Congress
Democrats hash out trans rights message in Massachusetts debate
Democrats have another chance to test their messaging about transgender rights that the party has struggled to make plain.
Two Democrats vying for the party’s Massachusetts Senate seat will face off Thursday in their final debate before the state’s Sept. 1 primary. Laws banning transgender women from participating in female sports surfaced as a key difference between Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Seth Moulton in their debate earlier this month and led to a contentious exchange.
The events represent one of few opportunities for national Democrats to publicly debate an issue Republicans have spent tens of millions of dollars attacking their support of in the past several election cycles.
Markey is looking to question Moulton’s commitment to trans rights given his post-2024 election stance that Democrats’ support of transathletes was out of touch with voters. Moulton at the time cited not wanting his daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”
Gallup polling after that election found that 69 percent of U.S. adults — including about four in 10 Democrats — believe that transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth sex.
Still, Moulton in the Aug. 3 debate apologized for those comments and tried to defend his LGBTQ+ record.
Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at center-left think tank Third Way, said part of the reason Republicans’ attacks have landed so well is “because Democrats were afraid to talk about” it.
“At this point, every person in America has a viewpoint on transgender participation in sports. It’s incumbent on Democrats to be able to speak about this issue authentically and not evade it,” Erickson said. “In a way that opposes blanket bans, but leaves room for people to have questions about the rules.”
Erickson added it’s also important for Democrats to settle these differences and deal with GOP attacks in this election cycle before the next presidential election.
“The 2028 race is going to have a lot of pressure to go further left on all the social issues,” she said. “A primary that has 30 Democrats running for president is going to really risk elevating blue sky voices perspective over the rest of the Democratic coalition, and if we haven’t figured out how to talk about these issues by then, we’re going to miscalibrate where most voters are.”
Markey has stuck by his pro-trans rights messaging and won the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ rights group, in the primary.
“Trans rights are not up for debate. Seth Moulton threw trans kids under the proverbial bus to score cheap political points,” Markey said in a statement to Blue Light News. “I will never do that.”
Markey’s campaign pointed to polling from University of Massachusetts Amherst this week that showed 67 percent of Democratic primary voters in the state are less likely to support a candidate who has expressed positions opposing trans rights or policies.
HRC President Kelley Robinson in the statement pointed to the senator’s leadership in several legislative efforts, including the Equality Act, which would explicitly codify certain anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.
“At a time when equality and freedom are under assault, we need leaders with the courage and conviction to lead — and stand unshakeable in their values,” Robinson said.
Moulton co-sponsored that legislation in the House, and in the earlier debate, pointed out the 100 percent voting record the Human Rights Campaign has given him in previous congresses.
The Moulton campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Democrats who rose to prominence as #Resistance figures during President Donald Trump’s first term are stumbling politically during his second.
The pileup illustrates a new era for the restive Democratic base, where vocal opposition to Trump through official channels and public remonstrations no longer guarantee success in the party’s primaries.
If Democrats retake the majority in the House, leaders will have to find a balance between their base’s appetite for holding Trump accountable and election results that some strategists say suggest Americans are ready to move past Trump.
“‘#Resistance’ was a very Trump 1.0 mood, and now we are in a different moment of anger,” said Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at center-left think tank Third Way. “They’re mad about the war. They’re mad about costs. They’re mad about the establishment not having delivered anything for them.”
Alexander Vindman’s stunning loss in Florida’s Senate primary to democratic socialist Angie Nixon was the latest example this week.
Vindman, a former National Security Council aide who testified during the 2019 House impeachment inquiry, made standing up to Trump a centerpiece of his campaign. But although his national profile helped haul in big money, it couldn’t overcome the shifting politics of the party base — a predicament that has left some Democrats rattled about their prospects in Trump’s home state.
“Vindman is a hero, but memories fade and the focus of most folks is on the cost of living,” said longtime Democratic strategist David Axelrod, adding that Nixon, “made those issues her focus.”
