WATCH: Eizabeth Warren's 1st TV Ad

Senate Judiciary Passes DOMA Repeal Bill!

Today the United States Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Respect for Marriage Act by a party-line vote of 10-8 with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans voting against. Think Progress has video clips of the absolutely insane things the Republican opponents said to defend their increasingly tenuous and arbitrary defense of the Defense of Marriage Act.

President Obama endorsed the bill in July and the White House issued a statement after the vote which said:

President Obama applauds today’s vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee to approve the Respect for Marriage Act, which would provide a legislative repeal of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act.” The President has long believed that DOMA is discriminatory and has called for its repeal. We should all work towards taking this law off the books. The federal government should not deny gay and lesbian couples the same rights and legal protections afforded to straight couples.”

Very important result. It will be interesting if they can even get a vote on the bill on the Senate floor

Feingold Endorses Baldwin For Senate

Former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has announced that he is endorsing openly gay Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin to become the next U.S. Senator from Wisconsin.

Feingold has long been an advocate for strong Wall Street reform and cleaning up corporations -- he opposed the Dodd-Frank legislation because it didn't go far enough and called on Democrats to stop taking corporate contributions.

The only other non-incumbent endorsement Feingold has made in 2012 is his backing of Elizabeth Warren, who is running for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. In his email endorsement of Warren, Feingold also stressed that she "stood up against the Wall Street wish list of a bankruptcy bill" and would "keep fighting for middle class families on Capitol Hill."

"Tammy is a true progressive champion, one of the strongest fighters for working families our state has ever produced and a hero to those of us who believe in breaking barriers and eliminating injustice in our society," adds Feingold, who also asks supporters to contribute to the Baldwin campaign. "I was proud to call her a colleague as we fought together in Washington for Wisconsin families -- and I’ll be proud to call her my Senator."

Lesbian Federal Judicial Nominee Confirmed 48-44

Ridiculous!! A;most every Republican Senator, even Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins voted against the nomination of out lesbian Ali Nathan to have a lifetime appointment as a federal judge on Thursday. The nomination was approved by the surprisingly close vote of 48 Aye, 44 No.

Chris Geidner at MetroWeekly's Poliglot has the scoop:

Nathan, an out lesbian, will be the second out lesbian federal judge with lifetime tenure in the country, joining U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts on the bench of the Southern District of New York.
White House spokesman Shin Inouye praised the Senate action, writing, "The President welcomes the confirmation of Alison Nathan. She will serve the American people well from the District Court bench."


Five members of the Democratic caucus did not vote for Nathan's nomination, and no Republicans voted for it. Less than three months ago, U.S. District Court Judge J. Paul Oeken, was confirmed with the support of 28 Republicans. Oetken also sits on the Southern District of New York bench and currently is the only out gay male judge serving in one of the lifetime tenure positions in the federal judiciary.


Four Democrats not voting today were Sens. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with the Democrats, also did not vote. The three Republicans not voting were Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and David Vitter (R-La.).

It just goes to show you how much more seriously conservatives take the federal judiciary than liberals when they were willing to vote against this amazingly well-qualified person for basically illusory reasons.

Saturday Politics: DiFi's Low Poll Numbers, Cash Problem

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, no longer California's most popular politician?

Dianne Feinstein, long thought to be the most popular politician in California, has been running into some rough times lately. MadProfessah blogged about her poll numbers approaching the danger zone in June 2011 and now comes word of a more recent poll (September 16) confirming the conservadem's fall from grace.

Reuters reports:

The Field Research Corp poll estimated voters who do not want Feinstein to win reelection in 2012 to another six-year term at 44 percent, compared to 41 percent who favor her.

That is the first time the Field Poll has seen a larger share of voters say they are opposed to seeing Feinstein win reelection compared to the percentage who favor her election.

Feinstein is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and has a reputation for being more conservative than California's other Senator, Barbara Boxer, also a Democrat.

In nearly every Field Poll over the past two decades, voters who approved of Feinstein outnumbered by double-digit margins those who disapproved, researchers said.

