(WASHINGTON) — The House on Wednesday approved a short-term measure that extends funding for the federal government for another week, through Dec. 23, buying more time for lawmakers to finish crafting a massive omnibus spending bill in the waning days of this Congress.
The vote was 224-201 with nine Republicans joining the Democratic majority.
The legislation next heads to the Senate, which could take it up as soon as Thursday.
Passing a temporary funding bill in the House is a major step to stopping the federal government shutdown that is set to begin Friday at midnight.
The vote comes after appropriators cemented a deal on Tuesday night on a bipartisan framework for the stop-gap bill.
“The legislation before us today is a simple date change that keeps the government up and running as we negotiate the details of final spending bills and complete the work of funding the government programs that meet the needs of hardworking Americans,” House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said on the House floor on Wednesday.
DeLauro said she felt “encouraged” about the framework agreement which provides “a path forward to enact an omnibus next week.”
The Republican whip team told its members to vote against the short-term funding bill.
At a news conference earlier Wednesday, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy called for a temporary spending bill that lasted until after Jan. 3, when his party retakes the majority.
“Allow the American people what they said a month ago: to change Washington as we know it today. We can’t afford to spend what the Democrats have,” McCarthy said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he wants the spending negotiations successfully completed and voted on by Dec. 22 — or for another short-term bill to be approved into 2023.
(WASHINGTON) — House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s official portrait was unveiled Wednesday in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, marking the first time a madame speaker joined the faces of the men who preceded her.
It prompted an emotional tribute from the man who first handed her the gavel, Republican John Boehner.
Pelosi, 82, is the Democratic Party’s longest-serving House leader and the first woman to be elected speaker. She wore her signature winter white on Wednesday, joined by her husband, Paul, her children and grandchildren.
“This painting will stand out as a woman in that Speaker’s Lobby. I’m really honored my members had the courage to elect a woman speaker,” Pelosi said to applause. “That is not without courage.”
“Somewhere in this Congress is a future woman speaker to be. I’m honored to be the first, but it will only be a good accomplishment if I’m not that last,” Pelosi added, predicting that will happen “sooner, rather than later.”
The California Democrat announced after the midterm elections that she was stepping down as party leader in the new Congress, passing the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders, ahead of Republicans taking back control of the House.
During her tenure, Pelosi garnered respect for her fundraising and legislative prowess, ushering bills like the Affordable Care Act and Respect for Marriage Act through the House.
Boehner, who preceded Pelosi’s first term as speaker, returned to Capitol Hill for the afternoon ceremony, where the two shared a hug following his remarks.
“Madame speaker, you and I have disagreed politically on many things over the years, but we were never disagreeable with each other,” Boehner said, adding Pelosi has always been “gracious” to him and his family.
Boehner got choked up as he said, “My girls told me, ‘Tell the speaker how much we admire her.” Struggling to keep his trademark emotions in check, he jokingly added, “As if you couldn’t tell, my girls are Democrats.”
“And the fact of the matter is no other speaker of the House in the modern era, Republican or Democrat, has wielded the gavel with such authority or with such consistent results,” Boehner added. “Let me just say you’re one tough cookie.”
“He gave me the gavel. I gave him the gavel,” Pelosi said. “I was at his portrait unveiling, and now he is at mine.”
Pelosi’s portrait will join those of her predecessors in the Speaker’s Lobby — a longstanding tradition in the House.
Other guests present for the occasion included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Steny Hoyer, GOP Rep. Steve Scalise and fellow members of the California delegation: Democratic Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Lucille Roybal-Allard.
Lofgren opened the event by thanking Pelosi’s family for “graciously sharing her with us and the country for the past 35 years.” Paul Pelosi, Pelosi’s husband who was violently assaulted in their San Francisco home, was wearing a black hat and sitting next to Pelosi during the ceremony — and received a standing ovation from the crowd when Schumer noted his attendance.
“It’s a tall order to put into words the impact Nancy Pelosi has had on the House of Representatives, Congress, the nation, and, I would say, the world,” Lofgren said. “She has been a singular force for good throughout her years in public service.”
