NEW YORK — New York Congressman Ritchie Torres has spoken out about his struggle with depression and the importance of mental health in the wake of U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)’s recent hospitalization for clinical depression. 

Torres, a Democrat who is the first openly gay Afro-Latino member of Congress, told “GMA3” hosts DeMarco Morgan and Eva Pilgrim on Tuesday that he had “an obligation to tell” his “story in the hopes of breaking the shame and silence, and stigma that too often surrounds the subject of mental health.”

Torres views his coming to terms with his mental health issues — while also being open about it — as a form of “public service” to the American people. 

“We live in a society that historically has shamed people for experiencing mental illness, that has framed mental illness as a failure of character or a failure of willpower. And I’m here to send a message that mental illness is nothing of which to be ashamed, that there are millions of Americans who struggle with depression and anxiety,” Torres explained. 

Even before being elected to Congress, Torres, 34, spoke freely about his past experiences concerning mental health issues and how they affected him. While campaigning, one of his opponents tried to use his depression as a counterpoint to prove that he was not worthy of being in public office. 

From then on, Torres vowed to “never again would I allow my mental health to be weaponized,” he told Time magazine. 

He emphasized the importance of psychotherapy and medication as a means of controlling his depressive episodes and going through his day by day as a congressman.

He noted, however, that “there are people who have trouble accessing mental health care.” 

“And even if you do, the process of experimenting with psychiatric medications can be draining and debilitating, because there’s no one size fits all,” he added. 

Torres said he hopes that Congress can pave the way for more mental health care for the millions of Americans who need it.

“Our healthcare system is fundamentally broken and Congress is no closer to fixing it,” he argued. 

I was once hospitalized because of severe depression. I thought of taking my own life because I felt the world around me had collapsed.

I would not be alive, let alone in Congress, were it not for mental health care.

My Story:pic.twitter.com/5v9pXCN33E

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) March 15, 2023

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate voted 52-42 on Wednesday to confirm former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nomination by President Joe Biden to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of India.

Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), and Mark Kelly (Ariz.) voted “nay,” while Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.), Susan Collins (Maine), Steve Daines (Mont.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), and Todd Young (Ind.) voted “yea.”

Garcetti’s appointment has been languishing in the Senate for nearly two years, threatened most recently by Democratic defectors who objected to unresolved allegations that the former mayor knew — or should have known — about sexual harassment by a former top aide, Rick Jacobs.

Hirono, who earlier this week had pledged to support Garcetti’s nomination, said Wednesday that she changed her mind after learning new information, but declined to offer specifics.

Throwing additional uncertainty into Wednesday’s vote was the absence of six senators including Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is recovering from shingles and announced plans last month to retire at the end of her term, and Jon Fetterman (D-Pa.), who recently checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment of clinical depression.

The White House and Garcetti nevertheless pushed for the vote, which had been delayed by the split control of the Senate until the new Congress was seated in January. The period between Garcetti’s nomination and confirmation marked the longest stretch without a sitting U.S. ambassador to India since formal diplomatic relations were first established with the country.

WASHINGTON – Whether on matters concerning climate change or LGBTQ rights, members of Congress ought to focus on making progress for the benefit of the next generation, U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.) told the Washington Blade.

“It’s making that decision today to talk about what’s in our future, not what’s in our past, and to say, ‘let’s just do what’s best for our kids,’” Sorensen said during an exclusive interview with the Blade from his office last week.

The congressman, who became the first openly gay member to represent the state of Illinois in either chamber with his election in 2022, has plenty of experience reaching folks with this message.

A meteorologist by trade, Sorensen began his television career at the ABC affiliate KTRE in Lufkin, Texas in 1999 before becoming chief meteorologist for WREX, Rockford, Illinois’s NBC affiliate, and then senior meteorologist at the ABC affiliate WQAD serving the Quad Cities area.

“You know, I was the one talking about climate change to farmers,” Sorensen said.

“Whenever I talk about climate change, I don’t fault anyone for being in a different place in the past,” he said, which helps to avoid positioning conservatives and climate skeptics in a defensive posture.

