Hoyer Sends Letters to House Rules Chairman Sessions Requesting Delegate Voting and a Ban on Discrimination Against LGBT Staff

WASHINGTON, DC - House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) today sent two letters to Chairman Pete Sessions of the House Rules Committee.  The first requests that Delegates from the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, as well as the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico, be permitted to cast votes in the Committee of the Whole House.  The second asks that the House Rules be updated to bar workplace and hiring discrimination against LGBT Congressional employees.

“We treat House Delegates and the Resident Commissioner as we treat all other Members for almost all purposes,” Whip Hoyer wrote in the first letter.  “The extension of the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole shows them a respect for their status and for the millions of Americans they represent.   I believe this action is worthy of our great democracy and required by our commitment to representative government.” 

In the second letter, Whip Hoyer wrote:  “The House of Representatives has no official policy prohibiting employment discrimination against House employees on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  Absent such protections, LGBT employees of the House of Representatives can be denied job opportunities, summarily fired, or otherwise discriminated against solely because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  …The fundamental truth is that Democratic and Republican Members depend on LGBT Americans to carry out our duties in our House offices, our district offices, and on the committees we serve.”

The House will consider its rules package for the 114^th Congress when it convenes on January 6, 2015.  The full text of the letters can be found here: Letter to Chairman Sessions on Delegate Voting; Letter to Chairman Sessions on LGBT Non-Discrimination.