Yesterday, Kevin Naff at the Washington Blade reported that the key player in moving forward with passage of the Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Act, which passed the House on Saturday, was State Senator Brian Frosh:
As the Maryland Senate prepares to debate a bill that would bar discrimination based on gender identity in housing, employment and credit, some supporters are concerned about the role Sen. Brian Frosh will play in its fate.Well, there's a delay. And, it looks like Frosh is part of the problem -- again.
Frosh, a Democrat from Montgomery County, chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, which must vote to report the bill to the floor. The legislative session ends April 11, so time is running short and any delay in committee could doom the measure this year.
“I would encourage the LGBT and allied community to put their energy and focus on Sen. Frosh, who year after year has bottled up this bill in committee,” said Dan Furmansky, former executive director of Equality Maryland who has been working full time for the past month with pro-LGBT organizations in Annapolis on behalf of the Unitarian Universalist Association. “Things are fluid … I wouldn’t be surprised if he schedules a late hearing so time runs out.”
Metro Weekly's Yusef Najafi has the latest from Annapolis. He reports that the legislation will not follow the regular procedure and be heard by the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. It is being heard in the Senate Rules Committee, which Frosh co-chairs. That's not good:
According to transgender activist Dana Beyer, who has been monitoring movement of the bill, the switch is bad news.Why does Frosh insist on being an obstacle?
“It’s bad,” Beyer says, adding that there’s also no explanation given as to why the bill is going to the Rules committee.
“We don’t trust Frosh and this seems to be his way of killing it and leaving himself with clean hands,” Beyer says. “Bills don’t go to Rules Committee unless there’s a problem with them. This is not the normal process. There really is no reason for it. I would say this doesn’t look good, and there’s no excuse for it.”
Another activist in Maryland who has been lobbying for the legislation, Cathy Brennan, says the move means that the bill is "dead."
"The legislation appears dead for this session and a key issue for activists is to determine why Brian Frosh insists on being such an obstacle for this legislation," she says.