“We don’t ever have to agree on who’s causing climate change, or what 1.5 degrees celsius or two degrees celsius means,” Sorensen said. “Let’s just say that we’re going to do better today for the next generation, okay? And the same thing with LGBTQ issues, right?”

As it turned out, discussing climate change “wasn’t this third rail that we thought it was,” he said. Likewise, “it was the same thing as when I had my trans friends on television on Good Morning Quad Cities” for National Coming Out Day.

The move was important, Sorensen said, “so that my community could see these are real people…my friend Paula and my friend Chase are real people.” The congressman added, “we talked about how we came out, and we didn’t get any backlash [from the audience], because, you know what? I don’t live in a hateful community.”

Sorensen said the network looked at audience engagement metrics for segments featuring his trans friends, and for segments in which he addressed climate change, and the data repeatedly indicated that viewers were able to easily countenance both.

Some of this might be attributed to the good will he had built with this audience. After all, “I was the one they were turning to when the tornado was bearing down on their family’s home,” Sorensen said.

Regardless, “how do we expect people to understand if we don’t explain these things?”

‘Everyone should be speaking out’ against anti-trans extremism

Last week, Republicans on the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee passed legislation that would bar transgender women and girls from competing in school sports per Title IX.

The measure, part of a nationwide wave of anti-trans bills, is likely fated to languish in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

On the heels of a press conference to drum up opposition to the bill that was hosted by the Congressional Equality Caucus and its chair, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Sorensen said, “I’m disappointed because these are real people.”

“We have to understand that, you know, when we talk about the threat that transgender people face today, if you just look at what is being proposed, what the extreme Republicans are saying, is that there’s now a group of kids or a group of people that don’t deserve to learn what athletics is about,” said the congressman, who is also a co-chair of the Equality Caucus.

Sorensen said the message from Republican members backing this legislation is that “this group [of women and girls] doesn’t deserve to learn teamwork as a kid.”

“It’s terrible,” he said. “Everyone should be speaking out against this. What it just shows is that these Republicans, they’re just stoking fear and division and being extreme, instead of actually solving the problems of the people.”

“I think it’s a point of extreme Republicans to run on this platform instead of solving the problems that we do have in front of us,” Sorensen said.

He noted extremism doesn’t seem to have been a winning message for Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, during which time the GOP’s focus was on issues like the economy and healthcare.

It is remarkable “how things have changed in such a short amount of time,” Sorensen said. “And that’s because the Republicans, these extreme Republicans, have decided that they’re going to to roll through this division and hate.”

“It’s insane,” he said, pointing to legislation like the bill proposed in the Iowa Legislature to ban same-sex marriage “when it’s already been set in stone.”

At the same time, the congressman said, there is ample reason for optimism. For example, “in the state of Illinois we rejected that hate because the state of Illinois elected its first LGBTQ member of Congress.”

And back in the Quad Cities, Sorensen had the chance to meet the next generation of out youth when volunteering at the area’s LGBTQ community center, Clock, Inc. “I just stood there in awe at these kids that were able to be themselves.”

Moving forward, Sorensen said Democrats should continue to prioritize issues that Americans actually care about.

“I don’t feel like we need to defend ourselves,” he said. “You know, if they want to put this wedge issue out there, we need to just be able to say, ‘I’m fighting for Americans. I’m fighting to lower the price of goods, connecting people to health care,’” which includes healthcare for trans folks as well as reproductive care including abortions.

“Sorensen said his identity as a gay man was not a central feature of his congressional campaign, but still, for many folks, “the only gay person that they knew was Eric Sorensen on channel eight.”

Overcoming homophobia

Growing up in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis, Sorensen said he asked himself, “Why should I even try?” He told the Blade, “I can see in my head the pictures of a hospital room, and I thought, ‘that’s how I’m gonna die,’” he said, so, “why would I even try, when they’re never going to allow me to be on television?”

Having relocated from Lufkin to Tyler, after a couple of years working as a meteorologist in the comparably larger northeast Texas metropolitan area, Sorensen said his sexual orientation became a problem for his employer in 2003.

“My boss told me, ‘Eric, I need you to go to the conference room after your show’s over,’” the congressman remembers.

