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Tag: Ohio state government

  • State lawmakers turn to creative solutions in speaker fights

    State lawmakers turn to creative solutions in speaker fights

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — As Republican infighting debilitates Washington, lawmakers at some U.S. statehouses have managed to launch sessions complicated by similar GOP partisan divides or razor-thin margins of party control with a host of creative — if yet untested — solutions.

    The approaches differ by state: a delicate working agreement here, a bipartisan truce there. “The commonality is the standing on the edge of the precipice,” said David Niven, an associate professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati.

    America’s fiercely divided politics are not limited to national government, where Republicans won a threadbare majority in the U.S. House in November and elected Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker early Saturday on the 15th ballot.

    In the states, a combination of factors — including an influx of Republicans from the far right — have contributed to an air of uncertainty in some places as state legislatures begin business. The nation’s shifting political sands left parties in some state legislative chambers with such small majorities that each unexpected departure or death might threaten a scramble for control.

    In New Hampshire, for example, the 400-member House convened this week with Republicans holding a razor thin 201-197 majority, with two seats vacant. Slightly more Democrats than Republicans were absent last month when members chose their leader, though, which gave the GOP a bit of breathing room when it came to re-electing state Rep. Sherm Packard, of Londonderry, as House speaker.

    “The voters have sent us here with a never before seen balance of partisan makeup,” Packard said. “The only way we can forge ahead and be successful in this environment is by working together.”

    In his inaugural address Thursday, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu called the nearly even division a “awesome opportunity” for cooperation.

    “And we have a speaker,” he said, referring to the chaos in Washington. “What a great civics lesson and challenge that we find ourselves in.”

    The margin of control is even narrower in the Pennsylvania House, where the November election gave Democrats hopes of reclaiming the majority in the often bitterly partisan chamber after more than a decade.

    Their 102-101 margin included one Democratic incumbent who died a few weeks before being reelected, however, and two others who resigned after winning election to higher offices.

    The House’s top Republican is claiming majority status as a result and has sued to delay filling two of the vacancies. When lawmakers convened on Tuesday to take oaths of office and pick a speaker, the deadlock was broken only when all seven members of GOP leadership and nine other Republicans joined all Democrats to elect Democratic state Rep. Mark Rozzi, of the Reading area, as House speaker.

    Rozzi promised to act as an independent, saying he would caucus with neither party.

    “The speakership is a nonpartisan — and I want to repeat that, nonpartisan — officer of the House, entrusted with maintaining the integrity of the House,” he told reporters Tuesday night. “That will be my focus as speaker.”

    Bipartisanship was also the byword in Ohio, which saw a surprising turn in its speaker’s race on Tuesday despite Republicans holding a formidable supermajority in the Ohio House.

    Though Republican state Rep. Derek Merrin had appeared to seal the deal in a preliminary vote before the holidays, the conservative’s hopes were dashed at the last minute by a deal between more moderate GOP backers of rival Rep. Jason Stephens and the House Democratic caucus.

    “I intend to listen, and I intend to be very open and receptive to all members of the Ohio House,” Stephens said after winning the speakership with more Democratic votes than Republican ones. “We represent all of Ohio.”

    Political scientist Niven called Stephens’ election in Ohio “mountain-moving,” making a pivot away from the hyper conservative politics that the state has seen in recent years. Meanwhile, McCarthy’s efforts to appease his far-right detractors in Washington rather than to work with Democrats may leave GOP moderates in Washington wanting, he said.

    “I think there is a lesson here that there are some very happy Republicans in the Ohio Legislature because they were willing to see beyond their own caucus, and there are Republicans in the U.S. House who, in the end, aren’t going to get what they want because they aren’t willing to take a few steps across the aisle,” he said.

    Deal-making across party lines has long been a part of governing, including within state legislatures. In Alaska, state lawmakers have a history of crossing party lines to form majorities. In North Carolina, a notorious yet effective power-sharing deal for speaker was struck in 2003, allowing a Democrat and Republican to preside over sessions on alternate days.

    House Republicans at the time included Rep. Patrick McHenry, who is now a congressman and one of Kevin McCarthy’s top lieutenants.

    Criminal investigations later led GOP North Carolina Rep. Michael Decker, whose switch to the Democrats in 2003 caused a seat deadlock between the parties, to admit in federal court that he took $50,000 in exchange for supporting Democrat Jim Black for speaker. Decker received prison time, as did Black, who accepted punishment in state court for bribing Decker without pleading guilty to the charge.

    This year, it remains to be seen whether unusual legislative deals are functional. In New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania, some typically routine operational issues have been rancorous — or left in limbo.

    The all-important vote on Pennsylvania House rules for the next session did not take place, as it normally does, immediately after Rozzi was elected speaker. The House has yet to determine how many members of each party will make up committees, much less the members’ individual committee assignments.

    Rozzi promised a bipartisan staff, but nothing has been announced.

    Republican House Leader Bryan Cutler of Lancaster County, who argues his caucus’ total of 101 current members makes him majority leader, said the choice of Rozzi was “absolutely bipartisan in nature, and I think you saw that trend, kind of, across the country. I think that kind of bipartisanship is good, I think us taking that first step is good.”

    Session dates and committee assignments also have not been announced in the Ohio House, where Stephens, the House speaker, was scrambling after his surprise victory to pick a leadership team, hire a staff and unify his caucus. Matters for the chamber — which must begin deliberations on Ohio’s two-year state operating budget soon — were potentially complicated Friday. That’s when the Ohio Republican Party’s central committee voted to censure the GOP lawmakers who joined Democrats in supporting Stephens. Champions of the move called their actions a betrayal.

    In New Hampshire, lawmakers divided over proposed rules changes that reflected the dramatically divided House, including grappling with the extra importance of attendance over the next two years.

    One rejected rule change would have allowed members unable to attend sessions because of illness to vote by proxy. Supporters argued that the change would help members stay healthy while also fulfilling their duty to constituents, but — even amid rising COVID-19 infections — the proposal failed.

    ___

    Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. AP reporters Becky Bohrer in Anchorage, Alaska; Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H.; and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

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  • New year expected to bring more changes to state voting laws

    New year expected to bring more changes to state voting laws

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    State lawmakers around the country introduced thousands of bills to change the way elections are run after former President Donald Trump falsely blamed his 2020 loss on voter fraud. Hundreds became law.

    Even with proponents of Trump’s election lies roundly defeated during this year’s midterms, advocates on both sides of the voting debate are bracing for another round of election-related legislation. Republicans are eager to tighten election rules further while Democrats, who took control of two additional statehouses, will seek to make it easier to cast a ballot.

    Minnesota’s newly reelected Democratic secretary of state, Steve Simon, said he had spoken to several secretaries of state who are eager to push for changes in voting. Losses by election-denier candidates in top races have emboldened some Democrats to champion expansions of voting rights.

    “Voters spoke loudly and clearly about what they wanted and didn’t want, both in regards to this office and all these other issues,” said Simon, who defeated a Republican challenger who parroted some of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

    Democrats won majorities in both houses of the Minnesota Legislature in November, giving Simon a good shot at enacting changes. He expects to urge lawmakers to adopt automatic voter registration and allow high school students to pre-register.

    States routinely make adjustments in their voting laws — some subtle, some dramatic. But experts have never seen an explosion of legislation like that which followed the 2020 presidential election, when more than 3,600 election bills were introduced, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks the legislation.

    Liz Avore, senior adviser to the group, said 22 states in the last couple of years expanded access to the ballot, 10 created new restrictions and five expanded access in some ways while creating new barriers in others. This, she said, has created a divide in the U.S. in which “your ZIP code determines your access to our democracy.”

    That divide seems likely to grow next year. Legislatures won’t convene until January at the earliest, so it’s unclear how many bills are being drafted and on which subjects. But Texas, where the Legislature meets only once every two years and lawmakers can “pre-file” drafts of legislation for the upcoming session, offers a preview.

    The Associated Press has identified nearly 100 election-related legislative proposals already filed in the state, both to increase access to the ballot box and to further restrict it. This includes one that would allow the state’s top lawyer to assign a prosecutor focused on election crimes, testing the boundaries of a court ruling earlier this year that said the attorney general did not have the authority to prosecute election crimes.

    Another would assign a group of peace officers to serve as election marshals who investigate claims of election-related missteps. That would follow the lead of Florida, where officers in a special unit assigned to elections have already made a handful of arrests — including of people who mistakenly thought they were eligible to vote under a 2018 constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to some felons. Critics have labeled the unit a political tool of the governor.

