HRC Criticizes Trump Picks Tom Price, Betsy DeVos, Jeff Sessions
- By
- Carlos Santoscoy
- | December 04, 2016
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, has criticized three of President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet picks.
Trump has picked Georgia Rep. Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education and Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.
HRC criticized these three Republicans for their “troubling anti-LGBTQ records.”
Price, the group wrote, “earned a score of 'zero' on the past three HRC Congressional Scorecards,” a measure of a lawmaker's support for LGBT rights.
Price's record includes voting against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, federally funded needle exchange programs, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and voting for a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a heterosexual union. Price called last year's historic Supreme Court finding that gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry a “sad day for marriage.” He has also opposed the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), a woman's right to choose and the Justice Department's guidance to schools on transgender students' right to use the bathroom of their choice, calling it “absurd.”
“Representative Tom Price has a long record of undermining equality,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “As Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, it will be his job to serve all Americans – something he’s spent years avoiding as a United States Congressman. Tom Price must immediately clarify what his plans are when it comes to ensuring the health and safety of LGBTQ Americans.”
Betsy DeVos and her family have worked to deny gay couples the right to marry, funneling millions of dollars into groups, including the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and Focus on the Family, and campaigns against marriage equality.
HRC said that Sessions' appointment “is in stark contrast with Trump's pledge to be a 'president for all Americans.'”
Sessions' record includes voting against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and reauthorization fo the Violence Against Women Act, and voting for a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a heterosexual union. Sessions is a co-sponsor of the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), legislation that would undermine the Supreme Court's Obergefell decision. He has also opposed the Voting Rights Act and immigration reform.
“It is deeply disturbing that Jeff Sessions, who has such clear animus against so many Americans – including the LGBTQ community, women and people of color – could be charged with running the very system of justice designed to protect them,” said Griffin. “When Donald Trump was elected, he promised to be a president for all Americans, and it is hugely concerning and telling that he would choose a man so consistently opposed to equality as one of his first – and most important – cabinet appointees.”