Rep. Tammy Baldwin, who is seen by many gay rights leaders as a friendly, albeit reserved ally, insists there are enough votes in the House to secure passage of ENDA and repealing DADT. Which begs the question: If the vote is assured, what’s keeping Speaker Nancy Pelosi from bringing the bills to a vote?
“As someone who has actually counted the votes, I believe that there are,â she says. “Thatâs one of the things the [90-member] LGBT Equality Caucus does is to [focus] attention to making sure we can tell [House] leadership, with accuracy, what the vote would be if they bring the measures up to the floor.â
Of course, there’s this.
AndrewW
Declaring “war” on our allies won’t create support for our cause and it won’t inspire anyone to stand with us. It’s stupid.
Before the GetEqual locked a few children in Pelosi’s office on Friday afternoon, she was sympathetic and supportive. We don’t know, now. After these direct action misfits tried to embarrass here, I think we’ve been moved way down on her list. If we continue to act like angry children, she just take us off the list.
GetEqual’s childish premise that we simply have to stomp our feet, while making angry demands, in order to achieve our equality is beyond naive – and it’s dangerous.
These LGBTeaBaggers have already failed.
The Milkman
Pelosi’s support should have been because she thought the cause was just, not because those advocating it were super polite. If she ever supported our issues, then she’ll support them regardless. I imagine that elected representatives and senators fully expect protests and attention-grabbing efforts to occur.
Now that the HCR fracas is concluded (at least for a while), we can really start advocating for more attention to this issue.
PopSnap
Tammy Baldwin is “an ally, albeit a quiet one”? She’s not an ally, shes one of us- she’s a lesbian. Thats like saying Thurgood Marshall was a Black ally. đ
Also, I (like most people) went from loving Pelosi, to hating her for most of 2009, and now I like her again for the simple reason that she never fails to appear as one of the nicest, most polite people on the face of the Earth when compared to the fascist Tea Party rednecks. She’s a good representative of liberal causes & how people should conduct themselves, even when in the face of those who hate your guts and pay to beat the shit out of an effigy of you at a party.
reason
The house is tired of being left out for the snakes after making members in vulnerable districts take votes on controversial issues to have the senate suddenly back track and refuse to act on the bills. It has happened numerous times already, infuriating the house, which was why they were so loathe to pass the senate health care bill even after Harry presented them with over 50 signatures for reconciliation. I have a feeling it is going to get more difficult to get the house to act on controversial issues without concrete assurances form the senate. If I was in her shoes, I wouldn’t force my members to spend capital that’s already in the negative on bills that the senate is going to light on fire without even taking the first glance.