Gov. Northam Signs Three Pro-LGBT Bills Into Law

Hopefully, the LGBT community and its allies are learning the important lesson that voting - and not staying home if one's favorite candidate does not win the nomination - is crucial in creating change and defeating the Republican agenda of division and keeping full civil rights only for the few favored classes of the GOP base: whites, heterosexuals, right wing Christians.  Virginia's transformation into a blue state and a leader in change among Southern states would not have occurred but for people going to the polls and saying "no more" to the Virginia GOP's divisive, backward looking policies.  Thanks to Democrat control of the Virginia General Assembly three new pro-LGBT laws were signed into law by Governor Northam, the most LGBT friendly governor in Virginia history.  Outwire757 looks at the legislation.  Here are excerpts:

Governor Ralph Northam signed 49 new pieces of legislation into law Thursday, including measures to expand the definition of “hate crime” and increase protections for transgender students in public schools.  Additionally, Governor Northam signed legislation that gives localities more authority over their communities, including House Bill 696, enabling localities to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.  

School Policies for Transgender Students 

Governor Northam signed House Bill 145, sponsored by Delegate Marcus Simon and Senate Bill 161, sponsored by Senator Jennifer Boysko, which will require the Department of Education to develop model policies for elementary and secondary schools on how to address common issues involving transgender students, using evidence-based information and best practices. These model policies will address how schools can ensure they treat transgender students fairly and respectfully. School boards must adopt such policies for the 2021-2022 school year. 

Reporting Hate Crimes 

Governor Northam signed House Bill 276, sponsored by Delegate Rip Sullivan. Current law requires the reporting of hate crimes to the State Police and this bill expands the definition of a hate crime to include criminal acts based on ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identification, and disability. This bill incorporates House Bill 1058. 

“Attacking someone because of who they are, who they love, or where they’re from is wrong,” said Governor Northam. “Those actions are intended to send a chilling message that a person is not welcome, and that is exactly the opposite of what we stand for in Virginia. Hate has no place here. I am proud to sign this bill.”

Banning Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity

Governor Northam signed House Bill 696, sponsored by Delegate Danica Roem, allowing localities to ban discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, credit, or education based on sexual orientation or gender identity. 

“I want Virginia to be a diverse and inclusive state, where everyone feels welcome,” said Governor Northam. “No one should fear being fired, evicted, or otherwise singled out because of who they are. This bill will help ensure all Virginians are treated fairly and equitably, and I am happy to sign it.” 

Imagine what America could look like if we had a Democrat in the White House and Democrat control of both houses of Congress.

Virginia to Become First Southern State Banning LGBT Discrimination

For the 26 years that it held control of the Virginia General Assembly, the Republican Party of Virginia ("RPV") sought to make life hell for LGBT Virginians.  When not pushing anti-gay policies such as the 2006 constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage, to curry favor with its masters at The Family Foundation, Virginia's most prominent hate group, the RVP sought to block any and all bills that might have protected LGBT citizens.  This intransigence and arrogance was in spite of the fact that large majorities of Virginians favored non-discrimination protections - just as they favor common sense gun control and other progressive measures blocked by the RVP.  In November, 2019, Virginian's finally said "enough" and handed control of the Virginia General Assembly to Democrats.  Now, Virginia is poised to be the first state in the South to enact sweeping LGBT non-discrimination and public accommodation protections. Shortly after last November's sea change election, Governor Northam told the husband and I during a private visit to the Executive Mansion that he wanted "bold" action on LGBT rights.  He and the Democrat controlled legislature are about to deliver.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post's coverage:  

RICHMOND — Sweeping LGBT rights legislation that bans discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations sailed out of the Virginia Senate and House on bipartisan votes Thursday.

Virginia would become the first Southern state to adopt such protections if the measures become law as expected. The bills also would for the first time apply Virginia’s civil rights protections to public accommodations such as restaurants and stores — not just for the LGBT community but also for racial minorities, women and religious groups.