    Matt Simpson, a senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said current election legislation proposed in the state, such as increasing criminal penalties for election crimes and creating election marshals, is “extreme” and “very intimidating” for voters. He said these approaches are primarily political and don’t solve actual voting-related issues, such as high rejection rates of mail ballots and ballot applications due to widespread confusion on the identification numbers necessary.

    “It is certainly the case that Texas elections do not have widespread fraud,” Simpson said. “These bills, these concerns that are raised, are solutions in search of a problem.”

    The reliability of Texas’ elections was underscored by the release earlier this month of an audit by the secretary of state’s office. The 359-page audit of the 2020 election in the state’s two largest Democratic counties and two largest Republican ones found some “irregularities,” but they were largely related to holding an election during a pandemic.

    “In most cases, the audit found that the counties followed their procedures and clearly documented their activities,” the audit says.

    Ohio is another Republican-controlled state where lawmakers continue to push for restrictions.

    The state is likely to draw national attention next year after Republicans indicated they might try again to place on the May ballot a measure requiring a 60% majority for any future constitutional amendments to pass. That provision could limit the ability of Ohio voters to rein in GOP gerrymandering or otherwise counter the majority-Republican Legislature, such as by codifying the right to an abortion.

    Republicans failed to muster enough votes during December’s lame-duck session to place the higher threshold for passing amendments on the ballot, but they did pass a sweeping election law overhaul. The bill adds a photo ID requirement for voters and provides them for free, codifies a directive requiring one ballot drop box per county and eliminates early voting on the Monday before Election Day — county officials had said it interfered with their final preparations. The legislation also shrinks the window for receiving mail-in ballots after the election from 10 days to four.

    Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone said taking steps to tighten access to the voting booth and speed vote counting are aimed at improving the “perception, confidence and integrity” in elections.

    “Folks, perception matters,” Gavarone said. “Whether you want to believe it or not, the goal should not just be to secure our elections, but it’s imperative that we give people doubting the results of our elections reason to participate in them.”

    Voting rights advocates were outraged.

    “This legislation will make voting unnecessarily harder for seniors, students, rural Ohioans, active-duty military and other eligible Ohioans,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters Ohio.

    The office of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said he was reviewing the legislation.

    Democrats are readying their own pushes, especially in two states where they won control of the legislatures and retained the governorship — Michigan and Minnesota.

    Michigan voters not only gave Democrats control of the state Legislature, they also passed Proposal 2, a sweeping ballot initiative that expanded early and mail voting. Democrats already are preparing to strengthen the measure in the legislative session.

    “There will need to be quite a bit of implementation legislation next term, and I look forward to working with the Legislature and the governor’s office to enact this,” Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat, said in an interview.

    Jake Rollow, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of State, said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will likely ask lawmakers to allocate $100 million annually for local election offices and propose new measures against circulating election misinformation. A Democratic state lawmaker also proposed imposing penalties for people who pressure election workers, a key cause of Democrats in state legislatures after conspiracy theorists targeted voting officials after the 2020 presidential election.

    In Minnesota, Simon said he also wants to increase penalties against threatening or interfering with election workers. He said he’ll push a range of other reforms, including pre-registering high schoolers so they can quickly join the voting rolls upon turning 18. Younger voters lean Democratic, but Simon said he’s not trying to promote his party.

    He said he merely wants to make the electorate more reflective of the population, a goal he also pushed when the statehouse was split between Republicans and Democrats.

    “These are reforms that will benefit everyone,” he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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  • New year expected to bring more changes to state voting laws

    New year expected to bring more changes to state voting laws

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    State lawmakers around the country introduced thousands of bills to change the way elections are run after former President Donald Trump falsely blamed his 2020 loss on voter fraud. Hundreds became law.

    Even with proponents of Trump’s election lies roundly defeated during this year’s midterms, advocates on both sides of the voting debate are bracing for another round of election-related legislation. Republicans are eager to tighten election rules further while Democrats, who took control of two additional statehouses, will seek to make it easier to cast a ballot.

    Minnesota’s newly reelected Democratic secretary of state, Steve Simon, said he had spoken to several secretaries of state who are eager to push for changes in voting. Losses by election-denier candidates in top races have emboldened some Democrats to champion expansions of voting rights.

