Rep. Jackie Speier, the California Democrat, said something folks like Nancy Pelosi would rather she kept to herself: The Employment Non-Discrimination Act needs a five-year time line .
After speaking Sunday to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club Pride breakfast, Rep. Speier told a reporter “we will have [ENDA] for sure within the next five years. … I’m being realistic.” And while Speier lauded Pelosi for laying the groundwork for ENDA, you can bet the House Speaker’s office was on the phone with Speier after this report, as she contradicted what Pelosi said during a May 17 conference call with LGBT activists. EQCA’s Geoff Kors says Pelosi “was very clear that ENDA would pass the House with enough time to pass the Senate this year.”
Though let’s be realzies for a sec here: If any activist actually believed the time line Pelosi laid out, they are fools. You’ve been misled and lied to — by Democrats — before. And just because Obama is in the White House, and the Dems control Congress, you think things have changed? You don’t deserve to hold these posts if you do.
Pelosi herself said DADT needed to pass before ENDA, and she can handily point to the Senate as the reason ENDA isn’t moving forward.
Worth noting: Speier’s five-year time line — a construct with so many unknown variables nobody should trust it — puts ENDA’s passage in 2015, after Obama supposedly is re-elected, and long after November’s elections that could wipe away the Democrats’ majority in Congress.
Fitz
Well then, that’s about how long it will take me to bother voting again.
Syl
See people? This is what you get wth a two-party duopoly. The dems know that us queers will vote for them, because voting for the GOP is self-defeating since they have to at least give lip-service to objectives of the religious crazies.
My point? We-and I mean all Americans, not just lgbt and allies-need to vote third-party. Green, Socialist, Libertarian, American Independent, anything other than the big two! The whole “oh, you’re just throwing your vote away! Voting for a third party instead of one of the big two just means the party you don’t like will
win” just maintains the effective monopoly!
This isn’t how it works in most democratic countries! They have pluralities of parties, and the parties in their parliaments and diets have to negotiate, compromise, form coallitions, etc
John (CA)
She was elected in 2008.
This is what happens when new members of Congress haven’t gotten used to lying yet.
Bill
Funny. Our government needs 5 years. Yet Google does it with a stroke of their pen in 5 minutes…
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hUSzz40-61UgUT16jDy5aNrTQILw
Perhaps we need a State of Google in America?
Devon
Only five years? LOL, I love optimists.
the crustybastard
It took less than a year for the Democratic majority to invent and pass the military gay ban through both houses of Congress, and get it signed by the Democratic president.
That’s proof Democrats can act quickly when they want to.
But why should they actually bother to help when merely promising to help is sufficient to get your vote?
Let’s face it: Democrats play us for suckers. They always have.
S
Data reflect a clear negative correlation in all states between age and support for same sex marriage. See http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/11/05/support-for-same-sex-marriage-by-age-and-state/
I strongly suspect a similar pattern exists for support of ENDA.
My own belief is that ENDA will not be brought to the floor so long as legislators believe a significant portion of voters would oppose it. And while it saddens me deeply to acknowledge this, that suggests that ENDA passage is more likely to be not five years, but one or more decades away.