The Senate and House bills have to cross over to the opposite chamber and win passage again before Gov. Ralph Northam (D), who requested the legislation, can sign them into law.

But those steps were seen as technicalities by advocates cheering what they regard as landmark human rights legislation.

“Its sends a message that the commonwealth is a safe and welcoming place for all people,” said Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who was Virginia’s first openly gay legislator when he joined the House of Delegates in 2004.

Previously, Republican House leaders always killed those measures in committee.

Both chambers are under Democratic control this year for the first time in decades. The LGBT rights measures are part of a flood of Democratic priorities advancing this year, including bills to limit access to firearms, boost the minimum wage and loosen voting rules.

The legislation that advanced Thursday would prohibit discrimination against LGBT people in employment, housing or public accommodations such as restaurants. It applies to public and private entities alike.

Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national group that invested in Virginia legislative campaigns last year, said there are 30 U.S. states where “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people can be fired from their jobs and discriminated against in housing. Today we take Virginia off that list.”

The public accommodations portion of the bill was especially notable because Virginia — the former capital of the Confederacy, which bitterly resisted racial desegregation — is one of just five states with no public accommodations law of any kind.

So the bills would not simply add LGBT people to an existing list of protected classes that cannot be denied service. Instead they would create an entirely new public accommodations provision, making it unlawful to deny services to individuals “on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, or status as a veteran.”

The Senate’s bill passed 30 to 9, with nine of the chamber’s 19 Republicans voting in favor. Nine were against, and one GOP senator was off the floor when voting took place.

In January, the Senate voted to ban conversion therapy on children, repeal the state’s now-defunct ban on same-sex marriage and establish statewide policies for the treatment of transgender students.

The chamber also voted to replace “husband and wife” with gender-neutral “parties to the marriage” language in divorce law and make it easier for transgender people to change how their sex is listed on their birth certificates.

It is a new day in Virginia.  It is also ironic that in Northam, whom a number of LGBT organizations stupidly called upon to resign, LGBT Virginians have found their strongest ally and advocate - something the husband and I have long known.

Gov. Northam at a 2019 Pride reception at the Executive Mansion.

The Demographic Revolution in Virginia

The husband and I spent part of yesterday morning at the Executive Mansion in Richmond where a celebratory air reigned in the wake of last week's Virginia elections and where the governor said it was time to be bold and move Virginia forward with the passage of progressive legislation long blocked by Republican control of the General Assembly.  It was part of a mindset that embraces Virginia's demographic changes and a much more diverse population that is increasingly highly educated and is powering Virginia to new levels of wealth not seen since before the Civil War when Virginia ranked among the wealthiest states,  In sharp contrast to this embrace of change and diversity, nothing is more frightening to the Republican Party of Virginia and its base that educated and non-white voters - two groups in particular who find Donald Trump and today's GOP's agenda of division repulsive. Nowhere is this sharp contrast more pronounced than in Virginia's booming suburban areas where those new to the state or who fled rural areas of the state - causing a significant brain drain and driving up the average age of residents in rural regions - have settled.  A lengthy piece in the New York Times looks at the demographic revolution in Virginia that is also occurring in some other Southern states  and even Texas.   The take away is that until the Virginia GOP ceases to be a party of tacit white supremacists and right wing Christian zealots, ts future prospects in Virginia are bleak.  Here are article highlights:

Once the heart of the confederacy, Virginia is now the land of Indian grocery stores, Korean churches and Diwali festivals. The state population has boomed — up by 38 percent since 1990, with the biggest growth in densely settled suburban areas like South Riding. One in 10 people eligible to vote in the state were born outside the United States, up from one in 28 in 1990. It is also significantly less white. In 1990, the census tracts that make up Mr. Katkuri’s Senate district were home to about 35,000 people — 91 percent of them white. Today, its population of 225,000 is just 64 percent white.

