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LGBT

THE OBAMA EFFECT: Major Political Figures Who Have Come Out For Marriage Equality This Week

By Zack Ford on May 15, 2012 at 11:25 am

The symbolic impact of President Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality cannot be overstated. In the days immediately following his announcement last Wednesday, several other prominent political figures followed his lead, declaring their own support for the freedom to marry:

  • Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) took to twitter shortly after Obama’s interviews to offer not only his support for same-sex marriage, but for the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act.
  • Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) released an extremely supportive statement, calling it “no business of mine if two men or two women want to get married” and “absurd” that such marriages would have any impact on his life. He later added that he would support legalizing same-sex marriage in Nevada.
  • Democratic House Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) joined the chorus on Thursday, saying that extending marriage equality “is the right thing to do and will not, in any way, undermine the institution of marriage.”
  • Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE), who is running for re-election after an 11-year hiatus, voiced his support for marriage equality, calling for “increased awareness of the struggle of gay and lesbian Americans.”
  • Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) came out for marriage equality on Friday, and this week committed to working with state lawmakers to make it a reality in the state.
  • House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn (D-SC) added his support for same-sex marriage as a civil right, which he believes should be supported by national policy.

It’s worth also noting that Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I) issued an executive order yesterday requiring all state agencies to recognize same-sex marriage. This new momentum only adds to the many Democratic Party Chairs who have endorsed a marriage equality plank as part of the party’s 2012 platform. New enthusiasm for marriage equality will also help in state ballot fights in Minnesota and Maine, as well as those expected in Washington and Maryland.  This surge is a testament to Obama’s leadership and the turning tide of history toward justice for all.

LGBT

Rep. Steny Hoyer Comes Out For Marriage Equality

By Igor Volsky on May 10, 2012 at 5:50 pm

Democratic House Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is adding his voice to the growing chorus of lawmakers endorsing marriage equality following President Obama’s historic declaration that gay and lesbian couples should have the freedom to marry. “I have believed that the phrase ‘civil union’ was an appropriate definition of a relationship that is both different and the same between two people of the same sex. And I have believed strongly that such couples must be treated equally under the law,” he says:

Because I believe that equal treatment is a central tenet of our nation, I believe that extending the definition of marriage to committed relationships between two people, irrespective of their sex, is the right thing to do and will not, in any way, undermine the institution of marriage so important to our society nor impose a threat to any individual marriage. It will, however, extend the respect due to every one of our fellow citizens that we would want for ourselves and our children.

Since Obama announced his support on Wednesday, Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Harry Reid (D-NV) have also backed the LGBT community and the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee announced that it will take up the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) on June 12.

LGBT

Democrats Ask Boehner To Back Off His ‘Direct Assault’ On Gay Veterans

By Igor Volsky on Apr 2, 2012 at 9:04 am

Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA) and Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) are urging House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to abandon his efforts to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in a case involving a disabled Iraq war veteran. That veteran, Tracey Cooper-Harris — is on disability and receiving treatment for PTSD and multiple sclerosis — alleges that by failing to provide spousal benefits to her wife, the Veterans Affairs administration is infringing on her constitutional right to equal protection under the law. DOMA prevents federal agencies from recognizing same-sex relationships and Title 38 of the United States Code defines spouses as a person of the opposite sex.

House Republicans convened the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) to defend the constitutionality of DOMA since the Obama administration announced that it is unconstitutional in February of 2010, but this is the first case in which Beohner is also defending Title 38.

“[W]e strongly object to spending taxpayer money to intervene in this case against a decorated veteran, Tracey Cooper-Harris, and her spouse, Maggie Cooper-Harris,” Pelosi and Hoyer write in their letter. “This decision clearly exceeds the scope of the original BLAG authorization, with which we initially disagreed”:

This intervention once again puts the House of Representatives on the wrong side of the future – supporting discrimination, unfairness, and the denial of basic equality to all Americans. We have objected to prior decisions by the House Republican BLAG members to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to defend discrimination. This latest decision not only ignores the civil rights of LGBT Americans but opens a new, direct assault on veterans. The men and women of our Armed Forces serve with courage and dignity on behalf of our safety and security. They risk their lives for the country they love – and they should not face prejudice at home because of whom they love. These brave soldiers deserve nothing less than our gratitude, our respect, and the benefits they have earned in battle.

Pelosi and Hoyer are calling for “a formal vote of the BLAG on extending your defense of discrimination to veterans and their families” and a full examination by the Committee on House Administration and the House Ethics Committee of any “extension of the existing legal contract, any new contract, and any additional expenditure of public funds on behalf of outside counsel.” Democratic lawmakers have long raised questions about the GOP’s efforts to spend taxpayer dollars on DOMA and have asked Boehner to divert the resources to investigate the Trayvon Martin shooting.