But the Field Poll showed only 41 percent said they approved of her job performance while 39 percent disapproved, representing the lowest rating of Feinstein's tenure.

Besides the low poll numbers, Sen. Feinstein is also caught up in the burgeoning Kinde Durkee accounting scandal. Apparently her $5 millon war chest for next November's re-election has been wiped out. Feinstein is responding by using $5 million of her (husband's) money to replace the amount stolen by the corrupt Democratic political accountant.

Politico reported about Feinstein's troubles last week:

Feinstein’s campaign already had a cloud hanging over it: This will be the first major race she navigates without her longtime strategist Kam Kuwata, whose death in April stunned political observers and left a gaping hole in her operation.

Those developments, coupled with Feinstein’s age — she’ll turn 79 next year — have fueled retirement speculation. While a formal announcement isn’t planned until 2012, Carrick told POLITICO that Feinstein will pursue a fourth term. But a volatile environment that continues to punish politicians with longtime ties to the establishment could still provide an opening for a robust Republican challenge.

While most see a weakened Feinstein still sailing to a comfortable victory, some believe a legitimate GOP challenger could be a boon to both sides. The scandal forced Feinstein to begin fundraising from scratch, and donors are hesitant to throw money at a campaign that so far faces no serious threats.

“There’s nothing more frustrating than shadow boxing,” said Carrick. “That’s a fundraising issue too. You get some people to say, ‘I’ll give when she has a serious opponent.’”

I know that I will most definitely not donating to or voting for Dianna Feinstein, for anything, ever again. She lost me when she carried water for President George W. Bush to get some of his conservative federal judicial appointments through the United States Senate, teaming up with her "good friend" Joe Lieberman to give aid and comfort to the Republicans.

I don't care that she voted against DOMA in 1996 and supports the Respect for Marriage Act and  marriage equality. She's bad on a whole lot of other progressive issues, something which can NOT be said for California's other U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, who I would walk 3 miles in the snow, barefoot to support. It's amazing that California has two Democratic female Senators who are so very different on the issues.d

Obama Diversifies Federal Judiciary

Bernice Donald has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be the
first  Black woman on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Now this is a lovely feel-good story! According to the Huffington Post, the nation's first President who is not a White male has become the first President to have a majority of his federal judiciary nominees be non white males, or "non-traditional."

More than 70 percent of Obama's confirmed judicial nominees during his first two years were "non-traditional," or nominees who were not white males. That far exceeds the percentages in the two-term administrations of Bill Clinton (48.1 percent) and George W. Bush (32.9 percent), according to Sheldon Goldman, author of the authoritative book "Picking Federal Judges."


[...]

Of the 98 Obama nominees confirmed to date, the administration says 21 percent are African-American, 11 percent are Hispanic, 7 percent are Asian-American and almost half – 47 percent – are women. By comparison, of the 322 judges confirmed during George W. Bush's presidency, 18 percent were minorities and 22 percent were female. Of the 372 judges confirmed during Clinton's terms, 25 percent were minorities and 29 percent were women. In these figures, some judges fit into more than one category.

Last week, the Senate confirmed the first African-American woman to sit on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Bernice Donald. Earlier, she was the first African-American woman elected as a judge in Tennessee, the first appointed as federal bankruptcy judge in the nation and first confirmed as a U.S. district judge in Tennessee.

Obama also has doubled the number of Asian-Americans sitting on the federal bench, including adding Denny Chin to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York as the only active Asian federal appeals court judge. There currently are 14 Asian-American federal judges on the 810-judge roster.


[...]


For more than 140 years, there were no females or minorities among the nation's federal judges.

Read that last line again. For the first 140 years (of the 220 years they have been in existence) the federal courts had zero racial or gender diversity. And I'm pretty sure that's just the way Republicans would prefer it to be!

Tammy Baldwin Announces U.S. Senate Bid!

