Saturday Politics: Closeted L.A. Congressman Retires

David Dreier, has been in the U.S. House since 1981

David Dreier has represented the 26th Congressional District of California as a Republican since 1981. He has also been repeatedly outed in the media as a closeted gay man. Due to redistricting in California, Dreier's district was carved into thirds and section of it moved into other districts which were heavily Democratic, leaving the longtime incumbent with no U.S. House district in which to seek re-election, so he announced his retirement from Congress this week.

Dreier is the sixth California House member to announce plans to retire when his term ends, shaking up a delegation that has built up clout on Capitol Hill because of its stability over the years.

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Dreier's announcement was not a surprise. The California Citizens Redistricting Commission's new map collapsed his district into three new ones.

Two of the newly drawn districts — both based in the San Gabriel Valley — are solidly Democratic with large ethnic voter populations.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) is running in one with a strong concentration of Asian voters, and Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (D-Norwalk) has moved into the other, which includes Dreier's San Dimas home and where Latinos make up 46% of registered voters.

The 59-year-old, unmarried Congressman has long been  rumored to gay. It will be interesting to see how long it takes him to come out of the closet officially after retires.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God.

White House Opposes SOPA and PIPA

The White House has finally come out against legislation which would have a dramatically negative impact on the free and unfettered nature of the Internet, the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its House companion bill, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).

The White House blog says:

Right now, Congress is debating a few pieces of legislation concerning the very real issue of online piracy, including the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the PROTECT IP Act, and the Online Protection and Digital ENforcement Act (OPEN). We want to take this opportunity to tell you what the Administration will support—and what we will not support. Any effective legislation should reflect a wide range of stakeholders, including everyone from content creators to the engineers that build and maintain the infrastructure of the Internet.

While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.

Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small. Across the globe, the openness of the Internet is increasingly central to innovation in business, government, and society and it must be protected. To minimize this risk, new legislation must be narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity. Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing.

We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet. Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security. Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank Retirement Announcement

The longest-serving openly gay member of Congress, U.S. Representative Barney Frank (MA-05), announced today that he would not seek re-election to the U.S. House in 2012.

There are currently on.y four openly LGBT members of Congress, and Tammy Baldwin is giving up her seat to run for the United States Senate. David Ciccilline looks to have a tough-re-election bid. Jared Polis recently welcomed a newborn son to his household.

Joe.My.God has a collection of reactions from the national LGBT organizations on the news of Frank's retirement.

UGH: "In God We Trust" Passes U.S. House 396-9

This is just sickening. The United States House of Representatives spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of staff and Members' time to debate and pass a meaningless measure (H.R. Con. 13) to reaffirm that the national motto is "In God We Trust" and that it should be publicly displayed. The vote was a depressing 396 to 9.

More disgustingly, only 9 Congressmembers had the guts to vote against the measure, including one Republican. Interestingly, of these 9 free thinkers three of them are my heroes: Judy Chu (API LGBT champion) and Jerrold Nadler (co-sponsor of the DOMA repeal bill) and Pete Stark (only acknowledged atheist in Congress). Interestingly, a Republican, Justin Amash also voted against the measure and gave a statement as to why which Joe.My.God highlights today.

The full roll call list of the 9 who voted No an the 2 who voted "present" are:

VOTING NO 

Ackerman 

Amash 

Chu 

Cleaver

Honda 

Johnson (GA) 

NadlerScott (VA) 

Stark

VOTING "PRESENT" 

Ellison 

Watt

It should also be noted that Mike Honda the co-sponsor of an immigration bill that would produce immigration equality for same-sex binational couples also voted against the meaningless theocratic measure. Keith Ellison is noteworthy because he is the only acknowledged Muslim member of Congress.

This vote incenses me so much that it just doubles my intention to refocus my efforts at highlighting issues of religious freedom, atheism, agnosticism (as well as the dangers of theocracy) at this blog, at least once a week, generally on Wednesdays.

READ: Letter From 67 U.S. Reps To DHS Napolitano

LGBT Immigration Letter to DHS Sec Napolitano By U.S. Reps

CA-44: Rep. Hahn Faces Two Black Challengers For Congress

The old 36th Congressional District becomes the new 44th

Whoa! The fallout from decadal redistricting continues. The latest drama surrounds Black political power in Los Angeles County and its representation in the United States Congress. The 36th Congressional District, which was won by Janice Hahn in a special election in July 2011 has been redrawn so that the Congresswoman's residence now resides in the new 44th District.The problem is that the new 44th District was deliberately drawn to have a higher percentage of African American voters, and as many people have noted, Janice Hahn is not Black. But recently Hahn announced that she will run for Congress in the 44th District.

However, Congresswoman Laura Richardson and State Assemblyman Isadore Hall are, and they have both announced that they are running for the new 44th District. Rep. Richardson is running because the district in which she lives has been re-drawn to have a lot more Republican voters from Orange County in it.

A few weeks ago, Janice Hahn released a poll showing her with a big lead over both Hall and Richardson:

Rep. Janice Hahn: 47
Rep. Laura Richardson: 24
Asm. Isadore Hall: 7


Hall's problem is that nobody knows who he is. Richardson's problem is that people know exactly who she is, and they don't like her. According to Hahn's poll, Richardson has a favorability rating of just 37%. (Though she does much better with black voters, at 68%.)


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According to the poll, Hahn does better than Richardson even among black voters. Hahn claims a 74% favorable rating among African-Americans, to Richardson's 68%.

Black politicians who have long supported any Hahn for elected public office (her father Kenneth for County Supervisor, her brother James for Mayor of Los Angeles and Janice herself for City Council and Congress) are very angry.

However, this week Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed Janice Hahn for Congress in the 44th district.