    “Voters spoke loudly and clearly about what they wanted and didn’t want, both in regards to this office and all these other issues,” said Simon, who defeated a Republican challenger who parroted some of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

    Democrats won majorities in both houses of the Minnesota Legislature in November, giving Simon a good shot at enacting changes. He expects to urge lawmakers to adopt automatic voter registration and allow high school students to pre-register.

    States routinely make adjustments in their voting laws — some subtle, some dramatic. But experts have never seen an explosion of legislation like that which followed the 2020 presidential election, when more than 3,600 election bills were introduced, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks the legislation.

    Liz Avore, senior adviser to the group, said 22 states in the last couple of years expanded access to the ballot, 10 created new restrictions and five expanded access in some ways while creating new barriers in others. This, she said, has created a divide in the U.S. in which “your ZIP code determines your access to our democracy.”

    That divide seems likely to grow next year. Legislatures won’t convene until January at the earliest, so it’s unclear how many bills are being drafted and on which subjects. But Texas, where the Legislature meets only once every two years and lawmakers can “pre-file” drafts of legislation for the upcoming session, offers a preview.

    The Associated Press has identified nearly 100 election-related legislative proposals already filed in the state, both to increase access to the ballot box and to further restrict it. This includes one that would allow the state’s top lawyer to assign a prosecutor focused on election crimes, testing the boundaries of a court ruling earlier this year that said the attorney general did not have the authority to prosecute election crimes.

    Another would assign a group of peace officers to serve as election marshals who investigate claims of election-related missteps. That would follow the lead of Florida, where officers in a special unit assigned to elections have already made a handful of arrests — including of people who mistakenly thought they were eligible to vote under a 2018 constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to some felons. Critics have labeled the unit a political tool of the governor.

    Matt Simpson, a senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said current election legislation proposed in the state, such as increasing criminal penalties for election crimes and creating election marshals, is “extreme” and “very intimidating” for voters. He said these approaches are primarily political and don’t solve actual voting-related issues, such as high rejection rates of mail ballots and ballot applications due to widespread confusion on the identification numbers necessary.

    “It is certainly the case that Texas elections do not have widespread fraud,” Simpson said. “These bills, these concerns that are raised, are solutions in search of a problem.”

    The reliability of Texas’ elections was underscored by the release earlier this month of an audit by the secretary of state’s office. The 359-page audit of the 2020 election in the state’s two largest Democratic counties and two largest Republican ones found some “irregularities,” but they were largely related to holding an election during a pandemic.

    “In most cases, the audit found that the counties followed their procedures and clearly documented their activities,” the audit says.

    Ohio is another Republican-controlled state where lawmakers continue to push for restrictions.

    The state is likely to draw national attention next year after Republicans indicated they might try again to place on the May ballot a measure requiring a 60% majority for any future constitutional amendments to pass. That provision could limit the ability of Ohio voters to rein in GOP gerrymandering or otherwise counter the majority-Republican Legislature, such as by codifying the right to an abortion.

    Republicans failed to muster enough votes during December’s lame-duck session to place the higher threshold for passing amendments on the ballot, but they did pass a sweeping election law overhaul. The bill adds a photo ID requirement for voters and provides them for free, codifies a directive requiring one ballot drop box per county and eliminates early voting on the Monday before Election Day — county officials had said it interfered with their final preparations. The legislation also shrinks the window for receiving mail-in ballots after the election from 10 days to four.

    Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone said taking steps to tighten access to the voting booth and speed vote counting are aimed at improving the “perception, confidence and integrity” in elections.

    “Folks, perception matters,” Gavarone said. “Whether you want to believe it or not, the goal should not just be to secure our elections, but it’s imperative that we give people doubting the results of our elections reason to participate in them.”

    Voting rights advocates were outraged.

    “This legislation will make voting unnecessarily harder for seniors, students, rural Ohioans, active-duty military and other eligible Ohioans,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters Ohio.

    The office of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said he was reviewing the legislation.

    Democrats are readying their own pushes, especially in two states where they won control of the legislatures and retained the governorship — Michigan and Minnesota.

    Michigan voters not only gave Democrats control of the state Legislature, they also passed Proposal 2, a sweeping ballot initiative that expanded early and mail voting. Democrats already are preparing to strengthen the measure in the legislative session.

    “There will need to be quite a bit of implementation legislation next term, and I look forward to working with the Legislature and the governor’s office to enact this,” Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat, said in an interview.