Schumer, taking the podium, commended Pelosi for her work ethic and her drive to keep the Democratic caucus united. “The results speak for themselves,” he said, highlighting her work on the Affordable Care Act, the Violence Against Women Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law and more.
“Nancy Pelosi has made the world a better place for countless women and girls from all walks of life,” Schumer said. “Somewhere out there, a future madame speaker awaits her chance to make a difference, and when she does, she’ll be standing on my friend Nancy Pelosi’s shoulders.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., also attended the portrait unveiling but did not speak. McCarthy skipped Pelosi’s floor speech announcing her decision to step down, telling reporters he was busy in “meetings.”
The portrait was painted by Ronald Scherr, who died last week. Scherr also painted Boehner’s portrait, a point Pelosi noted, as well as portraits of President George H.W. Bush and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
While Pelosi is stepping away from leadership, she will continue to represent her San Francisco district as she has for more than three decades in the new Congress.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Frederica Wilson on Wednesday introduced legislation to raise the national minimum salary for public school teachers to $60,000 — a proposal that the career educator hopes the next Congress will take up in the new year.
“I think that the pandemic itself gave us a great snapshot view of how important teachers are,” Wilson, D-Fla., told ABC News, adding: “This is a period in our history that we should realize the value of our children having access to good teachers and good education.”
Wilson is co-leading the American Teacher Act with former teacher Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., her colleague on the House’s Education and Labor Committee. Other notable sponsors include House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who also oversees the panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The American Teacher Act would incentivize states to raise their minimum teacher salaries to $60,000 for public K-12 schools through a grant program at the Department of Education. The legislation would also mandate yearly increases congruent to inflation to support states’ ongoing efforts to ensure competitive wages.
If the bill becomes law, states would need to opt-in to the federally funded short-term grants in order to raise their teacher salary minimums. The exact details on appropriations for the grants haven’t yet been drafted.
Wilson said she is hopeful the legislation can pass in both the House and Senate in the next Congress, which starts in January, before moving to President Joe Biden’s desk. The proposal is supported by a coalition of more than 50 advocacy groups with a range of differing ideologies and education leaders, including two Obama education secretaries, Arne Duncan and John B. King Jr.
Republicans have also been calling attention to teacher pay. Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis backed a raise to the minimum salary for educators in his state to at least $47,000.
“This is an issue I’ve always been passionate about,” said Wilson, an advocate for educators since she was a Head Start teacher. “As time has progressed, teachers’ salaries, minimum wage, has not been commensurate with other salaries in our economy — especially as it relates to Black men.”
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which advocates for the needs of low- and middle-income workers, found in a non-peer-reviewed study that the relative pay gap nationwide has increased over the last 25 years between teachers and their similarly educated peers to about 14%, including benefits.
That discrepancy comes despite K-12 teachers’ median pay reaching approximately $61,000 in 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That median figure, however, shows how much the overall range in salaries can be — with half of teachers last year making less.
Wilson said she’s seen firsthand how other teachers can feel undervalued, weakening the workforce as a whole.
She said that her son Paul became a teacher to follow in her footsteps, but his college professors attempted to dissuade him because they said teachers weren’t paid enough.
“Why are you wasting your time?” Wilson said, recalling how her son — now an educational consultant and one of the few Black male teachers working in public schools — described his teachers’ remarks.
“You’re not gonna make any money. You’re gonna always be poor,” they said, according to Wilson.
The American Teacher Act would be one remedy to those concerns. The bill, co-led by Wilson and Bowman, was drafted in collaboration with the nonprofit, nonpartisan Teacher Salary Project.
Founder Nínive Calegari, who described being a classroom teacher as the “greatest revolution,” started the group more than a decade ago.
“It’s the right message at the right time,” Calegari said of the new legislation. “It’s really important to put our stake in the ground,” she said.
Wilson said her policy team engaged with the Teacher Salary Project as she and Bowman worked out the “hows” and details of making the legislation a reality.
