Congressional Race in California Draws a High-Profile Cast
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — With competitive races in Congress a rarity in California, the unexpected availability of a seat here has set off a sudden and furious chase, with at least a dozen candidates and a mélange of political styles and personal storylines.
California’s 10th Congressional District, a sprawling inkblot made up of a collection of suburbs east of San Francisco, has been represented since 1997 by Ellen O. Tauscher, a Democrat who resigned after being confirmed on June 25 to a top post in the State Department.
The field to succeed her includes the lieutenant governor, two state lawmakers, a decorated Iraqi war veteran who is openly gay and a former newspaper reporter. And that does not even include the Republican candidates in this Democratic-leaning district.
The crush of hopefuls, said Henry Brady, a professor and dean of the public policy school at University of California, Berkeley, might stem in part from the diversity of the district, which extends from the liberal Bay Area to more conservative territory inland.
“These seats don’t come available very much, and the reason is very simple: geography,” Dr. Brady said. “The Democrats are primarily on the coast, and the Republicans are in the Central Valley and the mountains, so it’s very hard to build a competitive district. But this has the potential to be one.”
The lieutenant governor, John Garamendi, is considered the early favorite to replace Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Garamendi, a Democrat who had considered running for governor next year, said he opted instead for Congress in large part because of the abbreviated campaign. A primary, followed by a special election, to complete Ms. Tauscher’s term must be held within 126 days of the governor setting the date. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a proclamation Friday declaring Nov. 3 the date for the special election.
“I thought, How am I going to spend two valuable years of my life?” said Mr. Garamendi, 64, who previously served as the deputy secretary of interior in the Clinton administration as well as the California’s first elected insurance commissioner. “Am I going spend two years dialing for dollars, or am I going to spend four months out ringing doorbells and campaigning person to person and the other 20 months working on issues?”
Mr. Garamendi’s principal challengers among the Democrats, some polls show, are State Senator Mark James DeSaulnier and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan. Both were elected to their current posts last fall.
Mr. DeSaulnier, 57, is a former mayor, city councilman and assemblyman, who says his career comes in spite a devastating personal experience with politics: a scandal involving his father, Judge Edward J. DeSaulnier Jr., who was removed from the bench of the Massachusetts Superior Court and disbarred in 1972 after being accused of rigging a sentence for the Mafia. The older Mr. DeSaulnier was never charged with a crime but was disgraced nonetheless and committed suicide in 1989.
“I’ve been very affected by my father’s journey,” said Mr. DeSaulnier, who worked as a restaurateur before running for office. “And I’ve loved my public life.”
The rest of the Democratic field is not as well known, though one candidate has attracted some national attention: Anthony Woods, a 28-year-old graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and a veteran of the Iraq war who was awarded the Bronze Star for two tours of duty. Shortly after his return from combat, while at Harvard working toward his master’s degree, Captain Woods told military superiors that he is gay, resulting in an honorable discharge.
While considered a long shot for the Congressional seat, Mr. Woods would be the first openly gay black man in Congress, though he has been careful on the campaign trail to trumpet more than his sexuality.
“The first thing I talk to voters about is their priorities, universal health care and economic security,” he said. “I’m not hiding who I am, but they’re just as interested in talking about the issues as I am.”
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The New York Blade Suspends Publication
The New York Blade, one of the two major gay and lesbian newspapers in New York City, has laid off its editor in chief and suspended publication, the chief executive of its publishing company said on Wednesday.
“Everyone was let go, but the people on The Blade know that they may come back if The Blade is coming back,” said the executive, Matthew Bank, of HX Media, which was formed in 2005 by the merger of The Blade and HX Magazine.
The moves came on Tuesday after HX was sold to undisclosed buyers. The Blade, a biweekly paper with a free circulation of 22,000, was left with an uncertain future.
“It doesn’t have an issue scheduled until a week from Friday.” Mr. Bank said. “There are a lot of things that can happen between now and then.”
The decision to suspend publication comes at a particularly active period for journalism concerned with gay issues: the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and the gay pride parade on Sunday, the proposed same-sex marriage bill in the State Senate and discontent over the Obama administration’s performance on gay-rights issues.
“It is an incredibly exciting time for gay journalism,” said Kat Long, who had been editor in chief of The Blade since February. “It’s important that gay papers are around to document it.”
Paul Schindler, editor in chief of Gay City News, the rival New York City gay newspaper, said The Blade had “made good contributions over the years.”
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Labor Chief Deplores Defacing of Gay Pride Posters
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis issued a warning letter to departmental employees late last week, after posters celebrating Gay Pride Month hanging in 35 department elevators since June 22 have been either defaced or removed altogether.
In an e-mail message sent to the entire department, Ms. Solis, who helped found the House of Representative’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Caucus when she was in Congress, said she was outraged by the behavior.
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When Gay Pride Day Takes Two Weeks
MADRID | As happens with many Spanish celebrations, Gay Pride “Day” has rather miraculously been stretched out into nearly two weeks of parties, performances, parades, rallies, exhibitions, conferences, and lots and lots of late-night festivities. When I arrived here from New York City nearly seven years ago, Orgullo, as the festival is known, was already a five-day extravaganza bursting at the seams with events and activities and non-stop socializing from which the city’s citizenry — gay, straight and undecided — often needed about five days to recover.