Laid before Sorensen was his employment contract, a document he had not seen since he had signed it. “All of a sudden,” he said, “the members of management walk in, and I was told to have a seat while nobody across the table sat down – so they were looking down upon me.”

They had been alerted to Sorensen’s profile on Gay.com and offered him the choice to “be that person,” pointing to a printout of his profile, “or have a job.”

From there, he took a pay cut to return to Illinois where “I got to be out,” he said, “I got to be myself,” while every day at work, “I was telling my mom and dad what the weather was like.”

The congressman added, “If I would have given up in that space in Texas, where would I be? I wouldn’t be here today.”

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and the Congressional Equality Caucus held a press conference Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol to rally opposition to House Republicans’ proposed legislation that would prohibit transgender women and girls from participating in sports.

The bill was slated for markup by the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee later Wednesday.

“I’m assuming by the time it gets to the floor, we have talked to many members of Congress, especially on the Democratic side, we’re gonna fight hard on this,” Pocan said in response to a question from the Washington Blade.

“I have no idea where some of the extreme politicians may try to take this, but the bottom line is they promised us they’re going to lower the costs for the American people they promised us smaller, less intrusive government, and now they’re being the biggest of big brother that can possibly be by trying to determine which kids can play in sports,” Pocan said.

Joining Pocan and the caucus at the press conference were Shiwali Patel, director of justice for student survivors and senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, Rebekah Bruesehoff, a trans student athlete, and Jamie Bruesehoff, her mother.

“Today, Republicans are showing their real priorities, political priorities, by considering a trans and intersex sports ban as the opening salvo in their efforts to undermine the rights of LGBTQI+ people,” Pocan said during his prepared remarks.

“Women and girls face real problems on the field, from strained resources to unequal pay and sexual harassment and assault, but rather than dealing with these matters or other challenges like gun violence, members on the Education and the Workforce Committee will spend their first legislative markup targeting a handful of trans girls and women who participate in school sports,” Pocan said.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Congressional Equality Caucus has come out against a proposal from House Republicans to ban transgender student athletes.

“This is not about girls’ and women’s sports; it’s about attacking trans kids,” Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said in a press release Monday. “This sports ban is just the opening salvo in their larger efforts to limit the rights of and demonize the LGBTQI+ community, and the Equality Caucus will do everything it can to defeat it,” he said.

The Caucus’s issuance of the press release comes ahead of the bill’s scheduled mark-up on Wednesday by the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The legislation would bar any participation in school sports by trans athletes, stipulating that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth” for purposes of compliance with Title IX.

Introduced by Republican Rep. Gregory Steube (Fla.) on Feb. 1, the bill’s 43 GOP co-sponsors include Reps. Ken Buck (Ohio), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Nancy Mace (S.C.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Jim Banks (Ind.), and George Santos (N.Y.), the scandal beleaguered gay congressman who faces multiple investigations over alleged financial crimes.

The Democratic Women’s Caucus joined the Equality Caucus in registering their opposition Monday ahead of the mark-up 

“We will not let anti-LGBTQI+ Republicans—who have refused to work with us on addressing real gender equity issues—use “protecting women” as an excuse to attack trans youth,” said Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus.

Groups like the Women’s Sports Foundation and National Women’s Law Center support full and equal access and participation for trans student athletes.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House Ethics Committee on Thursday announced it had voted unanimously to open an investigation of Rep. George Santos’s (R-N.Y.) over allegations of financial and sexual misconduct.

The ten-member body, divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats, will now put Santos’s fate into the hands of an evenly divided subcommittee of four members led by Republican Rep. David Joyce (Ohio).

The subcommittee’s inquiry will evaluate whether the embattled congressman’s required financial disclosures as a candidate contained illegal omissions or conflicts of interest, as well as an allegation by an applicant to his congressional office that Santos made unwanted sexual advances towards him.

Santos did not comment beyond a statement shared on Twitter that was written in the third person:

“The House Committee on Ethics has opened an investigation, and Congressman George Santos is fully cooperating. There will be no further comment made at this time.”

The House Committee on Ethics has opened an investigation, and Congressman George Santos is fully cooperating. There will be no further comment made at this time.

