Congress

Conventions, Suffrage and Equality

Michael — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:39:33 -0700

On August 26th 1920, the Nineteeth Amendment to the United States Constitution became law, allowing women to vote in Presidential elections. In 1971 Congress enshrined this date in the following resolution;

Take Action Today! PEPFAR Reauthorization- End the Pledge!

Amber Rhea — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:11:02 -0800

I'm reposting this important alert from Bound, Not Gagged. I promise I'll have my own real, original post up here soon!

We need your help again! Members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (HCFA) will gather this Wednesday, February 27, to make amendments (”known as markup”) to the PEPFAR reauthorization draft bill prepared by Congressman Berman, Acting Chairman. We must urge committee members who support the Chairman’s bill to attend the entire markup and keep the pressure on all HCFA members to support the bill. Please call members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs TODAY.As you know, the Chairman’s draft bill makes several critical improvements to U.S.-funded HIV prevention policy in order to better address the real-life needs of women and girls. It strikes the ideologically-driven requirement that 33% of prevention funds be spent on abstinence-until-marriage programs, removes the anti-prostitution pledge, and emphasizes the integration of HIV and AIDS programs with family planning programs. However, these hard-fought, life-saving provisions are in jeopardy. A small yet vocal opposition is ready to make amendments during markup that would roll back the advancements in the Chairman’s bill. Your phone calls will help ensure that these vital improvements to prevention policy remain in the bill during committee markup.

Take action NOW!

ENDA Passes the House: Why We're Not Partying

Elizabeth — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:24:56 -0800

The Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) was voted on by the House of Representatives today. It passed by a vote of 235 to 184 with 14 not voting. It needed 212 to pass.*

It passed by the skin of its proverbial teeth. So, why are we not celebrating?

Let's review:

1. ENDA does not really protect gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Even though the debate about including or not including protection for gender identity or expression was framed in terms of protecting the transgendered, really those provisions would have protected gays, lesbians and bisexuals better than simply stating that, as the bill that passed the house does, that you can't fire or refuse to hire someone because of his or her real or perceived sexual orientation.

That is like saying "Fine, so we can't fire you for being a lesbian as long as you aren't too butch." If you're "too butch" all bets are off.

ENDA Tabled?

Elizabeth — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:27:24 -0800

So you might have been following the ENDA stories and known that it was scheduled to come up for a vote in the House last week or the week before. And you might have noticed that that didn't happen. And you might have been waiting for news about that. I even tried to put a legislation tracker on the site so we could more easily keep up with bills like ENDA. (Aside: you'll probably have noticed that so far it is only working in Safari browser.) Even with all that, I'd noticed that, well, nothing seemed to be happening. So, I've been poking around trying to figure out what's going on, and I just came across this, from October 31, by EJ Graff at TFM Cafe:

The latest news on this front: ENDA, which had been scheduled for a House floor vote this week, has been taken off the table.

The official reason that ENDA won’t come up for vote: it’s been pushed aside by other business. The generally accepted reason is the split between the Barney Frank faction and the Tammy Baldwin faction.

Prevention bill(s)* still stuck in committee while Democrats increase abstinence-only funds

Elizabeth — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:45:15 -0700

File this under "with friends like these..."

What has happened to the Prevention First Act (H.R. 819/S. 21)? Why are these bills stuck in committee while the Democrats are INCREASING funding for abstinence-only education? Don't they at least have an obligation to hold the line on such misappropriate of funds? We're talking about the spending of 141 million dollars on programs that we know don't work and that actually put our communities at risk. And we're talking about the party in control, the one that is supposed to be friendly to smart sexual health policy, granting this increase in spending and as a result teaching kids that abstinence-until-marriage is the only legitimate approach to sexuality and that condoms don't work well.

A chance to keep ENDA trans-inclusive!

Elizabeth — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:04:44 -0700

URGENT: Tomorrow, Wednesday October 24, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on ENDA, which would make it illegal to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. As Chris wrote here, the bill was supposed to also include gender identity, and the transgendered in our community got "compromised" out of the bill before it was passed out of committee.

This was foolish for many reasons, the most important of which is that we shouldn't be sacrificing any part of our community. But it was foolish also because it doesn't fully protect gays and lesbians either. So you can't be fired for being gay but you can be fired for being too butch? How is this helpful?

Tomorrow, when the bill comes up for a vote, Rep. Tammy Baldwin is going to propose an amendment that would put gender identity back into the bill, making it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or gender expression.

Track Sex-related legislation

Elizabeth — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 02:42:51 -0700

Is there legislation you think we should be tracking? Drop us a note and let us know!

Democrats vote to increase funding for abstinence-only "education"

Elizabeth — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 11:38:21 -0700

I don't know how I missed this item posted on the Advocates for Youth web site last week: