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Senator Padilla is a champion for reproductive rights and is a cosponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act
LOS ANGELES — U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, visited the Planned Parenthood Los Angeles headquarters on Friday to meet with volunteers, advocates and workers, and highlight his efforts to protect essential reproductive health care in the wake of the Dobbs decision.
Padilla was joined by Sue Dunlap, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles and Celinda Vazquez, Chief External Officer of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. The visit comes as nearly half of states across the country continue to restrict access to reproductive care.
“I am grateful for the tremendous level of dedication and care that Planned Parenthood Los Angeles offers to the surrounding community,” said Senator Padilla. “However, across the country women continue to experience the harmful and, in many cases, deadly consequences of a post-Roe America. In the face of unending attacks on reproductive freedom, we will not give up the fight to protect a woman’s right to safe abortion access.”
“We want to extend our sincere thanks to Senator Padilla for stopping by Planned Parenthood Los Angeles to see the importance of our work first hand. Senator Padilla is a long time champion for reproductive health care and access to safe and legal abortion and we’re thankful for his continued advocacy in this critical moment where people from all walks of life are looking to California to lead.” Celinda M. Vazquez, Chief External Affairs Officer, Planned Parenthood Los Angeles.
Senator Padilla is a champion for reproductive rights and is a cosponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would guarantee access and the right to provide abortion services in the United States.
Most recently, Padilla joined his colleagues in introducing the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act of 2022, legislation that would make it clear that it is illegal for anti-choice states to limit travel for abortion services and would empower the U.S. Attorney General and impacted individuals to bring civil action against those who restrict a person’s right to cross state lines to receive legal reproductive care.
Padilla also successfully secured commitments from SafeGraph and Placer.ai, two data brokers, to permanently stop selling the location data of people who visit abortion clinics. This month, he also urged President Biden to prioritize health equity for people of color, and low-income, immigrant, and tribal communities in any executive actions to address the recent Dobbs decision.
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Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivor: ‘You are reiterating the points of a mass shooter, sir, sir, you are perpetuating violence,’
WASHINGTON – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida mass-shooting survivor David Hogg was removed by a Capitol Police officer from a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing about gun control on Wednesday, after he confronted Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs about “reiterating the points of mass shooters.”
Hogg was sitting in the gallery seating area reserved for the public when Biggs made an observation about the source of weapons and motivations of the shooters used in mass shootings when Hogg stood up and confronted him.
“You’re reiterating the points of mass shooters in your manifesto!” he shouted. “The shooter in my high school, anti-Semitic, anti-black and racist. The shooter in El Paso described it as an invasion.”
The guns in Parkland, Buffalo, El Paso, didn’t come from Mexico. They came from the US, and the shooters were inspired by racist, anti-black, anti-immigrant manifestos that rhyme with GOP talking points. pic.twitter.com/0D4QbHvu1t
Hogg’s angered outburst came as testimony by Hogg’s former schoolmates and classmates continued in Day three of the sentencing phase in the death penalty trial of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shooter.
In at times emotionally charged testimony, former students recalled the horrors of the carnage inside the Freshman Building as the shooter armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle murdered students and faculty members who were trying to shield and protect their students.
WTJV NBC 6 reported, that students who were wounded and witnessed classmates gunned down in the Parkland school shooting were the first to testify Wednesday at the gunman’s sentencing trial.
Hogg issued a more detailed explanation on his twitter account:
We have a duty to interrupt white nationalists when they spew harmful rhetoric. We have to, they’re using the same talking points as mass shooter manifestos. Here’s my reflections and some context. https://t.co/lrz8RMBc84 pic.twitter.com/dTb6YpDLZO
“We must act now to defend same sex and inter racial marriage from the bigotry and extremism in the wake of the Dobbs decision”
WASHINGTON – The U.S. House approved on Tuesday with significant bipartisan support the Respect for Marriage Act, signaling support for ensuring marriage rights for same-sex couples amid fears basic rights are at threat in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
Lawmakers approved the measure, introduced by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), by an 267-`157 vote- including 47 Republicans voting yes.
Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), a Black lawmaker who one’s of nine openly gay or lesbian members of Congress, was among those who spoke on the House floor ahead of the floor and said the vote on the measure was “personal” for him.
“I still remember where I was on June 24, 2011 — the day the New York State legislature passed marriage equality,” Jones said. “I was living with friends in New York City, but I was still closeted, and I was so afraid still that someone might find out the truth about my being gay. So, instead, I closed the door to my room and cried tears of joy by my lonesome. Finally, my home state of New York had recognized me as a full human being. Affirmed all of those scary, yet beautiful, feelings that I had bottled up inside for decades – wondering, hoping, one day the world would change.”
A key point of the Democrats argument for the advancing the Respect for Marriage Act was the concurrence to the Dobbs decision against abortion rights written by U.S. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, where he spelled out his inclination to revisit the landmark decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court, including the Obergefell decision for same-sex marriage as well as the 2003 the striking down states sodomy bans in Lawrence v. Texas and the 1965 decision striking down state bans on contraception in Griswold v. Connecticut.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) significantly drew on Thomas’ concurrence in her remarks on the House floor in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, saying it was evidence of a greater plot from the Republican Party to undermine the right for same-sex couples to marry.
“We must act now to defend same sex and inter racial marriage from the bigotry and extremism in the wake of the Dobbs decision,” Pelosi said. “With marriage rights now squarely in Republican crossfires, Democrats are ferociously fighting back. With a landmark Respect for Marriage Act, we ensure that marriage equality remains the law of the land now and for generations to come.”
Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) issued the following statement after the House voted to pass the Respect for Marriage Act:
“Last month, the Supreme Court issued a devastating opinion striking down Roe v. Wade, overturning decades of precedent and setting off alarm bells for millions of LGBTQ+ individuals who now fear that the loss of even more of their rights may be next. As Justice Thomas made clear in his concurring opinion, overturning Roe is just the beginning for this reactionary court – and he name-checked the right to same-sex marriage as one of the next rights that could fall.
“The Respect for Marriage Act, which I’m proud to co-sponsor, will protect the precedents laid out in Obergefell v. Hodges and Loving v. Virginia and enshrine the right to marriage equality for LGBTQ+ couples and interracial couples. It is difficult to fathom that in 2022 we must take such aggressive action – yet this Court has made such action necessary.
“Congress must not let a partisan, unrepresentative body roll back the clock on all the rights we hold dear. The Senate must now take up and pass this bill without delay.”
A record high number of Americans, 71%, support marriage equality, seven years after it was legalized nationwide in the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision.
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis responded:
“LGBTQ people are under attack: in state legislatures, by Governors, on social media, and within the Supreme Court, where anti-LGBTQ justices have stated their desire to reconsider LGBTQ protections from privacy to marriage equality.
We welcome today’s House passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, a critical step to enshrine existing protections for LGBTQ couples and families, as well as interracial couples.
A vast majority of Americans from all political backgrounds support marriage equality because they know LGBTQ people, our relationships and our families deserve the same recognition and protections as any other couple. We urge the Senate to take swift action to pass the Respect For Marriage Act to ensure our families continue to receive the protections that only marriage affords.”
The Respect for Marriage Act would:
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurrence in the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, wrote that the Court “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” Griswold decided that the Constitution protected privacy of marital couples to contraception; Lawrence protects privacy in same-sex relationships; Obergefell legalized marriage equality nationwide.
Justice Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito also issued a formal rebuke of Obergefell on the Court’s opening day in October 2020.
Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, released the following statement from Executive Director Tony Hoang:
“Thanks to the leadership of Speaker Pelosi and her pro-equality majority, the House took an important step toward safeguarding the freedom to marry for all Americans today. The Supreme Court has made clear that they cannot be relied upon to respect their own precedent or protect our civil rights, so it is imperative that Congress and President Biden use every power at their disposal to do so. That includes passing the Respect for Marriage Act, but it also includes passing the Equality Act, codifying Roe v. Wade’s right to abortion care and safeguarding the fundamental right to vote.