— Rep. George Santos (@RepSantosNY03) March 2, 2023

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (N.Y.) – who, with U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (N.Y.), filed the initial Ethics Committee complaint against Santos, tweeted:

“BREAKING: House Ethics has opened an investigation into George Santos. Rep. Dan Goldman and I filed an ethics complaint against the self-described terrible liar for violating House rules. Now Congress is one step closer to holding its most corrupt member accountable.”

BREAKING: House Ethics has opened an investigation into George Santos. Rep. Dan Goldman and I filed an ethics complaint against the self-described terrible liar for violating House rules.

Now Congress is one step closer to holding its most corrupt member accountable.

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) March 2, 2023

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) previously said action might be taken with Santos pursuant to the results of an Ethics Committee investigation.

House Ethics Committee moves forward with investigation into Rep. George Santos:

WASHINGTON – On issues from the curriculum taught in schools to trans Americans’ access to healthcare, Democrats should focus their messaging on how their opponents’ policy proposals would threaten personal freedoms, U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) told the Washington Blade.

The Democratic Party’s tendency to get into the minutiae “doesn’t always serve us well,” as it is generally more effective to relay broader ideas about “this fundamental American concept of freedom” that elected Republicans are working to undermine, Balint said during an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade from her office on Tuesday.

“We don’t like being told what to do as Americans,” she said, adding that the message resonates regardless of whether folks identify as liberals or conservatives, or whether they live in rural or urban areas: “We don’t want to be told what we can and can’t learn about; what we can and can’t talk about.”

Government intrusion and overreach into otherwise private matters concerning healthcare and education has been a hallmark of policies enacted by GOP leaders like Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a presumptive but still undeclared candidate for the 2024 presidential race.

Examples have included banning books with LGBTQ characters and themes, last month’s rejection of an advanced African-American studies course, and the Florida Board of Medicine’s adoption of a policy threatening the licenses of medical providers who administer guideline-directed interventions for trans and gender nonconforming youth.

In a video shared on Rumble last month, former president and declared 2024 Republican candidate Donald Trump pledged to weaponize the federal government against trans Americans if elected, such as by terminating the Medicare and Medicaid eligibility of hospitals and facilities that perform gender affirming care for minor patients.

“Ideas around equity and justice are things that we go to as Democrats,” Balint said. “But those aren’t necessarily the words that folks who identify as independents or Republicans use for the same kinds of ideas.”

The congresswoman said it is more effective to frame these debates as matters of “freedom and fairness as opposed to justice or equity or equality,” which is why she will “continue to say, ‘do you want more government intrusion?’”

So, with the presidential primaries looming, it will be important for Democrats to use this paradigm to discuss Republicans like DeSantis interfering with their healthcare, “picking on queer and trans kids and people who support them,” or targeting teachers who are living and working in their communities, Balint said.

The congresswoman, herself a former history teacher, noted that educators are among those figures who are “holding civic society together.”

Fighting extremism and anti-LGBTQ bigotry in Congress

Balint, who made history as Vermont’s first openly LGBTQ U.S. representative, said Democratic leaders including members of Congress must “be much more open about who we are.”

“If my colleagues across the aisle took a few minutes to talk to families who are raising trans kids right now,” Balint said, “they would understand…that their rhetoric is increasing levels of anxiety, and depression, and disconnection – and that’s not the role of a public official.”

The efficacy of this strategy is underscored by the fact that anti-trans policies are based on lies. “Nothing about the rhetoric around trans Americans is based in reality,” Balint said. “It’s not based in the facts or the experiences of young people in this country.”

“When I talk about my life as a queer person, as a queer parent, as someone who is very open about my own mental health struggles, that gives other people permission to feel like they have a sense of place – in government, in their communities,” Balint said.

LGBTQ staffers on Capitol Hill have thanked Balint for speaking so openly about her identity, she told the Blade.

She said engaging in these discussions on personal terms can also be an effective way of reaching colleagues who, because they “have never had to deal with these issues,” have “learning curves.”

For example, Balint said, during the new Congress’s Jan. 7 swearing-in ceremony, she gently but firmly corrected another member for assuming her spouse in attendance was a man. After their exchange, the congressman found Balint again to apologize, promising that he will be sure never to repeat the mistake.