    Jake Rollow, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of State, said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will likely ask lawmakers to allocate $100 million annually for local election offices and propose new measures against circulating election misinformation. A Democratic state lawmaker also proposed imposing penalties for people who pressure election workers, a key cause of Democrats in state legislatures after conspiracy theorists targeted voting officials after the 2020 presidential election.

    In Minnesota, Simon said he also wants to increase penalties against threatening or interfering with election workers. He said he’ll push a range of other reforms, including pre-registering high schoolers so they can quickly join the voting rolls upon turning 18. Younger voters lean Democratic, but Simon said he’s not trying to promote his party.

    He said he merely wants to make the electorate more reflective of the population, a goal he also pushed when the statehouse was split between Republicans and Democrats.

    “These are reforms that will benefit everyone,” he said.

    ———

    Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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  • Biden called gay marriage ‘inevitable’ and soon it’ll be law

    Biden called gay marriage ‘inevitable’ and soon it’ll be law

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    WASHINGTON — A decade ago, then-Vice President Joe Biden shocked the political world and preempted his boss by suddenly declaring his support for gay marriage — one of the country’s most contentious issues — on national television. But not everyone was surprised.

    A small group had attended a private fundraiser with Biden weeks earlier in Los Angeles where he disclosed not only his approval but his firm conclusion about the future of same-sex marriage.

    He predicted, “Things are changing so rapidly, it’s going to become a political liability in the near term for someone to say, ‘I oppose gay marriage.’”

    “Mark my words. And my job — our job — is to keep this momentum rolling to the inevitable.”

    The day that Biden envisioned may have arrived. He plans on Tuesday to sign legislation, passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress, to protect gay unions — even if the Supreme Court should revisit, as some fear or hope, its ruling supporting a nationwide right of same-sex couples to marry.

    Biden’s signature will burnish his legacy as a champion of equality at a time when the LGBTQ community is anxious to safeguard legal changes from a backlash on the right that has used incendiary rhetoric, particularly against transgender people.

    “It is a historic moment and a long time coming,” said Bruce Reed, the White House deputy chief of staff and a longtime adviser to Biden. “It’s all the more inspiring in light of what the country has been put through in recent years, and what courts have threatened of late.”

    If there’s a feeling of anticlimax, it’s because the politics of marriage have shifted as dramatically as Biden predicted. Although the issue is not universally embraced — a majority of Republicans in the House and Senate voted against the legislation — it’s no longer considered a dangerous third rail.

    ———

    That wasn’t the case a decade ago.

    Chad Griffin, who led the American Foundation for Equal Rights and the Human Rights Campaign, said it was common for lawmakers to tell him, “You know privately I’m with you, and you know so-and-so in my family is gay or lesbian, but politically, I can’t be out there.”

    Activists’ frustration extended to President Barack Obama. He had made some changes, such as eliminating the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule that prevented gay people from serving openly in the military, but had stopped short of embracing marriage equality despite lawsuits that were forcing the issue to the forefront.

    As Obama’s vice president, Biden shared the same stance. In 1996, he had voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevented federal recognition of same-sex unions.

    In April 2012, Biden attended the fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of a married gay couple — Michael Lombardo, an HBO executive, and Sonny Ward, an architect — and their children. When it was time for the question-and-answer session, Griffin decided he shouldn’t sidestep the issue.

    “When you came in tonight, you met Michael and Sonny and their two beautiful kids,” he said to Biden. “And I wonder if you can just sort of talk in a frank, honest way about your own personal views as it relates to marriage equality.”

    Biden responded as Griffin had requested — frankly and personally.

    “All you got to do is look in the eyes of those kids,” he said. “And no one can wonder, no one can wonder whether or not they are cared for and nurtured and loved and reinforced. And folks, what’s happening is, everybody is beginning to see it.”

    Just over two weeks later, Biden was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and host David Gregory asked whether he supported gay marriage. Biden said the issue came down to “a simple proposition.”

    “Who do you love? And will you be loyal to the person you love?” Biden said. “And that’s what people are finding out is what all marriages, at their root, are about, whether they’re marriages of lesbians, or gay men, or heterosexuals.”

    Biden said the president, not him, “sets the policies.” But he said gay couples should have “all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.”