“It’s a totally different world,” said Charles Poland, 85, a retired history professor whose family has lived in Loudoun County for four generations. His family farm is now dotted with subdivisions filled with four and five-bedroom homes that sell for $750,000. The family legacy is a road named Poland. “If my parents came back today, they wouldn’t recognize the place. The changes came like a tidal wave.”

It’s not just Virginia. From Atlanta to Houston, this pattern is repeating itself — a new kind of suburbanization that is sweeping through politics. The densely populated inner ring suburbs are turning blue, while the mostly white exurban outer ring is redder than ever. Elections are won and lost along that suburban line, and in some places — like Atlanta, Denver, and Riverside County, Calif. — Democrats have begun to breach Republicans’ firewalls.

Democrats took control of the House and elevated Nancy Pelosi to speaker in 2018 because of victories in these fast-changing parts of America, and both parties are preparing for battle over these voters in 2020.

“What was interesting about 2018 was not just that Democrats succeeded in places where they didn’t in 2006, but also that they did as well in places that 10 years ago we never would have considered competitive,” said Amy Walter, national editor of The Cook Political Report, which provides analysis of elections and races.

In Virginia, the political pendulum has swung several times in the statehouse over the past decade. Large swaths of Virginia are still very conservative and Mr. Trump is popular in those places. In 2016, he won 93 of Virginia’s 133 counties, but it wasn’t enough to take the state.

The influx of immigrants and their U.S.-born children, the spread of high-density suburbia and the growth of higher education all tilt the field toward the Democrats. Still, that doesn’t give them a lock on the state, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

As Virginia’s population has grown it has also gotten wealthier. Households earning at least $150,000 have grown at three times the rate of the population over all.

But when he got his citizenship in March and started talking with his friends about whom to vote for in the first election of his life, he realized it had to be Democrats. Mr. Trump helped him decide.  “The way he speaks, you get the feeling that you are separate,” Mr. Katkuri said. “This is not what we signed up for in America.”

Of the 10 metro areas that had the largest South Asian growth, five are in the South, said Ms. Sridaran, who was born in Atlanta, after her father took a teaching job at Morehouse School of Medicine in the early 1980s.  One of them was Richmond.

In Centreville on Thursday — smack in the middle of House District 40, where the nonwhite population has jumped by more than fivefold since 1990, driven by immigrants from South Korea — several people said Mr. Trump was the reason they voted this week.

“People are just sick and appalled at this president,” said Dr. Charles Huh, a gastroenterologist, as he waited for takeout at the food court in Lotte Plaza Market, a Korean grocery store. “He’s the best thing Republicans have done for Democrats in a long time.”

“It is literally a new day in Virginia,” he said, a table of snacks set up in the back. He explained that demographic changes meant the people in the room were now in a position to help shape policy. “Come to Richmond,” he said. “This is really our chance.”

Thank goodness it is a new day in Virginia and, for the LGBT community the next legislative session will see passage of non-discrimination protections long blocked by Virginia Republicans.   A more welcoming state may, in fact further accelerate the demographic changes that have brought Virginia to this point. 

What If a Democratic House Votes to Impeach Kavanaugh?

U.S. House of Representatives chambers.

One of the most alarming things about the Republican rush to confirm spoiled rich white boy Brett Kavanaugh is that by refusing to do a proper investigation of allegations against him, they are setting the stage for a Democrat controlled House of Representatives - something I personally pray comes to pass - to launch a real and credible investigation which could very well turn up damning corroborating testimony.  Should that happen, a move to impeach Kavanaugh would be likely and the Supreme Court would be thrown into chaos and decisions rendered that swung on Kavanaugh's vote would be lose legitimacy.   One would think that Senators Flake, Collins and Murkowski - and others - would want to avoid this potential situation not to mention that they votes for Kavanaugh would become everlasting embarrassments.  Sadly, Mitch McConnell has no such worries about morality or the view of history as he has demonstrated time and time again.  A piece in Politico looks at the likely scenario that could play out next year.  Here are excerpts:

