ENDA

Location(s)

HRC is holding a Town Hall meeting to discuss ENDA

From their announcement:

The House of Representatives recently passed it's version of ENDA. ENDA has generated tremendous controversy due to the decision made by House leadership to remove gender identity from the bill, and HRC's ultimate position to back passage of this bill. This town hall will address HRC's position, the current status of the legislation, and will provide an opportunity to discuss strategies to pass a fully inclusive employment non-discrimination bill, protecting the entire GLBT community. Come hear many perspectives regarding ENDA's recent journey through the House of Representatives and participate in a discussion about the next steps to pass a fully inclusive version of ENDA.

Date:
Wednesday, December 5

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.

HRC is announcing that tomorrow, Wednesday November 7, the House is scheduled to vote on ENDA.

Please call Tammy Baldwin and urge her to offer her amendment and not to withdraw it. Then call your representative and urge that person to support her amendment.

If representatives are given the chance to avoid going on record about gender identity they'll take it. I, for one, don't want them to have that chance.

Click here to find contact information for your congressperson or use the Speak Out!! section on the left.

Oh, and happy election day.

UPDATE 10:00pm NOV 6: This is not such good news as it first appeared. This is the notation from GovTrack.us about the schedule debate and vote:

So, maybe one of you can help decipher this but I read this to mean that the "previous question" (a yes or no vote on the bill as presented) will be considered without any other motions (e.g., amendments) except motions to send it back to committee.

This makes it sound like Tammy Baldwin's amendment will not be offered.

Tune in tomorrow to see what the debate sounds like.

Meanwhile, expect an ENDA without gender identity included. In other words, expect a largely ineffective ENDA that reflects the needs of elite gays, lesbians and bisexuals but does not meet the needs of most of us.

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.

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.

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.