Economy

Speaker Cuts Off C-SPAN Cameras When Dems Attempt To Bring Vote On Payroll Tax Cut

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Dec 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm

During a quick pro-forma session of the House this morning, Republicans rebuffed a Democratic attempt to force an up-or-down vote on the Senate-passed payroll tax holiday extension, which Republicans have thus far refused to allow. Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who was serving as the speaker pro-temp, ignored shouts of “Mr. Speaker!” from Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), quickly adjourning the House.

Hoyer continued talking undeterred, saying, “You’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class taxpayers [and] the unemployed.” “We regret, Mr. Speaker, that you have walked off the platform without addressing this issue of critical importance to this country,” Hoyer added.

Moments later, the mic appeared to cut out. A few seconds after that, the video feed switched away from the House floor to a still image of the Capitol Dome. It appears someone in House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) office cut the feed, as C-SPAN tweeted afterwards: “C-SPAN has no control over the U.S. House TV cameras – the Speaker of the House does.”

Watch it:

NEWS FLASH

Hoyer Slams GOP’s BBA Effort: ‘You Don’t Need An Amendment’ To Balance The Budget | The same day conservative Blue Dog Democrats endorsed the job-killing Republican Balanced Budget Amendment, House Democrats led by Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) pushed back against the plan and announced firm opposition. Hoyer, who voted for an amendment in 1995, is now “unapologetically whipping against the 2011 version,” which the House will vote on tomorrow. Asked if voting against the BBA would be tough for Democrats, Hoyer slammed Republicans who built up trillions in debt without paying for it when they controlled Congress, Politico reports: “It’s not a tough vote to pretend you’re going to go for a balanced budget by having something like that on the floor,” Hoyer said. “If you want to fight a war — pay for it. If you want to have a prescription drug program — pay for it. … You don’t need an amendment to do it.”

Justice

196 House Democrats Sign Letter To State Election Officals Opposing War On Voting

By Ian Millhiser on Nov 4, 2011 at 12:30 pm

A massive 196 House Democrats — nearly their entire caucus — signed a letter to state election officials asking them to “put partisan considerations aside and serve as advocates for enfranchisement” during this unfortunate era of voter disenfranchising state laws:

Beginning with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Congress and election officials across the country have worked on a bipartisan basis to open our democracy to all our citizens. Removing unnecessary barriers to voting was a cause shared across party lines. Sometimes, these efforts were directed at laws and practices that were intentionally created to deny citizens their right to vote. Other times, the laws or practices were relics of a prior era and served no continuing purpose. [...]

But a disturbing trend is emerging. Election legislation and administration appear to be increasingly the product of partisan plays. Election officials are seen as partisan combatants, rather than stewards of our democracy. It is critical for our democracy that this does not continue. Voting hours, voting sites, identification requirements, voter registration regulation and access to mail ballots should not be used as weapons to achieve a preferred electoral outcome.

It’s tough to imagine a starker contrast between the vision this letter offers and the antics we are currently seeing in many GOP-controlled states. The House Democratic letter does not call upon state officials to rig their election procedures to bring more Democrats to the polls, it simply says that everyone has a basic right to vote. Under this vision, the American people have every right to choose a Republican government, but this choice must be made freely and with the input of every single eligible voter.

Yet, in state after state, governors and state lawmakers are asserting a drastically different vision. In the last few years, numerous states have enacted so-called “voter ID” laws which do nothing more than disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of student, minority and low-income voters. Republicans typically justify these voter disenfranchisement laws by claiming that they are necessary to combat voter fraud at the polls, but in-person voter fraud is only slightly more common than unicorns. A recent Supreme Court opinion allowing a voter ID law to take effect was only able to cite one example of in-person voter fraud in the last 143 years.

Nor are voter ID laws the only Republican assault on our right to choose our own leaders. Republican lawmakers have gutted public financing laws that allow candidates without major corporate or other wealth backers to still compete in elections — even as Republican Supreme Court justices open the floodgates for corporations to buy elections. Republican officials have made it harder to register to vote, harder to vote early, and they have declared war on the landmark Voting Rights Act. Pennsylvania Republicans have even proposed rigging the Electoral College to help ensure that a Republican becomes president in 2013.

In other words, as former President Bill Clinton recently explained, we are now seeing the most “determined effort to limit the franchise” since Jim Crow.

LGBT

Hoyer And Murphy Introduce DADT Measure In The House

By Igor Volsky on Dec 14, 2010 at 10:30 am

Editor’s note: A version of this post was prematurely published yesterday afternoon. We apologize for the confusion.

At a pen-pad briefing this morning, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced that Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) will introduce a stand-alone DADT repeal bill that he will co-sponsor and bring to the House floor in short order. The legislation will be identical to the measure offered by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) after the Senate failed to proceed to the National Defense Authorization Act last week and will include the same repeal language contained in the NDAA, which passed the House in May.

While the exact process is still unclear, Politico’s Josh Gerstein reported yesterday that Democrats may be exploring different avenues for expediting the repeal process by moving the measure from one chamber to another. Other Democrats are suggesting that the House and Senate will still pass separate repeal bills. Last week, Washington Post’s Greg Sargent speculated on the following tactic:

Here’s yet another way DADT repeal could still happen: A Senate aide says one scenario being mulled would be to ask the House to pass repeal again and send the Senate a so-called “message” asking for a vote. That would circumvent various procedural hurdles. No idea if it will happen, but it’s a possibility.

However the Democrats decide to proceed, bringing up the measure in the House presents a real possibility for having a clear up or down vote on lifting the ban in the lame duck session. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sounded very optimistic about the bills’ chances in the lower chamber, saying “[a]n army of allies stands ready in the House to pass a standalone repeal of the discriminatory policy once the Senate acts.” In the Senate, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Scott Brown (R-MA) also hinted they could support a stand-alone measure.

Update

Last night, Lawrence O’Donnell asked Hoyer about proposing a stand-alone repeal bill:


Update

,Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) sends in this statement:

“We applaud House Speaker Pelosi, Reps. Hoyer and Murphy for their extraordinary leadership in the waning hours of the lame-duck session. Let’s be clear: we’ll still need 60 votes in the Senate. This ‘privileged’ House bill will need to pass the full House and then move to the Senate. While we avoid a cloture vote to proceed and save time on the Senate floor, we’ll still need 60 votes to complete the bill and send it directly to the President’s desk. Repeal supporters need to contact their House member to vote for repeal tomorrow. We also need to keep the pressure on the Senate and not relent. Time remains the enemy and Senators need to complete the bill before leaving for holiday vacation. Get on the phone and help hold the frontline,” said Aubrey Sarvis, Army veteran and executive director for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.


Update

,While leadership has not yet decided how exactly to proceed, repeal advocates are suggesting that the House may vote on the measure as early as tomorrow and then send the bill to the Senate as a message that holds privileged status. Reid will be able to call up the measure without voting on a motion to proceed, saving some 30 hours of debate in the Senate. The Senate would have to pass the House measure unchanged, without additional amendments or else the bill would have to go back to the lower chamber. Republicans can still filibuster the measure, however, which would require 60 votes to overcome.


Update

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Economy

Hoyer: ‘Any Conversation About The Deficit That Leaves Out Defense Spending Is Seriously Flawed’

By Pat Garofalo on Jun 22, 2010 at 1:40 pm

Recently, even though deficit hysteria has gripped lawmakers when it comes to sorely needed job creation efforts, the Congress has seen fit to approve spending on weapons systems that the Pentagon has said publicly that it doesn’t want. For instance, at the same time that it was jettisoning subsidies that help laid-off workers buy health insurance, the House of Representatives approved a second engine for the F-35 fighter that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called “costly and unnecessary.”

Deficit peacocks — who like to use the deficit to score political points but aren’t actually interested in reducing the deficit — treat defense spending as a sacred part of the budget that can’t touched. In fact, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) proposed legislation last week that would have slashed funding for federal agencies to ribbons, cut public sector pay, and potentially caused a two and a half month government shutdown, while leaving defense spending untouched.

Back in reality, there’s no way to reduce long-term structural deficits (not to be confused with short-term deficits, which are necessary to boost economic recovery) without looking at the Pentagon. In a speech today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) rightly pointed out that talking about deficits without talking about the Pentagon is simply not possible:

Any conversation about the deficit that leaves out defense spending is seriously flawed before it begins…The savings in front of us deserve a careful look and a thorough debate; but I fear that if we can’t decide what we can afford to do without today, we’ll be forced to make much more draconian cuts in the years to come. Of course, we must conduct such a review with the intent of maintaining a strong and sufficient armed force to deter and defeat any enemy that puts our nation and our people at risk. We can do both.

As Alex Seitz-Wald wrote in the Progress Report, “in the last 10 years, the defense budget has nearly doubled to $549 billion, an increase of $252 billion…Although in real terms baseline defense spending is now higher than at the height of the Reagan buildup, and total defense spending now exceeds what we spent any time since World War II, the Obama administration projects continuing real increases in the baseline defense budget.”

It’s not like there aren’t plenty of weapons system that can go by the wayside without compromising military readiness. Gates has called for an end to the Airborne Laser (ABL) program, for instance, which is supposed to use 747s mounted with laser beams to shoot down missiles. “I don’t know anybody at the Department of Defense who thinks that this program should, or would, ever be operationally deployed,” Gates has said.

The Sustainable Defense Task Force has put together a whole host of steps that could be taken to reduce defense spending, including reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal, pulling troops out of Europe and Asia, and canceling programs like the MV-22 Osprey and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, both of which are long delayed and aren’t useful. If you can’t acknowledge that significant savings can be found in the defense budget, which the Task Force’s report proves there are, then you aren’t serious about erasing the deficit.

Health

Hoyer Keeps Door Open To Stripping Down Health Bill, Says ‘It Is Not Impossible’ To Pass Pieces ‘Individually’

By Igor Volsky on Jan 26, 2010 at 1:10 pm

Reports are suggesting that Senate and House negotiators are rallying behind a strategy that would require the House to pass the Senate health care bill alongside a reconciliation package of fixes that would improve the bill and satisfy progressive lawmakers. The reconciliation package would originate in the House and require just 51 votes to pass the Senate. Congressional aides are hoping to use the measure as a vehicle to remove the “Cornhusker Kickback” from the Senate bill, close the Medicare Part D doughnut hole, include higher subsidies, cut deeper into Medicare Advantage, and preserve the deal with labor unions to delay a tax on expensive insurance plans and increase the thresholds for the tax.

But speaking at the National Press Club today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) reiterated that Congress has not settled on a course of action and said that it would be possible to pass a scaled-down health care reform bill. Hoyer suggested that Congress could offer a “more limited exchange,” encourage small businesses to pool risk, enact insurance reform, eliminate the insurer exemption from anti-trust laws and institute “smaller” affordability measures:

Much of the bill is an integrated whole. That is to say, to accomplish the objectives you need to both include many more people in coverage under insurance, spread the risk, bring costs down for individuals. At the same time that you affect reforms…That is an integrated whole that works as a whole. It’s more difficult when you take out individual items. However clearly an exchange could be created, a more limited exchange. There is I think broad based belief that we need to empower small businesses to come together to create larger markets, not small groups but large groups so they’ll get better prices and bring them down…There are obviously within affordability smaller things you can do, but I think there are somethings we can work together on…It is difficult to take small pieces and accomplish the objective that you want to accomplish. But it is not impossible and insurance reforms are popular…

Watch it:

Meanwhile, TPMDC is reporting that “House and Senate leaders will huddle today at 4 p.m., House Democratic leadership will meet at 5 p.m. and then House leadership will hold a caucus meeting with rank-and-file members at 7 p.m.” to “get a sense of where members stand after spending three days sounding out constituents.” “Nothing is certain; rank-and-file Democrats are all over the map with some members opposing comprehensive reform outright, and others resistant to passing the Senate bill and having lost faith that the Senate will be able to pass a separate bill. A House leadership aide tells TPMDC that members will be presented with “three ways forward and that’s it. And none of them are really that good.”

“The overwhelming majority of our caucus wants to pass a health care bill,” the aide told TPMDC. “They can’t make a decision yet because they are still trying to work through the parliamentary procedures that are at our disposal.”

Politics

Hoyer: I’m ‘Disappointed’ In John McCain’s Flip Flop On Climate Change

By Amanda Terkel on Dec 8, 2009 at 5:45 pm

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called on the U.S. to urgently address climate change, proposing cap and trade legislation and presenting his policies as a break from the backwards views of the Bush administration, which was reluctant to acknowledge the dangers of manmade greenhouse gas emissions. From remarks he made in May 2008:

We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great. The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge. … A cap-and-trade policy will send a signal that will be heard and welcomed all across the American economy. And the highest rewards will go to those who make the smartest, safest, most responsible choices.

Now that McCain isn’t fighting in the general election, however, he’s more than happy to tout the Republican line. He has turned on cap and trade legislation, calling it “cap and tax” and dubbing the American Clean Energy and Security part of a “far left” agenda.

Yesterday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) was at the Center for American Progress Action Fund for a speech on “The Minority in Congress: Loyal Opposition or Deliberate Roadblock?” Afterward, ThinkProgress caught up with him and asked him about McCain’s flip flop. Hoyer expressed his disappointment that the senator hasn’t been able to rise above partisan loyalties and be a “statesman”:

HOYER: Well, I’m very disappointed in that and I’m surprised by it. I think Sen. McCain has an opportunity. As I referenced Sen. Edward Dirksen in the civil rights debates in the ’60s, had an opportunity — took an opportunity — to rise above simply party loyalty to assist in accomplishing national objectives. Clearly, Sen. McCain observed — both in health care and in energy — that national objectives needed to be accomplished. He has not been, however, unfortunately, particularly constructive in engaging with President Obama to accomplish those objectives. And, frankly, where he has differences, to discuss them constructively.

So, I’ve been disappointed and frankly, somewhat surprised, and I would hope that Sen. McCain would see his role as larger than simply the former presidential candidate of his party, but as someone who becomes a statesman in the objective of obtaining legislation and policies that will be good for our country.

Watch it:

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