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   The Senate held hearings to a nearly empty Committee chamber last week regarding the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Only five Senators showed up, all Democrats, including the Chair of the Committee, Senator Harkin, the lead sponsor, Senator Merkley, and three other Senators, Senators Franken, Casey and Bennet. It left me with some fundamental questions about the process.
There was a stark difference between the House hearings, held in September, and the Senate hearings. The House testimony took a broad approach, full of stories by LGBT employees and statistics regarding discrimination, as well as discussions about various potential objections to the bill. The Senate hearing, to the contrary, was more narrowly focused on business and religious objections to the bill. There was one gay witness and no transgender witnesses. There were two government witnesses, a law prof, one witness from industry, and two witnesses who presented objections to the bill. The question I have been asking myself is: Why did the Senate hearing look like this? Is it indicative of lack of interest in the bill by the Senate? Was it a sign that ENDA is going down in flames? Does the Senate care so little for transgender people that they included no transgender witnesses? Click here to read more: http://bit.ly/4xLTWD
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