“It is shameful that in 2022, when an overwhelming majority of Californians and a majority of Republicans support the freedom to marry, Leader McCarthy and Representatives Steel, Kim, McClintock, LaMalfa and Conway would vote to deny loving married couples equal protection and dignity under the law. California deserves better. The communities they represent deserve better. And this is a vote that the LGBTQ+ community will not soon forget.
“We urge the Senate to join the House in passing the Respect for Marriage Act without delay. And we will continue to fight for full, lived equality for all LGBTQ+ people until the work is done.”
Members of Congress are now moving on multiple tracks to protect other privacy-related rights they now perceive as under threat
WASHINGTON – In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that rescinded the nationwide right to abortion, members of Congress are now moving on multiple tracks to protect other privacy-related rights they now perceive as under threat.
U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, on Monday introduced legislation alongside bipartisan co-sponsors that would codify marriage equality in federal law, repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and establish recognition protections for out-of-state marriages.
In a statement released following the introduction of the bill — titled the Respect for Marriage Act — Nadler connected what he felt as the necessity of such legislation to the Supreme Court’s opinion released in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“Three weeks ago, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court not only repealed Roe v. Wade and walked back 50 years of precedent, it signaled that other rights, like the right to same-sex marriage, are next on the chopping block,” Nadler said. “As this court may take aim at other fundamental rights, we cannot sit idly by as the hard-earned gains of the Equality movement are systematically eroded.”
U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced a companion bill in the U.S. Senate. The two measures join similar pieces of privacy-related legislation like the Women’s Health Protection Act, which the U.S. House of Representatives passed in an effort to codify nationwide abortion rights.
The Respect for Marriage Act’s introduction came on the same day members of Congress renewed their efforts to modify the structure of the Supreme Court altogether.
The Judiciary Act of 2021 seeks to increase the number of seats on the court to balance its judicial ideology.
In a press conference on Capitol Hill on Monday, Democratic lawmakers joined the heads of multiple national advocacy groups in calling on Congress to expand the court from nine seats to 13.
“We just cannot sit back as a captive court captures our rights,” U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said. “Expanding the court is constitutional, it has been done before, we can do it now. And the reason we support this approach is that it is constitutional, it is immediate, and it does the job of dealing with the crisis of today.”
While lawmakers at the press conference expressed support for the codification legislation, they believe expanding the court will be more likely to stand up to potential challenges.
“You should not forget, though, that anything that the legislature passes, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter as to whether or not it is constitutional or not,” U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said. “And so, that gives you some idea of this second track that you’re talking about. Yes, we can pass legislation, but that legislation would be challenged across the street and this right-wing, Republican, extremist Supreme Court which has been captured by money interests — the future is not bright with the current arrangement so that’s why we need to pass the Judiciary Act of 2021.”
With regard to codification legislation, however, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) told the Washington Blade at the press conference that she is certain of Congress’ ability to secure its passage.
“I suspect that there will be a strong support for all of these legislative initiatives,” Lee said. “And I will suspect that in the Senate, it is a different atmosphere now, and because we have to be dual track — one, dealing with the reversal of the Supreme Court decisions. And what do the American people look to? They look to their legislative body — particularly Congress — to represent the majority of their views.”
Democratic leadership in Congress has endorsed various legislation working to codify such rights as same-sex marriage and nationwide abortion access. Many have been hesitant, however, to get behind efforts to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court — a stance shared President Joe Biden.
But approaching a midterm election with prospects of a Republican-controlled Congress — coupled with low overall approval ratings for the president — Democrats have framed their efforts as both urgent and mandated by the people.
“I think there is a movement, a momentum, a push by the American people to do justice and to do it justly and they’re asking us to do our jobs and that’s what we’re doing,” Lee said.
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