Teacher Salary Project Board President Ellen Sherratt’s advocacy — posting research and data online, especially about how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated teacher salary issues — inspired Wilson to partner with the organization.
Then Wilson’s team made the call to Calegari and Sherratt to get buy-in before officially launching the bill, named after the organization’s 2011 documentary film “American Teacher,” and enlisting their help in making sure it was “the best possible product.”
Their bill centers the teacher shortage as a national priority. Today’s vacancies have impacted all facets of school life during the COVID-19 pandemic but they are more pronounced in high-poverty, high minority schools like Dallas’ David G. Burnet Elementary, according to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
“It’s a tough sell, selling education, to be a teacher right now,” explained 2021 Texas Teacher of the Year Eric Hale, who teaches first grade at Burnet, which has a majority Latino population. Hale is the state’s first Black man to earn its highest teaching honors.
“When you look at all the responsibilities and how everything falls at the foot of the teacher and then you look at compensation — then you look at health care expenses — then you look at, ‘Will I be able to provide for my own family? Will I ever be able to own a home?’ That’s a tough sell for a savvy student who can go into any other industry and look at making twice, three times as much as a teacher,” Hale said.
In a statement to ABC News, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten echoed that concern: “It should be no surprise that young people are choosing other professions where they can start with a much higher salary and get more respect, better working conditions, and more opportunities for financial and professional growth.”
Hale, a member of the compensation committee within Texas’ teacher vacancy task force, said he supports Wilson’s proposed $60,000 base pay but that $70,000 for incoming teachers is on his wish list.
Meanwhile, Wilson sees her target number as the most “winnable” goal.
“Our nation is undergoing a mass exodus of teachers leaving the classroom,” she said. “We can choose to take this issue head on or lose America’s teachers and have the education of our students severely impacted.”
(NEWTOWN, Conn.) — Nearly a decade after a group of students at Sandy Hook Elementary School and their teachers were killed in Newtown, Connecticut, two Sandy Hook parents said they are still in shock that their young children could be taken away in such a violent act.
But they said their grief isn’t holding them back from speaking out against gun violence and working to curb shootings across the country.
Nicole Hockley and Mark Barden, the parents of Sandy Hook victims and co-founders of the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise, a gun safety advocacy group, spoke with ABC News Live Wednesday about their reflections on the 10th anniversary of the mass shooting. Hockley, who lost her son Dylan that day, and Barden, who lost his son Daniel, both said that the passage of time has become surreal and nothing has filled that void.
“I find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that it’s been 10 years since I last held Dylan,” Hockley told ABC News.
Twenty children – Charlotte Bacon, 6; Daniel Barden, 7; Olivia Engel, 6; Josephine Gay, 7; Dylan Hockley, 6; Madeleine Hsu, 6; Catherine Hubbard, 6; Chase Kowalski, 7; Jesse Lewis, 6; Ana Marquez-Greene, 6; James Mattioli, 6; Grace Audrey McDonnell, 7; Emilie Parker, 6; Jack Pinto, 6; Noah Pozner, 6; Caroline Previdi, 6; Jessica Rekos, 6; Avielle Richman, 6; Benjamin Wheeler, 6; and Allison Wyatt, 6 – were gunned down on Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, by a 20-year-old shooter with a semi-automatic rifle.
Six educators – Rachel D’Avino, 29; Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47; Anne Marie Murphy, 52; Lauren Rousseau, 30; Mary Sherlach, 56; and Victoria Soto, 27 – were also killed.
The shooter, Adam Lanza, killed his mother Nancy before heading to the school. He took his own life afterward.
The shooting sparked outrage from Americans and elected officials over gun control laws and some states, such as Connecticut and New York, enacted stricter gun control laws.
The number of mass shootings recorded annually has doubled within the last decade, rising from 254 in 2013 to 692 in 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that identifies mass shootings as cases in which four or more people are shot, and tracks them through public data, news reports and other sources.
Hockley said she was upset with the fact that gun deaths surpassed auto deaths as the No. 1 killer of children and adolescents in 2020, according to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“If that doesn’t send a message to people that we’re not doing enough to keep kids safe, then I don’t know what else will get through,” she said. “We’re doing something drastically wrong as a country and we need to do something better.”
