The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is scheduled for mark-up in the House Education and Labor Committee on Wednesday. From the Committee site:
On Wednesday, November 18, the House Education and Labor Committee will vote on legislation to end the widespread practice of employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 3017), introduced by Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), would prohibit employment discrimination, preferential treatment, and retaliation on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by employers with 15 or more employees. Currently, it is legal to discriminate in the workplace based on sexual orientation in 29 states and to discriminate based on gender identity in 38 states.
Barring a strange development, I’ll be there.
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In other news, with Senators Kaufman and Kirk’s actions, the Senate’s two remaining targets for ENDA (S. 1584) co-sponsorship that I wrote about when the bill was introduced in the Senate and then again in mid-October are now on board. That means that we have 43 sponsors or co-sponsors in the Senate.
So, now we need a new list. Looking at the remaining Democratic senators not on board, and other circumstances, I propose the following seven targets so that ENDA would be at 50 by the time it even gets to the Senate:
- Bayh, IN (D) – (202) 224-5623
- Carper, DE (D) – (202) 224-2441
- Gregg, NH (R) – (202) 224-3324
- McCaskill, MO (D) – (202) 224-6154
- Nelson, Bill, FL – (202) 224-5274
- Voinovich, OH (R) – (202) 224-3353
- Warner, M., VA (D) – (202) 224-2023
My reasoning: The two Republicans represent states where the state’s other Senator already is a co-sponsor. Additionally, both have announced that they do not plan to run for re-election in 2010. Gregg is the only Senate New Englander not already co-sponsoring the bill.
Senators Bayh and Warner constantly desire to be seen as national figures. As such, Democrats should expect that they would be co-sponsors of such a basic bill as this. Sen. Carper should take a cue from his state’s junior Senator. Senators McCaskill and Bill Nelson appear to want to “do the right thing” regarding equality issues and could show leadership by signing on as co-sponsors.
Sen. Bayh is the only Democrat on the list who is up for re-election in 2010, and nothing suggests 2010 — regardless of his position on ENDA — will prove any more difficult than his easy 2006 re-election.
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The full list of remaining Democrats are:
- Baucus, MT – (202) 224-2651
- Bayh, IN – (202) 224-5623
- Begich, AK – (202) 224-3004
- Byrd, WV – (202) 224-3954
- Carper, DE – (202) 224-2441
- Conrad, ND – (202) 224-2043
- Dorgan, ND – (202) 224-2551
- Hagan, NC – (202) 224-6432
- Johnson, T., SD – (202) 224-5842
- Lincoln, AR – (202) 224-4843
- McCaskill, MO – (202) 224-6154
- Nelson, Bill, FL – (202) 224-5274
- Nelson, Ben, NE – (202) 224-6551
- Pryor, AR – (202) 224-2353
- Rockefeller, WV – (202) 224-6472
- Tester, MT – (202) 224-2644
- Warner, M., VA – (202) 224-2023
- Webb, VA – (202) 224-4024
Also, call the two recent co-sponsors to thank them:
- Kaufman, DE – (202) 224-5042
- Kirk, MA – (202) 224-4543
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Chris Geidner is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who writes at Law Dork, contributes regularly to Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications. An extended biography can be found