And as if things haven't been weird enough in Maryland lately...
The gender identity bill (House Bill 235) passed the House on Saturday, March 26 by a vote of 86-52. An impressive margin of victory. The credit for that passage would need to go to Equality Maryland, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Maryland Black Family Alliance, the ACLU of Maryland and the many organizations who worked hard to secure this, which I'd call a victory. I do know; however, many of my peers in trans community no doubt disagree with me on that.
Under normal circumstances, the bill would have gone to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee (JPR) for a hearing, a vote and an eventual vote on the Senate floor. The chair of JPR is liberal champion Sen. Brian Frosh (D-District 16), an avowed supporter of the bill.
There is some weird history here, though. Senator Frosh has previously shown a great deal of hostility to this bill, going back to 2007. There are allegations that he killed the bill that year, and that he refused to bring it up for a vote in subsequent years despite committee support for it. Veteran equality activists, including former EqMD Executive Director Dan Furmansky, have called Frosh the biggest threat to the bill in the Senate. Dan was quoted in the Blade on Monday afternoon, March 28.
Monday evening transgender activists, parents, and other advocates are at a meeting with Sen. Brian Frosh. He said publicly that he supports the bill and will do all he can to get it to a vote in JPR and out to the Senate floor.
But, I'm told he made a cryptic comment in the middle of this declaration. He said that there's a "rumor" that the bill isn't going to JPR but to the Rules Committee, the graveyard of bills disfavored by Senate leadership. It's a quick line, and Sen. Frosh immediately backtracks and says no, the bill's coming to JPR and I will support it.
Within an hour after the meeting adjourns, guess what? The HB 235 went to Rules, the only one out of over 90 House bills that passed over the weekend that has been given what is pretty well understood as a death knell for the bill.
The outrage was immediate. And the word was that Senate President Mike Miller sent the bill to Rules for two reasons: first, because he was mad at House Speaker Mike Busch for the Senate having taken some tough votes (marriage equality, the DREAM Act) on bills that have either died or are in trouble in the House; and second, because Senator Frosh asked him to send the bill to Rules. Senator Rich Madaleno, the Senate's only openly gay member, first affirms to the Washington Blade that Miller made the "Frosh asked me to do it" statement in front of the Democratic caucus, but later backtracks and says that Miller subsequently told him he must have misunderstood.
In the midst of all of the outrage, Senator Miller subsequently came up with another version of events: the gender identity bill has been heard in the Senate for four years running, there wasn't sufficient support in JPR during those four years, and there isn't now. And that's why he sent the bill to Rules. Senator Frosh, in a similar vein, says he doesn't know what the support for the bill is on JPR, because he has four new members and he hasn't asked them.
Wow. That's some great leadership there from Sen. Frosh. That's for a bill that he claimed to support and would do all he can to get it to a vote in JPR and out to the Senate floor.
But the truth more than appears to be that Sen. Frosh doesn't believe what he's saying. From here, he appears to oppose the bill, but he can't seem to bring himself to do it in the light of day -- it appears he needed Sen. Miller to do his dirty work. Sen. Miller did it by sending the bill to Rules, and it now appears he's covering up for Brian Frosh. To me, it appears Sen. Frosh has achieved the unique double experience of being both sleazy and weak both at the same time.
And how do we know this? Because it is just nonsense to compare the JPR membership of 2007-2010 with the 2011 membership. The 2007-2010 committee was comprised of 7 Democrats and 4 Republicans. Two Democrats, Anthony Muse and Norm Stone, were and are actively hostile to all LGBT issues. Combined with the committee's four Republicans, that was sufficient to kill most LGBT bills.
And Sen. Miller knew this - this was how he set up the committee, to bottle up potentially divisive bills like marriage equality.
The 2011 committee, however, has 8 Democrats and 3 Republicans. While Norm Stone remains, Anthony Muse has been replaced by Bobby Zirkin, and a new Democrat is now on the committee, Victor Martinez, who is a reliably liberal vote.
This, too, was obviously done by Sen. Miller deliberately, to give marriage equality advocates their shot at getting the bill out of the Senate, which hadn't happened before because the bill couldn't get out of JPR. And what do you know, the marriage bill passed by a vote of 7-4, and then passed the Senate 25-21 -- only to founder on the House of Delegates floor.
Similarly, those same seven senators, at least based on their public statements, support this bill: Brian Frosh, Lisa Gladden, Jim Brochin, Jamie Raskin, Jennie Forehand, Bobby Zirkin and Victor Martinez. Bobby Zirkin is a maybe, although it appears pretty clear that he will vote for it as well. That would make seven. To reiterate, that's the exact same group that voted out the marriage bill.
Anyone with questions about this whip count on JPR should ask Senator Jamie Raskin, who was prepared to champion this bill through both JPR and the Senate floor.
So this suggestion by Sens. Miller and Frosh that the votes aren't there for the bill and that Senator Frosh doesn't know what his new committee members think is just so much bullsh**. Senator Frosh claimed that he supported the bill and would work to get it out of JPR.
Of course, it didn't actually come to JPR.
There's two ways to look at this: either Sen. Frosh was lying when he said he would support the bill, because he knew that it was headed for Rules, or alternatively, he didn't know that Sen. Miller was sending the bill to Rules and made his statements anyway, which makes him look like a weak and ineffectual committee chairman.
Here's some free advice for the Senator from Bethesda. If you oppose the bill, come out in the light of day and have the courage to say so. If that tarnishes your liberal reputation, well, you make your choices and you have to live with them. But publicly professing your support for a bill while privately killing it is craven and weak, and sullies your reputation even further than it is now. If you can't be forthright on issues as important as civil rights legislation, nobody will ever trust your word again.
If you support the bill, as you claim, then call on Sen. Miller, publicly, to have the Rules Committee send the bill to JPR, do so in your role as Vice Chair of Rules, and then do your job as JPR committee chair and get the bill passed.
So whatever you do, Sen. Frosh, at least have the courage of your convictions and stand behind your position. Right now, you look incredibly timid, two-faced and weak. Not exactly the portrait of a guy who openly wants to be the next Senate president.