Balint hedged that other interactions have gone less smoothly. She said one of her main takeaways since arriving in Washington as a newly elected first-term member has been “the extent to which there are extremists within [the GOP],” which “is deeply disturbing to me as an American and certainly as somebody who’s a member of the LGBTQ community.”

Last week, House Republicans introduced a bill that would designate as America’s “national gun” the AR-15 style firearms used in deadly mass shootings, including the 2016 massacre at the former gay Orlando nightclub Pulse. Embattled gay GOP Rep. George Santos (N.Y.) is a co-sponsor of the legislation, which Balint characterized as “a political stunt” and an example of the kind of extreme rhetoric that makes violence more likely.  

The congresswoman said moves like this messaging bill take “our focus away from helping people,” adding that helping people is “why I ran for office – to make life better, to alleviate suffering,” not to use rhetoric and talking points “to raise money.”

Given the high rate of suicide in Vermont, Balint said her work in Congress, including for the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, will be focused on matters like probing the relationships between gun violence, gun policy, and suicide, including among vulnerable populations like “people within the LGBTQ community who don’t feel like they have the support” they need.

A co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus and member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Balint has been appointed to serve on the powerful House Budget and Oversight & Accountability Committees.

Priorities for Balint will include the Equality Act, a landmark bill that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in areas from employment and housing to jury service. A leading champion of the legislation, gay Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), announced plans to retire in May, so Balint said she was talking with him last night “about how we make sure that work continues.”

“We have to continue to fight these battles and these issues, regardless of whether we think they’re going to be able to pass this session,” she said, “because we have to queue it up for when [Democrats] are back in the majority.”

Other focus areas, she said, will be addressing the interrelated and ongoing housing and mental health crises in this country, as well as reproductive justice.

From 2015 to her swearing-in last month, Balint served as a Vermont state senator, including as majority leader and president pro-tempore. Unlike the U.S. House, Balint said, the Vermont Legislature “is pretty high functioning” with “a strong ability to work across the aisle.”

However challenging the calcified and polarized politics of Washington are by comparison, Balint noted there are moderate Republicans in the House. “We know because they were reaching out to members on our side saying, ‘we are not approving of what our leadership is doing around abortion issues.’”

For House Democrats, “it will be impossible for us in this moment to do anything” without the support of a few GOP members, which is a challenge because there are so few moderates in the party as a result of primary challenges from the far-right, Balint said.  

“I’m not going to be a conflict entrepreneur”

Particularly in recent years and especially among Republicans, members of Congress have become bomb-throwers – prone to making outlandish and extreme statements, instigating and engaging in online spats with political opponents, and dehumanizing others.

Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) has accused elected Democrats of “grooming” children for sexual abuse, compared COVID-19 mask mandates to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, and, before her election to Congress, supported calls to assassinate Democratic Party leaders.

Despite – or perhaps in some ways because – of this record, Greene is widely considered a rising star within her party, becoming a top ally of newly elected Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and, according to data from Open Secrets, raising more money during the 2022 election cycle than any other House Republican member except for McCarthy, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.), Dan Crenshaw (Texas), and Jim Jordan (Ohio).

In this environment, amid the ceaseless attacks against them, Balint acknowledged the difficulty for LGBTQ people and their allies to refrain from responding in kind. At the same time, she said, “I’m not somebody who’s going to continue to keep a fight going for the sake of the fight.”

From “how I post [on social media] to the way I deliver my floor speeches [in the House],” Balint said, “it is this signal even to people within my own party, that I’m not going to be a conflict entrepreneur.”

Disagreements are bound to happen, and confrontation can be productive, the congresswoman said, but one must find the right approach and be mindful of the broader context.

Balint remains optimistic in the face of these challenges. She told the Blade she never imagined she would be able to marry the woman she loves, or raise two children, or be elected to serve as Vermont’s first openly LGBTQ member of Congress.

Nor, Balint said, did the framers envision “the child of an immigrant, a working class mom, a queer person,” would have the privilege of serving in this role. But “now that I’m here, I’m going to make the most of it, and I’m going to fight on behalf of all of our freedoms.”

WASHINGTON – Rep. George Santos (R-NY) cosponsored two resolutions in the House of Representatives, one that directly targets the transgender women and a second that the promotes the AR-15 assault rifle as the “national gun of America.” 