Tammy Baldwin is an openly lesbian Congresswoman from Wisconsin (WI-02) who has never lost an election and is today announcing her historic bid to become the first openly LGBT member of the United States Senate! There have been openly LGBT candidates for U.S. Senate before, but no one as widely regarded as Baldwin, who is already polling ahead of potential rivals in the Democratic primary.
Baldwin has represented the Madison, WI area in Congress for over a dozen years and has always been an openly gay politician, becoming the first (and only) open lesbian to serve in the U.S. Congress.
You can bet MadProfessah will be following this race very closely, as well as contributing to the campaign in whatever ways I can. Tammy is the real deal, a progressive Democrat who recognizes LGBT issues as party of the tapestry of progressive politics.

Celebrity Friday: Barbara Mikulski Avoiding DOMA Repeal?

U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, is the
second-longest serving woman in Congress in history

As support for legislative repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act gains steam with hearings being held in the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, attention has begun to fall on liberal members of the Democratic caucus who have inexplicably not yet co-sponsored the Respect for Marriage Act (S. 598/H.R. 1116). For example, in Maryland where marriage equality supporters are expected to move forward with another attempt to legalize marriage equality in 2012 with the strong support of the state's Governor after 2011's heartbreaking defeat, only one of that state's two Democratic U.S. Senators is on record in support of the Respect for Marriage Act or marriage equality itself.There are currently 18 US Senators who support marriage equality and there are 28 U.S. Senators co-sponsoring the DOMA repeal bill.

It's a perfectly reasonable position to be against DOMA (which even in 1996 was a truly shocking federal intrusion into an area of law ceded to the states for hundreds of years rooted in animus towards homosexuality) without publicly endorsing marriage equality, that's the current position of the President of the United States.

What's so surprising is that the Senator from Maryland who is supporting DOMA repeal is Benjamin Cardin, not Barbara Mikulski. Mikulski is a longtime liberal and is currently the longest serving female member of Congress. If she is still in office after March 12, 2012 she will become the longest serving female member of Congress of all time. She has also been widely rumored to be a closeted lesbian for decades. Regardless of what her sexual orientation, it is becoming unacceptable for prominent members of the Democratic party, especially someone as senior as Mikulski not to take a position in favor of marriage equality, especially when it is an important issue for her state and there is federal legislation pending before the United States Senate right now.

Brown Nominates Goodwin Liu To CA Sup Ct!

Charles Dharapak / AP Photo

Goodwin Liu, 40, was rejected by a Republican United States Senate filibuster for a coveted position on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but has received a pretty nice consolation prize: a nomination by Governor Jerry Brown to the California State Supreme Court (from which he could still be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court before he's 50).

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Liu, a graduate of Yale Law School, is the son of Taiwanese immigrants. He was born in Georgia, grew up in Sacramento and has a history of public service.

“I’m deeply honored by Gov. Brown’s nomination and look forward to the opportunity to serve the people of California on our state’s highest court,” Liu said in a statement.

Before joining the Berkeley Law faculty in 2003, Liu was an appellate litigator at O'Melveny & Myers in Washington. He clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and for Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He also served as special assistant to the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education and as senior program officer for higher education at the Corporation for National Service (AmeriCorps).

Brown has forwarded Liu’s name to the State Bar’s Commission of Judicial Nominees Evaluation. The appointment will not become final until the Commission on Judicial Appointments -- consisting of state Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and Justice Joan Dempsey Klein, senior presiding justice of the state Court of Appeal -- confirms the nomination.

Liu will replace Associate Justice Carlos Moreno, who retired from the court earlier this year.

Justice Moreno was a very strong advocate for the LGBT community, voting with 4-3 majority to end marriage discrimination in California's landmark In Re Marriage cases in 2008 and was the lone dissenter in 2009's California Supreme Court decision which upheld Proposition 8 as not violating the California constitution.

Goodwin Liu has previously expressed his belief that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional so it will be interesting to see if he can get confirmed in time to participate in the case now before the case as to whether the heterosexual supremacist supporters of Proposition 8 have legal standing to defend it in court when the elected representatives of the people of California have decided not to defend a voter-approved ballot measure.

