Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyPosts Tagged As: Steny Hoyer
May 24th, 2016
These two stories go hand in hand. Here’s the first:
Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
House Democrats will keep trying to force floor votes on the issue of LGBT nondiscrimination after an amendment they offered to a spending bill last week failed when Republicans switched their votes, House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer said Tuesday.
“There will be” more amendments, the Maryland Democrat said. “We believe that our country is all about inclusion. We certainly differ from [Donald] Trump on that issue.”
Last week, House GOP leaders broke their own rules to orchestrate the defeat of Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY)’s amendment restoring President Barack Obama’s executive order requiring federal to maintain anti-discrimination policies covering sexual orientation and gender identity. A clause overturning the order had been inserted into the 2016 Defense Appropriations Bill by Rep. Steve Russell (R-OK).
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) had promised to return the House to regular order and to be a stickler about House rules and the vote clock. but he was convientiently AWOL during these shenanigans. He also didn’t bother to criticize the rule-breaking, saying he knew nothing about what happened. And here is where the second story comes in: Ryan informed his caucus this morning that he’s going to tinker with a key rule that have been in place since the GOP took over the House five years ago:
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI)
Ryan laid out plans at a House GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning to require that members submit their amendments ahead of time so that they are printed in the Congressional Record, according to leadership aides.
The change will not yet be in effect this week for a bill to fund the Energy Department and water infrastructure projects. But lawmakers would have to abide by the requirement, which before now was optional, starting with appropriations bills considered after the Memorial Day recess.
By requiring amendments to be made public in advance, GOP leaders would be able to anticipate difficult votes and figure out a strategy before the last minute. Specifics of the revamped process, such as the deadline for members to file their amendments, haven’t been determined by leadership yet.
… Top Republicans have touted the use of open rules as a return to “regular order” and a way to empower individual members. But it has backfired spectacularly on House Republicans twice in the last year.
The change affects appropriations bills only. On all other bills, the Speaker has discretion in determining which amendments will be considered from the floor.
June 26th, 2013
A paraphrase of what they said:
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): Oh happy day! Justice was done for thousands of LGBT families nationwide. Forty-four years after Stonewall. Supreme Court bent the arc of history toward justice. Equal protection is a promise kept. More work to be done. Applauds the inspiration of Harvey Milk, the courage of Edie Windsor.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD): Principles of equal justice under law. Maryland and other states wanted full marriage equality. Now they get it. A good day for every American. Fifty years ago, one of my first votes as state Senator was to repeal the miscegenation law in Maryland. Another step for equality, justice, inclusion.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): History of the U.S. can be read as an expanding of “all men are created equal.” Today is another step in that evolution. Breathes life into constitution’s promise of equal liberty for all. DOMA embodied contempt and animus. Work is not done. DOMA in its entirety must be wiped from the books. Reintroduction of Respect for Marriage Act later today.
Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO): Was on the steps of the Supreme Court when decision was handed down. Not a single anti-equality protester. This is the system working for families like mine. Americans are more than ready for this decision. Battle is far from done. People can still be fired, kids face bullying. Congress still has a critical role.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI): Applauds the simplicity of the court’s analysis and power of the decision. DOMA was designed to stigmatize and harm LGBT people. Decision helps to transform the lives of thousands of families. Gives meaning to our values.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY): Called partner, Randy, of 21 years. Couldn’t get the words out. For families like mine, when I get the kids ready for school, etc., they aren’t growing up in a family that is less than someone else’s. (Holding back tears.) Brown v. Board of Ed., Loving v. Virginia, Lawrence v. Texas, and now we are even more American.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI): 93 million people live in states with marriage equality. WE still face barriers. Make sure every single loving, committed relatinship can be recognized.
Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA): I challenge every California clerk to start issuing marriage licenses to every couple that desires one. “I feel jubilation, I feel fabulous, I feel every gay word I can think of.” Kennedy wrote beautiful sentences and reached for the poetic. Stirring words: DOMA humiliates the children of same-sex couples.
January 15th, 2013
The House’s so-called Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) has upped the cap for their defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to a cool $3 million. The reason that I’m calling BLAG the “so-called Bipartisan” group is that only one party is driving this train and keeping the other party completely out of the loop. On January 4, the House adopted its rules for the 113th Congress, parts of which authorizes BLAG to intervene in other cases challenging DOMA and to speak for the House before the Supreme Court. At that point, the disclosed price tag was still $2 million, a cap that was revealed in December.
But today it was revealed that the cap was secretly raised by a staggering 50% to $3 million soon after the rules were adopted on January 4. After news broke about the increase, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the only two Democratic members of the group, responded in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH):
“We wish to strongly reaffirm our objections to the repeated actions by the Republican leadership to secretly and dramatically increase the contract between the House and outside counsel in arguing to uphold the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in more than a dozen cases,” reads the letter from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
“It is the height of hypocrisy for House Republicans to waste public funds in one breath then claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in the next,” the letter continues. “With Republicans willing to take our economy and our country to the brink of default in the name of deficit reduction, there is simply no excuse for any Member of Congress to commit taxpayer dollars to an unnecessary — and futile — legal battle.”
House GOP leaders took over the defense of DOMA in Federal Court last year after the Justice Department determined that the law merited heightened scrutiny and was unconstitutional under that standard.
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