H. Res. 115 and H.R. 1095, were both introduced and cosponsored by his fellow Republican lawmakers. 

H. Res. 115, introduced by Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), seeks to implement a “Women’s Bill of Rights,” so as to “reaffirm legal protections afforded to women under Federal law.” The resolution, however, directly challenges liberal gender norms by limiting the statutes to “biological differences between the sexes.” 

Lesko’s legislation only recognizes the biological origins of a person’s birth certificate, thereby eliminating transgender rights be recognized publicly in this symbolic but showing telling of Republican political ideological goals.

Insofar as women’s rights go, the resolution tries to provide six points, three “for purposes of Federal law” focusing only on long-held defined gender terms for specific biological roles: “sex” to be defined as “biological sex at birth,” words such as “woman” and “girl”, and “man” and “boy” would be defined based on the sex assigned at birth, and “mother” and “father” are defined via their assigned sex. 

Likewise, the language allows discrimination under the basis of the person’s sex “when they serve an important governmental objective and are substantially related to achieving that objective.” 

“Protecting women’s rights should not be a partisan issue, yet the left cannot even define the word ‘woman,’” said Rep. Lesko in a statement. “I am proud to once again introduce this important legislation to affirm the basic biological truth that men and women are different and safeguard the rights of women in our laws.”

The Republican Long Island congressman has made homophobic allegations in the past in spite of his known gender orientation. “The family unit has been under attack for decades, decades!” Santos said on John Stubbins’s conservative “Indivisible” show. “In different ways, right? The flavor of the decade is same-sex couples. ‘Oh, that’s so OK!’ Look, to each their own, I don’t have anything against that but they’re teaching in school how kids that, you know, you don’t need a mommy and a daddy, you can have two mommies, you can have two daddies. I think that’s a little much for kids, right?”

H.R. 1095, on the other hand, seeks to make the AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle the nation’s national gun. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL).

Santos’ backing of this resolution as an out LGBTQ+ congressman disregards the damage automatic rifles have caused to the LGBTQ+ community—such as the Pulse and Club Q mass shootings. 

An angered New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) called Santos support “disgusting.” In a statement the Governor said:

“It’s outrageous and appalling that New York Congressman Santos would attach his name to legislation that would designate the AR-15 as the ‘national gun of the United States.’ This weapon of war has been used in mass shootings across the United States – from my hometown of Buffalo, where the shooter used a modified AR-15 to murder ten people in a despicable act of white supremacist terrorism, to Parkland, Florida, where the shooter killed seventeen innocent people with an AR-15-style weapon. The families and friends of those killed in Parkland have become heroic advocates for gun safety – including the Beigel-Schulman family of Dix Hills, who fight for change in memory of their son, Scott. This bill, which attempts to glorify the weapons that have been part of such horrific tragedies, adds unforgivable insult to injury for those families. It should never become law, and Congressman Santos should immediately remove his name from it, if he has any respect for New Yorkers.”

Both resolutions have yet to make it through to the House floor. 

Rep. George Santos backs bill making AR-15 the “national gun” of U.S.:

WASHINGTON – U.S. House Democrats reintroduced a resolution on Friday that would recognize the contributions of Black LGBTQI+ leaders.

The proposal “Recognizing Black History Month as an important time to celebrate the remarkable and unique contributions of all LGBTQI+ Black Americans in United States history” was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.), a founding member and current vice chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

Co-sponsors included the Caucus’s Chair, Rep. Mark Pocan (Wis.), and fellow Vice Chair, Rep. Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), along with 29 other House Democrats. In addition to the Caucus, the resolution has been endorsed by Equality California, America’s largest statewide LGBTQ organization.

“For generations, we have seen the erasure of Black LGBTQI+ Americans from our history, despite all of the rich and impactful contributions these individuals have made to our culture, society, and the advancement of civil rights,” Lee said in a press release announcing the move.

“As we celebrate Black History Month, we must pay homage to remarkable Black LGBTQI+ figures like Marsha P. Johnson, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Bayard Rustin, and many more,” Lee said. “I’m proud to reintroduce this resolution with my Equality Caucus colleagues to honor their legacies and ensure our history is told in full.”

