Weekly Full Policy Report - 5/24

We’re Here! We’re Queer! We Want to Recruit You!

Harvey Milk was born on May 22, 1930, in suburban New York. He was a college graduate, Navy veteran, and small business owner; he also happened to be gay and who would bring a message of hope to impact the queer community through community organizing.  

Milk moved to the Castro in 1971 from NY. Since the end of World War Two, San Francisco had an influx of queer people into the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. There, he opened Castro Camera, a central space for community organizing and public actions happening in and with LGBTQ community; as both the Daughter of Billitis and the Society for Individual Rights (SIR) were organizing against continued police raids in gay bars in San Francisco. 

Milk’s most famous talking points opened with a play on the accusation that gay people recruit impressionable youth into their numbers: "My name is Harvey Milk—and I want to recruit you."

“And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, and the Richmond, Minnesotas, who are coming out and hear (anti-gay) Anita Bryant on television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be alright. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up… It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.”

After first running for office in 1973, Milk wasn’t considered a serious candidate until 1975; and lost a close race in the 1976 primary. After the primary, Milk was receiving increasingly violent death threats. Concerned he was a target for assassination, he began to record his thoughts on tape, and whom he wanted to succeed him if he were killed, adding: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door".

Harvey Milk was finally elected in 1977 to the Board of Supervisors for the City of San Francisco, making him the first elected openly gay man; the same election as the pivotal rejection of Prop 6, cannot be overstated. This proposition would have made it mandatory for gay and lesbian teachers to be fired. 

In January of 1978, Milk began his tenure on the Board by sponsoring a civil rights bill that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation. The ordinance was called the "most stringent and encompassing in the nation". Only one Supervisor voted against it: Supervisor Dan White; Mayor Moscone enthusiastically signed it into law. 

Later that year, Supervisor White got huffed up on twinkies and assassinated Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk. Harvey Milk had been in office less than a year when he was assassinated. May 22 is celebrated as Harvey Milk Day in commemoration of his authentic life and his efforts to advance our rights as a movement.

So, the time has come – EAA is here to recruit you! Join us! Our work seeks to support queer students and the families and educators who support and advocate for them. We seek to understand school board policymaking and work to educate school communities on the value of inclusion. We speak out on legislative efforts that engage schools, communities, and queer students and their families. 

LEG UPDATE

The House returned to floor action last week with no notable victories. The full Arizona Legislature is expected back at work on May 28. They have until June 30 to pass a budget otherwise state agencies and key services could shut down.

SCHOOL BOARD

Free Speech at School?

A new state law is on the books that will make it a crime for students to set up encampments on campus. You remember those? They were a big deal about a year ago, when universities across the nation exploded with pro-Palestine collective action. 

In Arizona, university students set up tents, grabbed construction material for makeshift structures, and threatened to stay on campus until their demands were met.

And as the first state in the country to ban encampments on campus, policymakers might’ve just signaled to Trump that Arizona would be fertile ground for his ever-widening crusade against universities.

Some legislators are worried the new law (HB 2880) will have a chilling effect on free speech, and that it could end up targeting groups that have nothing to do with the Israel-Hamas conflict. Time will tell whose speech and what content is allowable in this new era of miseducation.

ACTION

U.S. Senate Reconciliation Bill Guts Medicaid, Adds Trans Ban

The U.S. Senate is moving forward with sweeping Medicaid cuts that will impact over 7 million people. These cuts would end Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming health care.

Contact Sen. Mark Kelly (202) 224-2235 and Sen. Ruben Gallego (202) 224-4521 and ask them to vote NO on the reconciliation bill that guts Medicaid and institutes bans on transgender care for adults.

As reported by the Williams Institute, 1 in 5 trans adults in the U.S. are enrolled in Medicaid – that’s over a quarter-million people whose health care is at risk.

These attacks on our healthcare are devastating and unacceptable.  Contact your Arizona Senators Kelly and Gallego now!

Vote NO on gutting Medicaid. Vote NO on banning transgender healthcare! Vote NO on the reconciliation bill. 

• Sen. Mark Kelly (202) 224-2235 

• Sen. Ruben Gallego (202) 224-4521 

CIVIC LITERACY

If the President does it, it’s not illegal. 

In 1977, British journalist David Frost sat down for a series of conversations with the now-resigned former president, Richard Nixon. For context, Nixon was the first U.S. president to resign from office (1976) in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the ending of the Vietnam War, and economic concerns weighed down by the pending energy crisis. 

Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition. 

Nixon uttered these words more than 47 years before the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States that ruled that the president had absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts. Nixon was onto something and today’s GOP has aligned with the assumption that when the president acts in the best interest of the nation, it's always legal.

‘Best interest of the nation’ does a lot in that sentence and in the overall ruling that gives the office of the president more latitude in the legality of their actions because the ruling applies to future office holders – not just the current president. Many elected leaders have aligned themselves with the adage that when they act “in the best interest of their constituents” that their actions are not illegal. 

And yet, here we are. 

-- kelley dupps, Director of Inclusive Policy

NEWS

• Far Right Federal Judge Rules Gay And Trans People Can Be Discriminated Against In Workplaces - Erin Reed

• Matt Kacsmaryk shouldn't be a judge - Chris Geidner

• ‘Nothing to be surprised about’: Az governor’s office responds to Horne’s anti-trans bill complaints - Tucson Sentinel