    Gautam Raghavan was leading LGBTQ outreach for the White House at the time. On the Sunday that the interview aired, he and his husband were hosting some friends for brunch, and the TV was on in the background.

    “We were watching it and thinking, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe that just happened,’” Raghavan said. He can’t remember what they ate that morning, but “I’m sure we had a mimosa afterward.”

    It was an unusually unscripted moment in carefully choreographed Washington.

    For Biden, “all politics is personal,” said Reed, who was Biden’s chief of staff in the vice president’s office. “And I think that’s what prompted him to speak his mind.”

    Not everyone was pleased. Obama was left trailing a step behind his vice president, and three days later did an interview to disclose his own support for gay marriage. He said Biden had gotten “a little over his skis” but there were no hard feelings.

    ———

    At the time of Biden’s interview, Jim Obergefell was living in Ohio with his partner, John Arthur, who had recently been diagnosed with the deadly disease known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS.

    Marriage was always considered out of the question, Obergefell said, but Biden’s comments caught his attention. The following year, after the Supreme Court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional, Obergefell proposed to Arthur.

    They married in Maryland, where it was legal, but their home state of Ohio would not recognize their union. Although Arthur died in 2013, their legal battle continued to the Supreme Court. Obergefell met Biden for the first time in 2015.

    “I just remember walking up to him and he hugged me and the first words out of his mouth were condolences for the loss of my husband,” he said.

    The Supreme Court soon legalized gay marriage nationwide in a decision known as Obergefell v. Hodges.

    Although the issue was widely considered to be settled, it resurfaced last June when the court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court “should reconsider” other precedents as well, including the Obergefell ruling, raising concern that other civil rights could be rolled back.

    Legislation to revive the right to abortion was politically impossible. But marriage might be a different matter, and supporters believed they could rally enough Republican votes to sidestep a filibuster in the Senate. They were right.

    Obergefell, however, is not experiencing a sense of satisfaction.

    “Our right to marry was affirmed by the Supreme Court. And in a perfect world, we would never have to worry about losing that,” he said. “We now know that rights that people counted on and expected are no longer safe.”

    Instead of feeling happy, he said, “I’m on edge.”

    ———

    It’s a common sentiment right now in the face of political attacks over LGBTQ issues.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., signed legislation limiting teachers’ ability to talk about sexual orientation or gender identity in schools. In Texas, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott wants state child welfare investigators to consider gender-affirming care as a form of abuse.

    Protesters, sometimes armed, have shown up at events where drag queens read to children. Five people were shot to death at a gay club in Colorado last month. The suspect has been charged with hate crimes.

    “The story of civil rights in America is always evolving,” said Raghavan, who now runs the White House personnel office. “We should never assume that we’re done with something because we got a good court decision or a piece of legislation.”

    Biden has taken steps to safeguard rights for transgender people, such as reinstating anti-discrimination provisions eliminated by President Donald Trump. Biden also ended the ban on transgender people serving in the military. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay Cabinet member, and Biden’s assistant health secretary, Rachel Levine, is the first transgender person to win Senate confirmation to an executive post.

    Sarah McBride, a transgender state senator from Biden’s home state of Delaware, said it’s a comfort “for so many of us, who feel frightened or vulnerable or alone, to know that the leader of this country, the leader of the free world, not only sees us but embraces us.”

    McBride worked for Biden’s eldest son, Beau, during his campaigns for Delaware attorney general, and she came out as transgender in 2012.

    Before Beau Biden died from brain cancer in 2015, he helped pass Delaware laws that legalized gay marriage and banned discrimination over gender identity. McBride said the experience deepened the elder Biden’s own commitment to these issues and “he’s carrying on Beau’s legacy.”

    As last month’s midterm elections approached, the White House played host to Dylan Mulvaney, a Broadway performer who has chronicled her gender transition on TikTok, to talk about transgender issues with Biden.

    Conservative critics were apoplectic. Ben Shapiro, a popular commentator, called the interview “maybe the most disturbing clip in presidential history.”

    But Biden, much like he has in the past, suggested that acceptance was possible — maybe even likely. Asked by Mulvaney how leaders can better advocate for transgender people, Biden responded that it was important to be “seen with people like you.”

    “People fear what they don’t know. They fear what they don’t know,” he said. “And when people realize, individuals realize, ‘Oh, this is what they’re telling me to be frightened of, this is the problem.’ I mean, people change their minds.”

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