Another interesting feature that Liu, if confirmed will produce a court with an Asian American majority and no Black or Latino members, in a state which has Latino plurality in the population. Things that make you go Hmmmmmm! That being said, Liu is a great choice, since he can't get through the Senate to a federal judgeship while Republicans have more than 40 votes and no compunctions about filibustering extremely qualified judges purely based on ideology, a state supreme court seat is fantastic.

President Obama Endorses DOMA Repeal Bill!

Today is when the Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony about the repeal of the so-called Defense of  Marriage Act, through consideration of S. 598, the Respect for Marriage Act.

However, yesterday the Whuite House Press Secretary Jay Carney made news yesterrday when he announced that the President was endorsing the legislation, even before its first committee hearing (a rare step for Presidents to take with legislation).

The response was to a question by openly gay reporter Chris Geidner of Metro Weekly:




The transcript of the exchange is available:

Metro Weekly: The president has said in the past that he opposes the Defense of Marriage Act, but he is yet to endorse the Respect for Marriage Act, which is the specific piece of legislation --

Carney: Senator [Dianne] Feinstein [(D-Calif.)], yeah.

Metro Weekly: -- aimed to repeal the bill. Tomorrow, the Senate will hold the first hearing into that bill. Is the administration ready to endorse that bill?

Carney: I can tell you that the President has long called for a legislative repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, which continues to have a real impact on the lives of real people -- our families, friends and neighbors. He is proud to support the Respect for Marriage Act, introduced by Sen. Feinstein and Congressman [Jerrold] Nadler [(D-N.Y.)], which would take DOMA off the books once and for all. This legislation would uphold the principle that the federal government should not deny gay and lesbian couples the same rights and legal protections as straight couples.

It should be interesting how far Senate Democrats want to push DOMA repeal. They presumably have the votes to get it out of committee but probably not the 60 votes to break the inevitable filibuster. And passage in the U.S. House is a non-starter.

U.S. Senate DOMA Repeal Hearing Tomorrow!

Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is conducting a hearing on July 20th on the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and the Respect for Marriage Act (S. 598/H.R. 1116), which would repeal the 1996 federal law which bans the recognition of legally same-sex married couples by the federal government, among other things.

The hearing will be split into two panels. TowleRoad has the details

Panel 1

* Susan Murray, who lives in Ferrisburgh, Vt., with her spouse, Karen Murray. An attorney with the Burlington office of Langrock, Sperry & Wool, Murray was the co-counsel in the lawsuit Baker v. Vermont, which established civil unions in Vermont in 2000.

* Andrew Sorbo, a Cheshire, Conn., resident who was married to Colin Atterbury. Before dying of pancreatic cancer in 2009, Atterbury was a retired Veterans Affairs hospital administrator and professor of medicine at Yale University. Sorbo, now retired, worked for 35 years as a history teacher and principal. 

* Ron Wallen, an Indio, Calif. resident, who married Tom Carrollo in 2008 after being together for 55 years. In March, Carrollo lost his battle to cancer. After Carrollo's death, Wallen's income was compromised because DOMA prohibits him from receiving his spouse's Social Security payment. Wallen would have been able to receive these payments had he been in an opposite-sex marriage. According to the hearing notice, Wallen is unable to make payments on his family home and is faced with selling the residence, after just losing his spouse.

Thomas Minnery, Senior Vice President for Public Policy, Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO.

Panel 2

Joe Solmonese, President, The Human Rights Campaign, Washington, DC.

David Austin R. Nimocks, Senior Legal Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund, Washington, DC.

Edward Whelan, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC 

Evan Wolfson, Founder and Executive Director, Freedom to Marry, New York, NY

Although I don't usually agree with Dan Choi on many things, I do agree that the lack of diversity at this hearing is shameful. 7 White guys and 1 white woman? Come on, now!

UPDATE 07/19/2011 04:57PM PST:


According to Karen Ocamb the updated witness list now includes some color (Congressman John Lewis of Georgia):

UPDATED Witness List

Hearing before the
Senate Committee on the Judiciary
On

“S.598, The Respect for Marriage Act: Assessing the Impact of DOMA on American Families”
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Hart Senate Office Building, Room 216
9:45 a.m.