Hockley and Barden have been hard at work since 2013 to change those stats.
Sandy Hook Promise has developed a system that it shares with schools and parents across the country that helps them identify if a young person is showing signs of violence. Barden said the program is very effective with students and has helped them to warn adults of any peer that may be showing signs of mental health issues and violent tendencies.
“There are so many warning signs, and they can be subtle. Many are in the social media platforms, where the students are seeing them and the parents aren’t seeing them,” he said.
Hockley said she and fellow Sandy Hook parents won’t stop raising their voices against gun violence or their critics, particularly radio host Alex Jones. Jones recently declared bankruptcy after a Connecticut jury awarded almost $1 billion in damages to plaintiffs who accused Jones of committing defamation when he called the Sandy Hook shooting a hoax.
“Over the years that we’ve been working on this lawsuit, he has tried every ploy possible to delay. To alter his personal bankruptcy is just another stalling tactic. But we’re not going anywhere,” Hockley said. “This isn’t about the money. This is about getting consequences for his actions. And that is going to happen.”
Hockley added that the last decade has seen a major movement that has led to more people and leaders speaking out in favor of gun control, and she remains confident that it will continue to grow.
“We’ve seen this tremendous movement become much stronger than the gun lobby that existed at that time,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Late Georgia Rep. John Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement who served in Congress for decades, will be memorialized with a new postage stamp in 2023.
“Devoted to equality and justice for all Americans, Lewis spent more than 30 years in Congress steadfastly defending and building on key civil rights gains that he had helped achieve in the 1960s,” the U.S. Postal Service said in a news release on Tuesday.
“Even in the face of hatred and violence, as well as some 45 arrests, Lewis remained resolute in his commitment to what he liked to call ‘good trouble,'” the agency said.
Lewis died in July 2020, some seven months after he announced he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Also known as the “conscience of the U.S. Congress,” Lewis represented Georgia’s 5th Congressional District as a Democrat from 1987 until his death.
A force in the 20th-century civil rights movement, Lewis joined the Freedom Riders in demonstrating against segregated buses; spoke at the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. famously delivered his “I Have a Dream” address; and was violently beaten in 1965’s “Bloody Sunday” while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America,” Lewis said as he delivered remarks at the bridge in March 2020 for the 55th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.”
“I thought I was going to die on this bridge, but somehow and some way, God almighty helped me here,” Lewis said then. “We cannot give up now, we cannot give in, we must keep the faith, keep our eyes on the prize.”
In 2018, Lewis spoke out against then-President Donald Trump in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
“As a nation and as a people, we have come so far. We have made so much progress. Here in Georgia, when I visit schools, whether it’s elementary school students, middle school students, they’re Black, they’re white, they’re Latino, they’re Asian American, they’re Native American. And they look like the dream and act like the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We have come so far. We made so much progress. And I think this man, this president, is taking us back to another place,” Lewis said.
The photograph of Lewis that is being used for the new postage stamp was taken in 2013 by Marco Grob for Time magazine. The stamp design is preliminary and subject to change.
The postal service on Tuesday announced seven new subjects for stamps in 2023, including the “art of the skateboard” and the “Florida Everglades.”
The announcement adds to a list of 2023 stamps that also includes late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, authors Toni Morrison and Ernest J. Gaines and Native American civil rights leader Chief Standing Bear.
(WASHINGTON) — Widespread sexual abuse of female inmates continues to plague federal prisons and accountability measures for staff have not contained the scourge of such violence, according to a Senate investigative report released Tuesday.
Women were abused by prison staff in at least 19 of the 29 federal facilities that held female inmates since 2012, the bipartisan report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found. The Bureau of Prisons opened 5,415 cases alleging sexual abuse by federal employees from 2012 to 2022.
Former inmate and survivor Briane Moore testified before the subcommittee on Tuesday, recounting how she was raped by an officer while she was imprisoned at a federal facility in West Virginia. She said the officer, a captain at the prison, would take her to private areas of the facility to abuse her out of sight of surveillance cameras.
