asked gay California Assemblyman and former San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano. “Absolutely,” he said.
Ammiano said he was hopeful that the growing number of LGBT supportive members of the state legislature and in county and municipal offices throughout the state would serve as a “farm team” for future LGBT friendly members of Congress.
LGBT advocates note that while California has the distinction of having 14 congressional districts with anti-LGBT incumbents, the largest number of U.S. House members with a 0 HRC rating of any state, California also has the most members of Congress with a perfect 100 HRC rating — 21 House members and both U.S. senators, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.
“California certainly is a progressive state and is becoming ever bluer every year,” said Leno.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Federal Government
Protesters say SAVE Act targets voters, transgender youth
Bill described as ‘Jim Crow 2.0’
Members of Congress, advocates, and people from across the country gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to protest proposed federal legislation that voting rights activists have deemed “Jim Crow 2.0.”
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person proof of citizenship for anyone seeking to vote in U.S. elections.
President Donald Trump has also pushed for the proposed legislation to include a section that would ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, even with parental consent, and prohibit trans people from participating in school or professional sports consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
In addition to changing voter registration requirements, the bill would limit acceptable forms of identification to documents such as a birth certificate or passport — records that the Brennan Center for Justice estimates more than 21 million Americans do not have — effectively restricting access to the ballot. It would also ban online voter registration, DMV voter registration efforts, and mail-in voter registration.
A 2021 investigation by the Associated Press found that fewer than 475 people voted illegally or improperly, a tiny fraction of the estimated 160 million Americans who voted in the 2020 election.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke at the event.
“It will kick millions of American citizens off the rolls. And they don’t even require you to be told,” the highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate told protesters and reporters outside the Capitol. “If this law passes — and it won’t — you’re gonna show up in November … and they’ll say… sorry, you’re no longer on the voting rolls.”
He, like many other speakers, emphasized the bill in the context of American history, pointing to what he described as its racist roots and its impact on Black and brown Americans.
“I have called this act, over and over again, Jim Crow 2.0 … because they know it’s the truth.”
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was one of the lawmakers leading opposition to the legislation and spoke at the rally.
“It’s not just voting rights that are on the line — our democracy is on the line,” the California lawmaker said. “It’s not a voter I.D. bill. It’s a bait and switch bill.”
He added historical context, noting the significance of voting rights legislation passed more than 60 years ago. In 1965, Alabama civil rights activists marched to protest barriers to voter registration. Alabama state troopers violently attacked peaceful demonstrators at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, using tear gas, clubs, and whips against more than 500 — mostly Black — protesters.
“61 years ago — not to the day — but this week, President Lyndon Johnson came to the Capitol and addressed a joint session of Congress in the wake of Bloody Sunday and pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act,” Padilla said. “61 years later, Donald Trump and this Republican majority wants to take us backwards. We’re not gonna let that happen.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) also spoke, emphasizing that he views the effort as a Republican-led and Trump-backed attempt to restrict voting access, particularly among Black, brown, and predominantly Democratic communities.
“President Trump told Republicans when they were meeting behind closed doors that ‘The SAVE Act will guarantee Republicans win the midterms and ensure they do not lose an election for 50 years,’” Luján said. “The first time I think Donald Trump’s been honest … This voter suppression bill is only that. Taking away vote by mail? I hope my Republican colleagues from states that voted for Donald Trump or where vote by mail is popular have the courage and the backbone to stand up and say no to this nonsense, because their constituents are going to push back.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) also spoke.
“Our Republican colleagues have already cut Medicaid, Medicare, people don’t know how they’re gonna be able to afford energy,” she said, providing context for the broader political moment. “We’re in the middle of a war that they can’t even get straight while we’re in it and don’t have a way to get out of it. And we are now faced with defending our democracy?”
She then showed the crowd something that she said has been with her throughout her political journey in Washington.
“I brought with me something that I carried on the day that I was sworn into the House of Representatives when I was elected in 2016, and I carried it with me on the day that I was sworn in as United States senator. And I also carried it with me when I was trapped up in the gallery on Jan. 6 and all I could think to do was pray … This document allowed my great great great grandfather, who had been enslaved in Georgia, to have the right to vote. We took this and turned it into a scarf. It is the returns of qualified voters and reconstruction code from 1867. This is my proof of what we’ve been through. This is also our inspiration.”
“I got to travel between the Edmund Pettus Bridge two times. And even as I thought about this moment, I recognized that while we wish we weren’t in it, while we don’t know why we’re in it, I do know we were made for it … So I came today to tell you that, um, just like the leader said, that he calls it Jim Crow 2.0. I call it Jim Crow 2.NO.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the U.S., also spoke, highlighting the impact of the bill’s proposed provisions affecting trans people.