The bill also recognizes more recent achievements by Black LGBTQ leaders, including: Minneapolis City Councilmember Andrea Jenkins, who became the country’s first transgender woman to serve in public office in 2018; Lori Lightfoot, who became Chicago’s first LGBTQ and first Black woman mayor in 2019; and Karine Jean-Pierre, who in 2022 became the first Black woman and the first LGBTQ person to serve as White House press secretary.

Black advocates who are now leading LGBTQ advocacy groups were also spotlighted in the bill: Kelley Robinson at the Human Rights Campaign, Imani Rupert-Gordon at National Center for Lesbian Rights, Kierra Johnson at National LGBTQ Task Force, David Johns at National Black Justice Coalition, Gabriel Foster at Trans Justice Funding Project, Carter Brown at Black
TransMen Inc., Melanie Willingham-Jaggers at GLSEN, and Stacey Stevenson at Family Equality Council.

“I’m honored to be included on this list of trailblazing Black LGBTQ+ leaders. I love Black History Month, because it’s a time when people in our country come together not just to honor the Black past but also to build Black futures and celebrate Black joy,” Robinson said in an exclusive statement to The Washington Blade.

“Right now, with attacks on Black and LGBTQ+ lives on the rise, it is more important than ever that we hold onto that Black, queer joy and I’m proud that Rep. Barbara Lee and the other resolution sponsors have taken this moment to make that clear,” she said.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) will step down from Congress on June 1 to become CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, the largest nonprofit in the state, the congressman announced on Tuesday.

The move bookends 28 years in public service for Cicilline, who was elected to Rhode Island’s House of Representatives in 1995 before becoming mayor of Providence — making history as the first openly gay mayor of a state capital — in 2003, and then representing Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2010.

The 61-year-old’s announcement likely came as a surprise to many in Washington: Cicilline, now serving his seventh term, was favored to continue winning reelection for his seat in Congress, where he has distinguished himself to such an extent that he is often described as one of his party’s rising stars.

A member of House Democratic leadership who was elected to chair the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee from 2019-2021, Cicilline serves as a senior member of the powerful House Foreign Affairs and the House Judiciary Committees and was distinguished as one of the nine Democrats selected in 2021 by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to manage the chamber’s second impeachment of former President Donald Trump.

In Rhode Island, Cicilline’s departure will trigger an off-year special election for his replacement. While it is unclear when the state’s Gov., Dan McKee (D), will schedule the ballot, two lawmakers have announced plans to explore whether to run: State Sen. Meghan Kallman, a progressive Democrat, and Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera.

“For more than a decade, the people of Rhode Island entrusted me with a sacred duty to represent them in Congress, and it is a responsibility I put my heart and soul into every day to make life better for the residents and families of our state,” Cicilline said in a statement.

“The chance to lead the Rhode Island Foundation was unexpected, but it is an extraordinary opportunity to have an even more direct and meaningful impact on the lives of residents of our state.”

The Rhode Island Foundation is one of the state’s biggest philanthropic organizations. With an endowment exceeding $1.3 billion, the group funds a variety of initiatives addressing issues like housing shortages and opioid addiction, often in coordination with the state government. Last week, the foundation announced plans to distribute nearly $110,000 to support Black community services.

“The same energy and commitment I brought to elected office, I will now bring as CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation,” Cicilline said in his statement, “advancing their mission to ensure all Rhode Islanders can achieve economic security, access quality, affordable healthcare, and attain the education and training that will set them on a path to prosperity.”

Dr. G. Alan Kurose, chair of the foundation’s board of directors, said in a statement: “Congressman Cicilline’s career-long fight for equity and equality at the local, national and international level, and his deep relationships within Rhode Island’s communities of color are two of the many factors that led us to this decision.”

A champion for LGBTQ and other progressive causes

Cicilline, a longtime member of the House Progressive and Congressional Equality Caucuses, became the fourth openly gay member of Congress with his first election and has since been one of the most powerful voices on LGBTQ matters before the legislature.