“I knew he had the power to prevent me from being transferred to a prison closer to my family closer to my daughter,” Moore said. “He was a captain with total control over me. I had no choice but to obey.”
She said that she feared getting placed in solitary confinement if she tried to report the officer and was aware of other women who were punished for reporting abuse.
The slow pace of accountability for inmate sexual abuse, combined with limited resources for internal investigators, puts inmates at continued risk, the report found. The Bureau of Prisons’ Office of Internal Affairs has a case backlog of about 8,000, some of which have been pending for more than five years.
The investigative panel, a part of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is led by Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff, who has focused on prison abuse and misconduct.
“This situation is intolerable,” Ossoff said at Tuesday’s hearing “Sexual abuse of inmates is a gross abuse of human and constitutional rights and cannot be tolerated by the United States Congress. It is cruel and unusual punishment that violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and basic standards of human decency.”
Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters, who was appointed in July, appeared at the hearing and was asked by Ossoff why the bureau hasn’t made systemic changes to prevent abuse, given the volume of alleged and corroborated complaints.
“I wish I had a good answer to that question,” Peters said. “What I can tell you is that when you look at the institutions that you’re highlighting — and you see an institution that has been riveted with cases it’s it’s hard to explain — it’s hard to understand how systemic changes were not implemented.”
Peters said she has worked since her appointment to inspect prisons and transition from prior Bureau of Prisons leadership. Citing reports of abuse by prison leaders, she called it “absolutely egregious,” nothing that extreme power differences while in custody make it impossible for inmates to consent to sex with law enforcement.
“I welcome accountability and oversight and I welcome this hearing,” Peters said. “We must come to this work with our arms wide open.”
Peters said she will aim to improve internal surveillance systems and introduce body cameras as long as there’s sufficient funding in place from Congress.
Earlier this year, Ossoff led a Senate panel exposing corruption and misconduct at a federal penitentiary in Georgia. At the time, he said prison staff allowed massive amounts of contraband to flow into the facilities.
“Contraband is the beginning of sexual assault,” Peters said on Tuesday, adding that cell phones are often used to coordinate prison crimes between inmates and are a major threat to security.
During her initial testimony, Moore expressed regret for the drug offense that landed her in prison. She explained that after having a daughter at age 17, she was looking for extra money and began selling crack cocaine.
“I’m not an activist or someone who’s normally — who would normally use my voice like I am today,” Moore told the panel. “Speaking about my experience in such a public setting is incredibly hard. I’m willing to do so because other women are still in prison and I am out. I hope that they will not have to go through what I went through.
(NEW YORK) — The Department of Education on Monday sent an email to some 9 million federal student loan borrowers correcting an erroneous announcement sent three weeks ago about the status of pending debt forgiveness.
Just before Thanksgiving, those borrowers, who applied for student debt relief from the federal government, got an email from the Department of Education with a subject line indicating their application had been “approved,” according to a copy of the email obtained by ABC News.
But that was misleading as the Biden administration’s student loan program was halted in mid-November by Republican-led lawsuits — weeks before the email was sent informing borrowers of their “approved” status.
The email explained as much in the email body, informing borrowers that “lawsuits are preventing the Department of Education from implementing its one-time student loan debt relief program.”
The program will remain in limbo until the Supreme Court makes a final call sometime before late June. But the subject line left many borrowers confused.
Acknowledging the misfire last week, the Department of Education initially told ABC News that the borrowers would get an updated email soon that corrected the subject line and clarified the state of the program.
The Department of Education also said that around 16 million people did get emails with the correct subject line.
A department spokesperson said Accenture Federal Services, a contractor that does digital work for the federal government, is primarily responsible.
In the correction email sent on Monday, the Department of Education apologized for the confusion, told borrowers that the error was made by the federal contractor and that the subject line was “inaccurate.”
