The unofficial whip count is in my left column (you can click the buttons to see the House and Senate).
Have you identified one person to contact House Reps Jason Altmire or Kathy Dahlkemper yet? Those are the PA folks we need to fuss about. Alternatively, have you called you WV friends and asked them to get in touch with Senator Byrd?
Now is the time folks. Literally. Now as in this week.
Legislation aimed at ending employment discrimination against LGBT people will be marked up in committee ''this week or next,'' according to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
Frank, speaking to Metro Weekly after his appearance at the Victory Fund's annual Champagne Brunch, said the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) ? currently in the House Education and Labor Committee ? has been ''promised'' a quick vote in the full House by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) once the bill leaves committee.
Noting that he's been speaking to Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) ''constantly,'' Frank said of the ENDA mark-up, ''It will be this week or next week.''
I was at a Victory Fund luncheon one year when I attended a national LGBTQ blogging conference. Congressman Frank was there, too. That's really got nothing to do with this post, just a pleasant memory.
ENDA means we get and keep jobs.
Of the opposition he's faced from anti-LGBT forces in Congress, Frank told the crowd, ''Here's my radical homosexual agenda: Let us get married, join the military and hold down a job.''
As the applause subsided, he added, ''Very few radicals in history would have thought much of that.''
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