The FBI’s supplemental background check of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has just been completed. . . . What we do know is that the background check, which was supposed to examine all credible allegations of sexual assault made against Kavanaugh, has made matters more complicated. For reasons that aren’t completely clear—either the Senate’s actual request for supplemental information was narrower than promised, or the White House directed the FBI not to pursue certain leads—many senators are worried that the Republican-guided FBI investigation won’t be sufficient to quell concerns about the judge’s fitness to serve on the Supreme Court. If the investigation has been as superficial as some reporting suggests—despite calls from GOP Senators Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins for it to be thorough—and if Kavanaugh does manage to squeak through, Democrats are not likely to let it go. Indeed, it is entirely possible—no, likely—that, if they win control of the House in November, the new majority party will consider articles of impeachment against Kavanaugh before his seat on the high court is warm. The course of such a proceeding has the potential to be so perilous and unpredictable that wavering Republican senators should consider that possibility before casting their votes to put Kavanaugh on the court in the first place. Facts that come to light in impeachment could come back to haunt senators who vote to support him. The Constitution contemplates removal from office of judges on the same terms as are available against any federal official—terms that are by now familiar because they’re so frequently mentioned against Trump. Under Article II, Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In all cases, the House investigates and votes on articles of impeachment, and any articles that receive a majority vote are then passed along to the Senate. That body then conducts a trial, and a supermajority of two-thirds is required for removal of the officer.

Although there have been only a tiny number of impeachment proceedings against federal judges at any level since the Constitution was ratified, those that have taken place have laid down significant markers that can help us understand the possibilities in this case.

[T]he cases involving trial and appellate federal judges point in a direction that would be worrying for Kavanaugh if he’s installed as a justice—and if wrongful conduct is then found. Significantly, three of the four most recent impeachments— all of which led to convictions—were for perjury. In the other case, Samuel B. Kent, a district court judge from Texas, became the first federal judge impeached for sexual assault, and for obstructing justice in being untruthful about his conduct. He was convicted and sentenced to 33 months in prison, but refused to resign (apparently for reasons having to do with his pension). In 2009, he was impeached by the House, but resigned before the Senate could conduct the trial that certainly would have convicted him.

Will a newly energized Democratic majority in the House have the stomach for impeachment? Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has demurred, but Jerry Nadler, the current ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, wasn’t nearly as coy. When asked whether, if he assumed the chairmanship of the committee, he’d consider impeachment, he had this to say: “We would have to investigate any credible allegations of perjury and other things that haven’t been properly looked into before.”

So hearings seem inevitable, but whether the committee would actually take the extraordinary step of beginning impeachment proceedings will likely depend on a few factors yet to come into focus. The real or perceived lack of thoroughness of the FBI investigation would be the most obvious trigger. [H]earings will likely follow—and then, possibly, impeachment, depending on what’s turned up. And, as Nadler suggested, the committee could also look into whether Kavanaugh committed perjury during the hearings; for instance, text messages have surfaced suggesting that he knew of Ramirez’s potential allegations before the New Yorker told her story. He testified, though, that he learned of the accusations only when the story came out. State governments might also decide to conduct hearings, which could funnel into any action the House decides to take. And if any new sexual misconduct allegations surface after he’s seated, we’re back to square one.

But while Kavanaugh should be worried about impeachment proceedings, so too should GOP senators who vote to confirm him in the first place. If further interviews with some of the same witnesses that the FBI could have, but did not, question corroborate any of the assault allegations, Kavanaugh could land back in the Senate for a trial, where those senators who voted for him would find themselves in a tough spot for pushing him through in the face of unanswered questions.

We may or may not learn what the FBI actually did, but it’s likely the last chapter in this depressing saga has yet to be written.

Unfortunately, I will not be holding my breath to see Republican senators do the right thing and vote "no," tomorrow.  It will be up to Democrats to conduct the investigations that the White House and the likes of Mitch McConnell deliberately thwarted.