Politics
Mondaire Jones ready to fight anti-LGBTQ extremism
Former congressman seeking a comeback to ‘safeguard democracy’
“The state of the race here” for New York’s 17th congressional district “is good for those of us who want to safeguard democracy and protect LGBTQ+ rights,” Mondaire Jones told the Washington Blade by phone on Monday.
Next year, Jones is looking to reclaim the House seat that he held from 2021 to 2023 before “unusual redistricting events” cost him the Democratic nomination and “lifelong political hack” GOP U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler eked out a victory by just 1,820 votes.
Confident in the state of his campaign looking ahead to the elections, having just out-raised Lawler along with all of his Democratic opponents, combined, in Q3, Jones is focused on the stakes:
“If you believe, as many people do, that with Joe Manchin’s retirement we are likely to lose the Senate,” began Jones, referring to the dimmed chances of Democrats retaining control of the upper chamber following the West Virginia senator’s announcement of plans not to run in 2024.
“And if you believe most of the polling in the presidential race, which has shown Donald Trump well positioned to take back the White House,” he continued, “I am the only person standing in the way of Mike Lawler” and Republican allies “passing a national abortion ban, gutting Social Security and Medicare, rolling back LGBTQ+ rights, raising the price of prescription drugs, and exacerbating the uniquely American problem of mass shootings.”
“There are people in Congress and on television who say things like, ‘if Joe Biden doesn’t change his position on Israel, then the young people and people of color are not going to vote for him’ — rather than [talking] about how irrational that is” or highlighting the Biden-Harris administration’s work on behalf of young people, from student loan forgiveness to the child tax credit and the largest climate action ever undertaken via the Inflation Reduction Act, Jones said.
And if reelected, he noted, Trump has promised to reinstate the Muslim ban imposed during his administration. (In fact, the former president pledged to expand it to include barring resettlement of refugees from Gaza.)
Another example of the disservice done to voters: During a speech on Veterans Day, “Donald Trump just referred to his political opponents as vermin, which is an invocation of the sinister rhetoric used by people like Adolf Hitler to demonize an entire race of people,” Jones said.
“The fact that the New York Times treated like a mere divergence from the speeches Donald Trump typically gives as opposed to the more sinister harbinger of a fascist and an anti-Semite and a racist who has promised to weaponize government against groups of people who he does not like is really a failure of the New York Times to get this moment; to understand this moment in American history.”
Jones also bristles at how the media have sometimes characterized certain congressional Republicans as moderates, citing, for instance, the entire conference’s support for their new Speaker, U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (La.), despite his extreme views.
“I am concerned because the media have given a platform to the small handful of House Republicans who even purport to be moderate,” he said. “Their treatment of these people who masquerade as moderates despite voting like extreme MAGA Republicans will give the impression to people that they are not part of the problem in the way that Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are,” Jones said, referring to the far-right firebrand GOP U.S. representatives from Florida and Georgia.
These Republican members include Lawler, who “did not have to vote with the extreme MAGA Republicans,” Jones said, but chose not to separate himself from the far-right faction of his caucus “on issue after issue,” which is “because he himself is an extremist.”
For instance, he said, Lawler has “trafficked in climate denialism” and “mocked women and our Orthodox communities here in the lower Hudson Valley” while voting “to overturn a gun regulation intended to keep us safe from mass shootings” and for an abortion ban “without exception for rape or incest.”
All to defend a seat in Congress in a district where Donald Trump was rejected by 10 points, Jones noted.
“People here in the 17th district want to protect a woman’s right to an abortion,” he said. “They want to protect LGBTQ+ rights and ban assault weapons so that kids can stop getting gunned down in schools throughout the country.”
Jones continued, “Mike Lawler opposes these things. He also wants to cut Social Security and Medicare and raise the cost of prescription drugs as evidenced by the fact that he has been working to unravel the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Running on his record
“When I was elected in 2020, I was elected as the first person of color to ever represent this district and the first member of the LGBTQ+ community to represent this district,” Jones said.
In Congress, he was named the most legislatively active freshman legislator by a landslide.