“We have received your application but are not permitted to review your eligibility because of ongoing litigation. We will keep your application information and review your eligibility if and when we prevail in court,” the email stated. “We apologize for the confusion, and you do not need to take any further action at this time. We will keep you updated with any developments.”
A department spokesperson previously told ABC News that “communicating clearly and accurately with borrowers is a top priority of the Department. We are in close touch with Accenture Federal Services as they take corrective action to ensure all borrowers and those affected have accurate information about debt relief.”
Accenture Federal Services did not return a request for comment from ABC News, but the Education Department has said the company is expected to review quality control measures for future email messages having to do with the program.
On the whole, the erroneous email was just one of multiple twists and turns for the debt relief proposal, which the White House announced in late August.
Around 26 million Americans applied for forgiveness by early November — nearly half of the people who were eligible. About 43 million Americans qualify in total, according to the Biden administration.
President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona have said they remain confident the program will prevail through the legal challenges, though its challengers maintain the president has overreached his authority.
(WASHINGTON) — The Respect for Marriage Act, which will be signed into law on Tuesday by President Joe Biden, is being celebrated as historic by him and lawmakers of both parties.
While the law will guarantee federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages, it was passed through Congress essentially as a compromise and as a backstop in case the Supreme Court overruled its prior rulings, which are currently the legal basis for such rights.
Here’s what the Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA) does and doesn’t do:
A constitutional right to same-sex and interracial marriage is currently guaranteed only by Supreme Court precedent. Every state is required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex and interracial couples according to the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and the 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia.
If the Supreme Court were to overrule either of those precedents — a fear among Democrats and advocates in light of a concurring opinion in the conservative majority’s June ruling to scrap national abortion rights — then the RFMA acts as a limited remedy.
RFMA does not enshrine a right to same-sex or interracial marriage nationwide. That means it does not require states to perform same-sex and interracial marriages.
States would be free to deny marriage licenses to same-sex or interracial couples if the Supreme Court precedents were overruled. (Justice Clarence Thomas, in his June concurring opinion on abortion, specifically pointed to Obergefell as having been wrongly decided.)
What RFMA does do is require the federal government and all states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages if they were legally performed in the past or are performed in the future in places where they are still legal, including other states.
Effectively, this means that all same-sex and interracial couples who are legally married today — some 710,000 same-sex couples as of 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau; while about 10% of married households were interracial as of 2012-2016 — and going forward cannot be denied the civil benefits of their unions in any state if court precedents were to be overruled.
RFMA also offers explicit protections for religious groups with moral objections to same-sex or interracial marriages: They are not required to provide goods or services to the marriages they object to and their tax-exempt status cannot be rescinded for refusing to perform or respect a marriage.
Prior to Obergefell, 32 states prohibited or likely prohibited same-sex marriages, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most of those laws remain on the books.
As was the case with states’ abortion laws in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overruled this summer, many of the restrictive state marriage measures would likely snap back into effect if Obergefell was struck down.
In that case, same-sex marriage licenses may be available in some states, but not others. However, under RFMA, marriages legally performed in one state would need to be honored everywhere.
The law does not prevent a state from legally challenging Obergefell or Loving — or the Supreme Court from revisiting those decisions, as Justice Thomas has called for.
There is currently no legal case headed to or before the court on these issues, however. It’s not clear that a sufficient number of justices would have the appetite to heed Thomas’ call.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed legislation protecting same-sex and interracial marriage.
Thousands of people gathered on the White House South Lawn to commemorate the Respect for Marriage Act becoming law.
“Today is a good day,” Biden said as he took the podium after Vice President Kamala Harris. “A day America takes a vital step toward equality, for liberty and justice — not just for some, but for everyone. Toward creating a nation where decency, dignity and love are recognized, honored and protected.”
“Look, we’re here today to celebrate their courage and everyone who made the day possible,” the president continued. “Courage that led to progress we’ve seen over the decades, progress that gives us hope that every generation will continue on our journey toward a more perfect union.”
The ceremony included performances from Grammy winners Sam Smith and Cyndi Lauper. Smith, who announced in 2019 they were nonbinary and use they/them pronouns, performed their hit song “Stay With Me” followed by Lauper singing “True Colors.”