“Congressman Cicilline is a tireless champion for the LGBTQI+ community,” Equality Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said in a statement Tuesday. “Our community has greatly benefited from his leadership, including his work as the lead sponsor of the Equality Act, and the victories he has secured on our behalf,” he said.

Cicilline first introduced the Equality Act in 2011 and would subsequently reintroduce the bill in 2015, 2017 and 2019 — when it was finally passed by the House but languished in the then-Republican controlled U.S. Senate.

The legislation, which remains a major priority for Congressional Democrats and LGBTQ groups, would expand nondiscrimination protections in the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in areas from housing and employment to credit and jury service.

Pocan’s statement on Cicilline’s plans to step down also addressed the congressman’s work on behalf of the Equality Caucus.

“David represents his district honorably,” Pocan said. “He is a mentor to many of our LGBTQI+ co-chairs and has become a close friend and colleague of mine during our time in Congress.”

Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, wrote in a statement issued Tuesday that “Representative Cicilline will end his time in Congress with an unparalleled track record of advancing LGBTQ+ rights in our nation.” 

Robinson noted the congressman “has been a driving force in introducing and rallying support for the desperately needed Equality Act” as well as for the Respect for Marriage Act — a landmark bill signed into law at the end of last year that protects same-sex and interracial couples in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court should revoke or weaken their constitutional rights to marry.

LGBTQ Victory Fund & Institute President and former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who was also among the first openly-LGBTQ mayors of a major American city, said in a statement that Cicilline “has consistently gone to bat for pro-LGBTQ legislation, stood up against homophobic and transphobic policies and passed laws to make our country more equitable for all.”

“From speeches on the House floor to conversations with colleagues behind closed doors, David changed the hearts and minds of folks on both sides of the aisle – and our entire community is better because of it,” Parker said, adding that the congressman “will go down as one of the most groundbreaking LGBTQ leaders in American history.”

Other legislation impacting LGBTQ Americans that was supported by Cicilline includes a bill that he co-sponsored in 2011 to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the Clinton-era law banning same-sex marriage, and another that he co-sponsored in 2018, the Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act, which would prohibit courts that are adjudicating the assaults or murders of LGBTQ people from accepting, as mitigating or exculpatory factors, a defendant’s claim that he was driven to violence by unwanted sexual advances from the victim.

Cicilline also used his platform to draw attention to non-legislative matters impacting the LGBTQ community, particularly during the Trump administration, during which time the congressman became vocal advocate for LGBTQ migrants in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a vocal critic of the State Department’s decision to deny or revoke diplomatic visas that were issued to unmarried same-sex partners of foreign diplomats.

Cicilline has also advocated for other causes and legislation championed by progressive Democrats including: strengthening gun control laws, an issue for which in 2016 he organized a 26-hour sit-in with House members including the late-U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), in support of reproductive freedom, including the right to safe and legal abortions.

A major voice in consumer rights, economic policy and foreign affairs

Last year, Roll Call proclaimed that Cicilline “got Congress to care about antitrust again,” having motivated U.S. lawmakers, including through his role as chair of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust, to meet the moment amid the one-in-a-generation sea change in competition policy that began to take shape a few years ago.

No other U.S. lawmaker, with the possible exception of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust and authored a book on the subject in 2021, has exerted more influence over Congress’ efforts to strengthen enforcement of the antitrust laws.

Cicilline and other advocates for antitrust reform argue that with more vigorous enforcement, the government can better moderate the outsize power and influence exerted by the dominant tech platform companies while providing relief for American consumers who suffer higher prices for goods and poorer quality for services as a result of the government’s failure to challenge anticompetitive mergers — a gun-shy approach that has persisted since the 1980s.

Last week, Cicilline challenged the exercise of economic power that harms the integrity of America’s democratic elections, introducing legislation with U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) that would impose additional disclosure requirements for corporations, labor organizations, and super PACs to fight the flow of dark money into politics.

“Great economic power should not translate into outsized political power,” he said.

On the Foreign Affairs Committee, Cicilline was an influential voice on matters that tend to attract comparably more controversy, such as America’s military footprint overseas. The congressman pushed back against the Obama administration’s proposal for intervention in Syria in 2013, and against Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-Un in 2018, warning that it would elevate the standing of North Korea’s supreme leader in the international community.