“I’ve got a record of actually delivering for this district,” Jones said. “I brought hundreds of millions of dollars for schools, housing, and health care in the lower Hudson Valley. I negotiated passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law. And it was my bill with [U.S. Rep.] Jerry Nadler [D-N.Y.] called the Respect for Marriage Act that has made strides in safeguarding marriage equality for so many LGBTQ+ Americans around the country, even if the Supreme Court were to go back on its precedent.”
He added, “I have a track record of being an effective legislator, and people want me back.”
“I have great respect for the members of the Equality Caucus and the LGBTQ+ members in both chambers of Congress,” Jones said. “I will say that it is apparent to both me and, I think, to many people who have compared last term with this term, that my voice is missing in a significant way with respect to matters concerning the LGBTQ community.”
Among other matters, he said, this would include “of course, the Supreme Court, healthcare, healthcare equity,” – including access to PrEP medication regardless of one’s ability to pay for it – “ and justice.”
“Even the conversation around student debt cancellation is one that I described as an issue of LGBTQ justice to the president in the Roosevelt Room in the spring of 2022 when I was conveying to him the importance of canceling student debt by executive order.”
Additionally, Jones said, “When I look at what’s happened, when I look at what’s happening abroad, in certain parts of Africa, with respect to the criminalization of queer people, that is something that I would be leading on right now as the nation’s first openly gay Black member of Congress.”
“I don’t see anyone leading on that or on the Supreme Court,” said Jones, a lawyer who has worked at the Justice Department, the multinational law firm Davis Polk, and as a clerk for a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. “It makes me sad,” he said, “but I also know that is the reason why I need to fight like hell to get back in Congress and continue the work that I started last term.”
The High Court “is itself something that poses an existential threat to the lives and livelihoods of the LGBTQ+ community,” Jones said.
To remedy the problem, Jones supports court expansion – a move he proposed in legislation with Nadler and U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) during the last term. It could be “a critical step to protecting basic freedoms for the LGBTQ+ community not to be discriminated against by business owners, as well as protecting the right of women to exercise their own healthcare rights, whether it is abortion or any other healthcare decision that they want to make.”
The Supreme Court has also imperiled American democracy, Jones said, referencing the 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which “opened the floodgates to the hundreds of racist voter suppression bills that we have seen introduced in dozens of states around the country — and that, in many of those states, have become law.”
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.”
Politics
George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud case
Judge: ‘You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.’
Disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty last year to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” said Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”
The first openly gay GOP member of Congress, Santos became a laughing stock after revelations came to light about his extensive history of fabricating and exaggerating details about his life and career.
His colleagues voted in December 2023 to expel him from Congress. An investigation by the U.S. House Ethics Committee found that Santos had used pilfered campaign funds for cosmetic procedures, designer fashion, and OnlyFans.
Federal prosecutors, however, found evidence that “Mr. Santos stole from donors, used his campaign account for personal purchases, inflated his fund-raising numbers, lied about his wealth on congressional documents and committed unemployment fraud,” per the New York Times.
The former congressman told the paper this week that he would not ask for a pardon. Despite Santos’s loyalty to President Donald Trump, the president has made no indication that he would intervene in his legal troubles.
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.”
My chance encounter with a pope and why goodness still matters
Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule
Dr. Fauci receives Harvey Milk Award, reflects on legacy of love and public health
I’m a lesbian and LGBTQ books would have changed my life
Comings & Goings
American cardinal chosen as next pope
Your guide to the many Pride celebrations in D.C. region
Supreme Court allows Trump admin to enforce trans military ban
WorldPride permits for National Mall have yet to be approved
Trump admin cancels more than $800 million in LGBTQ health grants
-
The Vatican3 days agoAmerican cardinal chosen as next pope
-
a&e features3 days agoYour guide to the many Pride celebrations in D.C. region
-
U.S. Supreme Court5 days agoSupreme Court allows Trump admin to enforce trans military ban
-
District of Columbia4 days agoWorldPride permits for National Mall have yet to be approved