But Madrid has recently begun pushing the envelope even further by scheduling its pride parade a week after the typical last-weekend-in-June date respected almost everywhere else around the globe. By ceding this Saturday, June 27, to Spain’s provincial capitals for their local pride celebrations, Madrid now guarantees that all of Spain will be free to attend its parade and parties on the following Saturday, this year on July 4.
And indeed, attendance in recent years has reportedly topped 2 million, making Madrid’s Orgullo festivities likely the largest party in Europe of any stripe for four years running.
Which is not to say that this weekend, as the parades and parties are getting under way in other cities and towns across the country from Barcelona to Tenerife, that gay Madrid will staying in and resting up.
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Dodd Endorses Gay Marriage
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, has changed his position on gay marriage, announcing over the weekend that he now supports it.
Mr. Dodd, who finds himself in a tough fight for reelection next year, had already backed civil unions, but had rejected endorsing gay marriage during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.
His reversal comes on the heels of growing upset among gay activists toward President Obama and his administration, many of whom called the president’s decision last week to extend partnership benefits extension as a minor move,
In a blog post posted on his Senate Web site on Father’s Day, Mr. Dodd cast his decision to go all in for gay marriage in generational terms, writing that his two school-aged daughters have grown up around same-sex couples, some of whom have gotten married since it was legalized in Connecticut.
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Paterson Vows Vote on Gay Marriage Before Break
ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson said in an interview Sunday night that he would make sure that the State Senate votes on same sex-marriage legislation before it breaks for the summer, hours after he and his administration had refused to commit to forcing a vote on the issue.
The development came as the governor announced plans to call the Senate to a special session on Tuesday, after trying unsuccessfully for two weeks to broker a compromise in a leadership battle that has deadlocked the chamber. But Mr. Paterson dismayed gay rights groups in his comments at a news conference early Sunday afternoon, when he said same-sex marriage would not be on the special session’s agenda.
“It has always been my intention to see same-sex marriage come to the floor,” he said, adding, “I don’t want there to be any confusion.”
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Massachusetts: Former Lawmaker to Head Gay Group
A gay former state senator who fought to help Massachusetts become the first state to legalize same-sex marriage has been appointed to head a national gay rights group. The former senator, Jarrett Barrios, tearfully shared stories of his family during debate on a proposal that would have effectively undone a court ruling allowing same-sex couples to wed. Mr. Barrios will become president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which focuses on how lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are presented in the news. He is married to Doug Hattaway, who was a spokesman for Vice President Al Gore. Since 2007, Mr. Barrios has been president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, which announced his move. See
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NYT Ediotrial: Obama Made “Bad Call On Gay Rights “
If the administration does feel compelled to defend the act, it should do so in a less hurtful way. It could have crafted its legal arguments in general terms, as a simple description of where it believes the law now stands. There was no need to resort to specious arguments and inflammatory language to impugn same-sex marriage as an institution.
The best approach of all would have been to make clear, even as it defends the law in court, that it is fighting for gay rights. It should work to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the law that bans gay men and lesbians in the military from being open about their sexuality. It should push hard for a federal law banning employment discrimination. It should also work to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act in Congress.
The administration has had its hands full with the financial crisis, health care, Guantánamo Bay and other pressing matters. In times like these, issues like repealing the marriage act can seem like a distraction — or a political liability. But busy calendars and political expediency are no excuse for making one group of Americans wait any longer for equal rights. See NYT: Obama Made “Bad Call On Gay Rights … Disturbing”
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Bid to Block Recognition of Unions Fails In DC
The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics rejected a proposed ballot question intended to block city recognition of same-sex marriages from other locations. Last month, the City Council voted 12 to 1 to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions, a decision widely seen as a prelude to an inevitable vote on legalizing same-sex marriages in the capital. Pastors opposing same-sex marriage sought the citywide referendum in hopes of reversing that decision, but the election board said the referendum was not allowed under the city’s 1977 Human Rights Act See Bid to Block Recognition of Unions Fails
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Shanghai Journal Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries New York Times
SHANGHAI — It was shortly after the “hot body” contest and just before a painted procession of Chinese opera singers took the stage that the police threatened to shut down China’s first gay pride festival. The authorities had already forced the cancellation of a play, a film screening and a social mixer, so when an irritated plainclothes officer arrived at the Saturday afternoon gala and flashed his badge, organizers feared the worst.
After some fraught negotiations, Hannah Miller, an American teacher who helped put together the weeklong festival, agreed to limit the crowds, keep the noise down and, most important, “not let anything happen that might embarrass the government,” she explained after returning from the impromptu sidewalk meeting. “That was a close call,” she said.
Crisis averted, the party continued.
And so it went for Shanghai Pride week, a delicately orchestrated series of private events that revealed how far China’s gay community had come, and how much further it had to go. In the 12 years since homosexuality was decriminalized in China, there has been an unmistakable blossoming of gay life, even if largely underground. Most big cities have gay bars, and social networking sites ease the isolation of those living in China’s rural hinterland. Antigay violence is virtually unheard of.
But official tolerance has its limits. Gay publications and plays are banned, gay Web sites are occasionally blocked and those who try to advocate for greater legal protections for lesbians and gay men sometimes face harassment from the police. For years, movie buffs in Beijing have tried, and failed, to get permission for a gay film festival.
This month, public security officials forced Wan Yanhai, a prominent advocate on gay issues, including AIDS, to leave Beijing for a week because they feared he might cause trouble during the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
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