“This bill is not about saving America. This bill is about stealing an election. This bill is about suppressing voters,” Robinson said. “This bill not only tries to disenfranchise voters that deserve their right to vote, it also tries to criminalize trans kids and their families … It tries to criminalize doctors providing medically necessary care for our trans youth.”
The SAVE Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 11 but has not yet been considered in the U.S. Senate.
Idaho
Idaho advances bill to restrict bathroom access for transgender residents
HB 752 passed in state House of Representatives on Monday
The Idaho House of Representatives passed House Bill 752 on Monday, a measure that would make it a crime for a person to use a bathroom other than the one designated for their “biological sex.”
The story was first reported by the Idaho Capitol Sun after the bill cleared the House.
House Bill 752 would make it a criminal offense — either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the number of prior offenses — for individuals who “knowingly and willfully” enter a bathroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex.
The bill would apply to public buildings, including government-owned spaces, and places of “public accommodation,” a category that includes private businesses.
According to the bill’s text, it would “prohibit a person from entering a restroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex; provide a penalty; provide exceptions; define terms; and declare an emergency and provide an effective date.”
A first offense would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison. A second or subsequent offense within five years would be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
The bill passed in a 54–15 vote on Monday. Six Republicans broke with their party’s majority to join nine Democrats in opposing the measure.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Cornel Rasor, a Republican from Sagle near the Washington-Idaho border, told House lawmakers that the legislation is intended to protect women and girls.
“It prevents discomfort and voyeurism escalation and assaults, while preserving single-user options and narrow exceptions so no one is denied access for emergency aid,” Rasor said.
State Rep. Chris Mathias, a Democrat from Boise, disagreed, arguing that the legislation would unfairly target transgender Idahoans.
“The truth of the matter is — and I know a lot of people don’t want to say it — but forcing people who don’t look like the sex they were assigned at birth, or transgender folks, to use other people’s bathrooms is going to put a lot of people in danger,” Mathias said.
The Idaho American Civil Liberties Union made a statement about the bill following its passage.
“Idaho lawmakers continue pushing these harmful, invasive bathroom laws, yet cannot present credible evidence that transgender people using gender-aligned bathrooms threaten public safety,” the Idaho ACLU said. “The bill does nothing to address real criminal acts, such as sexual assault or voyeurism, and disregards concerns from law enforcement about the burden enforcement would place on local resources.”
In addition to human rights advocates, who have spoken out against similar bills advancing in state legislatures across the country, Idaho law enforcement groups have also opposed the measure. They argue that the way the legislation is written would “pose significant practical enforcement challenges,” noting that officers are tasked with maintaining public safety — not conducting gender checks or policing bathroom access.
During a committee hearing last week, law enforcement representatives and several trans Idahoans testified that the bill would make many residents less safe.
“Officers responding to a complaint would be placed in the difficult position of determining an individual’s biological sex in order to enforce the statute,” Idaho Fraternal Order of Police President Bryan Lovell wrote. “In many circumstances, there is no clear or reasonable way for officers to make that determination without engaging in questioning or investigative actions that could be viewed as invasive and inappropriate.”
The Idaho Sheriffs’ Association requested that lawmakers amend the bill to require that individuals be given an opportunity to leave a bathroom immediately before facing potential prosecution.
The bill now heads to the Idaho Senate for consideration. To become law, it must pass both chambers and avoid a veto from the governor.
A separate bathroom bill, House Bill 607, which would be enforced through civil lawsuits, passed the House last month but has not yet received a committee hearing in the Senate.
State Department
Report: US to withhold HIV aid to Zambia unless mineral access expanded
New York Times obtained Secretary of State Marco Rubio memo
The State Department is reportedly considering withholding assistance for Zambians with HIV unless the country’s government allows the U.S. to access more of its minerals.
The New York Times on Monday reported Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo to State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs staffers wrote the U.S. “will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.” The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the letter.
Zambia is a country in southern Africa that borders Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Times notes upwards of 1.3 million Zambians receive daily HIV medications through PEPFAR. The newspaper reported Rubio in his memo said the Trump-Vance administration could “significantly cut assistance” as soon as May.
“Reports of (the) State Department withholding lifesaving HIV treatment in return for mining concessions in Zambia does not make us safer, stronger, or more prosperous,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday. “Monetizing innocent people’s lives further undermines U.S. global leadership and is just plain wrong.”
The Washington Blade has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Zambia received breakthrough HIV prevention drug through PEPFAR
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. Zambia two months later received the first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug.
Kenya and Uganda are among the African countries have signed health agreements with the U.S. since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
The Times notes the countries that signed these agreements pledged to increase health spending. The Blade last month reported LGBTQ rights groups have questioned whether these agreements will lead to further exclusion and government-sanctioned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
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