Panel I

The Honorable John Lewis
United States Congressman
State of Georgia

The Honorable Jerrold Nadler
United States Congressman
State of New York

Panel II

Ron Wallen
Indio, CA

Thomas Minnery
Senior Vice President for Public Policy
Focus on the Family
Colorado Springs, CO

Andrew Sorbo
Cheshire, CT

Susan M. Murray
Ferrisburgh, VT

Panel III

Joe Solmonese
President
The Human Rights Campaign
Washington, DC

David Austin R. Nimocks
Senior Legal Counsel
Alliance Defense Fund
Washington, DC

Edward Whelan
President
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Washington, DC

Evan Wolfson
Founder and Executive Director
Freedom to Marry
New York, NY

1st Openly Gay U.S. District Court Judge Approved By Senate

As I blogged about earlier this year, J. Paul Oetken is the first openly gay man to be nominated for a lifetime federal judgeship. On Monday, the United States Senate approved Oetken's nomination by a vote of 80-13 to a seat on the Southern District of New York, which covers New York City and is one of the busiest and prestigious federal courts in the country. Amazingly, Oetken will join the same bench that the nation's only openly lesbian federal judge sits on. Deborah Batts is an African American lesbian judge who was nominated by President Clinton and approved by the Senate in 1994. All 13 Senators voting No o Oetken's nomination were Republicans.

Chris Geidner reports:

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been supporting the nomination, praised Oetken's background and experience on the Senate floor shortly before the vote, saying "His confirmation will only improve the workings of one of the best and one of the busiest courts in the country."

Of Oetken's place as the first, Schumer said, "At this moment, Paul is not just an excellent candidate, as the first openly gay man to be confirmed as a federal judge and to serve on the federal bench, he will be a symbol of how much we have achieved as a country in just the last few decades."

Before the vote began, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) -- the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee -- also announced that he would be voting for Oetken, who was born in Iowa.

When the vote did come, all Democrats voting approved the nomination, with Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) the sole Democrat not voting. Moreover, a majority of the Senate Republican caucus -- 28 members -- voted to approve the nomination, with 13 Republicans opposing the nomination and six members not voting.

The "no" votes came from Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). The Republicans not voting were Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and David Vitter (R-La.).

This is great news. Someone should ask all the Republican presidential candidates whether they would nominate an openly LGBT person to a federal judgeship. President Obama has also nominated an out lesbian, Ali Nathan, to a federal judgeship as well. That nomination is now pending on the Senate floor.

Celebrity Friday: 13 U.S. Senators Say "It Gets Better"

13 sitting United States Senators have collaborated to put together an "It Gets Better" video for Dan Savage's pioneering anti-bullying project.

They are:

Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)

CA-SEN: Feinstein's Poll Numbers Approach Danger Zone

Dianne Feinstein has represented California in the U.S. Senate since 1992

A new Field poll shows that California's senior U.S. Senator popularity has dropped significantly, raising doubt about her election to a new 6-year term in 2012.

Politico reports:

A new Field Poll survey found that 43 percent of California voters approve of the job Feinstein is doing, while 39 percent disapprove - her highest disapproval rating in the year before an election since she won office in 1992. Of those polled, 18 percent had no opinion.

The numbers reflect a decline from a Field Poll in March, which found 48 percent of voters approving and 33 percent disapproving.

“With Feinstein, we’ve never seen these kinds of numbers before, where it’s so close,” Field poll director Mark DiCamillo told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I was more surprised in March, but to see it replicated - this was a large sample - I just think it’s a very different economic and political backdrop we’re going to have in 2012 than we’ve seen in any previous election year for Feinstein.”

The new numbers reflect a double-digit drop off since in 2005, when Feinstein enjoyed a nearly six-in-ten approval ahead of the next year’s election. Her popularity also was similar in 1999 when 59 percent of Californians approved.

I didn't vote for her in 2006 and I will not vote for her in 2012. As far as I am concerned she is Joe Lieberman in a dress. She gave aid and comfort to Republicans, especially on federal judges during the Bush administration. I'm D O N E.

Of course, I would never even consider voting for a Republican.