Appearing in the White House briefing room ahead of her performance, Lauper, a longtime LGBTQ advocate, told reporters, “We can rest easy tonight because our families are validated.”
“And because now we’re allowed to love who we love, which sounds odd to say. But Americans can now love who we love and bless Joe Biden and all the people that worked on this for allowing people not to worry and their children not to worry about their future,” Lauper said.
She founded the True Colors Fund, a nonprofit that educates people on LGBTQ issues and helps to end homelessness for LGBTQ youth.
A White House official said that notable guests attending the signing ceremony included Club Q founder Matthew Haynes and two survivors of the shooting that happened just last month at the Colorado Springs, Colorado, LGBTQ nightclub. Other attendees included a survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting that killed 49 people in Orlando, Florida, and plaintiffs and counselors from the Obergefell and Loving Supreme Court cases.
“We must stop the hate and violence like we just saw in Colorado Springs for a place of acceptance and celebration was targeted for violence and terror,” Biden said Tuesday. “We need to challenge the hundreds of callous, cynical laws introduced in the states targeting transgender children, terrifying families and criminalizing doctors who give children the care they need. We have to protect these children so they know they’re loved and we will stand up for them.”
“Folks, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia are all connected,” Biden continued. “But the antidote to hate is love … This law matters to every single American no matter who you are or who you love.”
The Respect for Marriage Act passed with bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress after months of negotiation, particularly over provisions related to religion. The House voted last week 258-169 to send the bill to Biden’s desk after the Senate passed it 61-36. A minority of Republicans joined Democrats in both votes.
It became a priority for Democrats after the Supreme Court’s June decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which five conservative justices overruled Roe v. Wade and the national guarantee to abortion access.
Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, said he believed the court should reconsider other precedents based on similar legal doctrine, including 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges — which found that the 14th Amendment requires all states to license same-sex marriages.
The Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t include Obergefell’s national requirement but will mandate that individual states recognize same-sex and interracial marriages that were lawfully performed in another state.
Some Republicans who voted for the legislation in Congress noted additional language around protecting religious groups who still object to same-sex marriage.
Critics like Utah Sen. Mike Lee said it didn’t go far enough, however.
Biden has long been outspoken on the issue of same-sex marriage and in 2012, famously preempted then-President Barack Obama in declaring his public support.
“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” Biden said during an interview at the time on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Who do you love? Who do you love and will you be loyal to the person you love?” Biden said then. “And that’s what people are finding out, what all marriages at their root are about.”
After Lauper finished her performance at the bill signing, audio of Biden’s 2012 “Meet the Press” interview was played. A White House official said they planned to distribute commemorative items at Tuesday’s ceremony that invoke Biden’s remarks from 10 years ago announcing his support for gay marriage.
As Biden finished signing the law to cheers from the crowd, Lady Gaga’s pro-LGBTQ song “Born This Way” began to play.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer kicked off Tuesday’s ceremony, with Schumer touting the marriage legislation as an “important step forward” in the march toward equality.
Pelosi, who is stepping down from Democratic leadership, has said she’s “happy” this bill is one of the last she will sign as speaker and became emotional when the measure passed in the chamber.
Pelosi on Tuesday noted the full-circle nature of the legislation, after repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell when she was ending her speakership the first time in 2010. Biden gave Pelosi and other lawmakers who worked to get the bill through Congress a shout-out in his remarks.
“This is about respect. This is about taking pride,” Pelosi said, “and it’s about time that we do so at the federal level.”
(WASHINGTON) — House Jan. 6 committee Chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters on Tuesday that the panel plans to hold its final public meeting on Monday, Dec. 19 at 1 p.m. ET — two days earlier than expected.
Thompson said the committee will vote on criminal referrals and on report approval next Monday and that its final report will come two days later, on Wednesday, Dec. 21.
Thompson said the report will be posted online.
It’s not clear whether that will be accompanied by a press conference or if it will just be posted at a certain time.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