Vindman’s not alone in the political graveyard of Trump-resistance-fighter campaigns: Two of the 2021 House impeachment managers, Reps. Diana DeGette and Eric Swalwell saw their reelection prospects fall apart as well: DeGette lost her reelection bid to a democratic socialist this summer, while Swalwell dropped out of the California gubernatorial primary after a string of sexual assault allegations.
Rep. Dan Goldman, the lead majority counsel in the first Trump impeachment inquiry, was ousted in his primary. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a member of the Oversight and Intelligence committees during the 2021 impeachment, fell short in his Senate bid. Reps. Shri Thanedar and Al Green, both of whom led impeachment pushes against Trump, were ousted by younger challengers.
Not all the races were defined by Trump accountability politics. But one Democratic operative said the throughline is that those struggling candidates are “institutionalists” who argued the justice system was going to hold Trump accountable. Now, voters who lost faith in those institutions after Trump returned to office were sold on other candidates’ messaging railing against those very systems.
“The prescription isn’t what they were looking for anymore,” the operative said.
What else we’re watching:
— BRAID PLANS WHITE HOUSE EXIT — James Braid, the top White House aide in charge of liaising with Congress, is leaving the administration, according to a person with knowledge of the transition, granted anonymity to discuss private plans.. Braid, from his perch as director of legislative affairs, has been responsible for shepherding Trump’s agenda through a narrow majority, a job that’s become increasingly difficult as the president clashes with members of his own party.
— FIRST IN IC: OLIVER GILBERT’S COMMITTEE HOPES — Retiring Rep. Frederica Wilson’s chosen successor is eyeing her spot on House Transportation and Infrastructure, along with other committees that impact the South Florida district. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III on Tuesday won a crowded Democratic primary in the deep blue 24th District, almost guaranteeing he’ll take Wilson’s seat come November. In an interview Wednesday, Gilbert said he has “broad interests” but named the Transportation and Foreign Affairs committees as potential options for his desired policy work, along with the Appropriations and Judiciary panels.
Samuel Benson and Dasha Burns contributed to this report.
Congress
Jimmy Gomez is being investigated for ‘sexual harassment and assault,’ according to lawyers for woman interviewed by the Ethics Committee
Lawyers for a woman interviewed as part of the House Ethics Committee probe into Rep. Jimmy Gomez alleged the California Democrat’s interactions with their client were not consensual — rebutting claims by Gomez that his “personal mistakes outside” his marriage were “consensual in nature.”
“Contrary to Representative Gomez’s assertion in his statement, his actions were not ‘consensual in nature’ with respect to our client,” Lisa Banks and Sarah Nesbitt, attorneys for the woman who spoke with the Ethics Committee “about her experience of sexual harassment and assault by Representative Jimmy Gomez,” said in a statement Wednesday.
They added, “We fully expect that the House Committee on Ethics will come to the same conclusion in its investigation.”
Gomez’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Banks’ claims.
The disclosure that Banks and Nesbitt’s client was interviewed by the Ethics panel regarding alleged “sexual harassment and assault” provides more granular details on what the bipartisan committee, which operates in secret, is actually investigating.
The committee announced Monday that it was looking into whether Gomez engaged in “sexual misconduct,” including “inappropriate sexual contact with a House staffer.” Gomez released his own statement conceding that while he did cheat on his wife in years past, his extramarital affairs were “consensual” and “haven’t violated the law or House Ethics rules.”
He also said he respects the process of the Ethics Committee and was “confident that a full and impartial review of the facts will bear” out that he did not violate House rules or the law.
Currently, members of Congress are permitted to have consensual intimate relationships with any staffer as long as they are not the members’ subordinate. A bipartisan effort is underway to change the rules to prohibit lawmakers from engaging in such activities with employees of any congressional office.
That initiative is being spearheaded by Reps. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) and Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), who hope to unveil ethics overhaul legislation in September. They are also working to make sure the Ethics Committee works faster to investigate allegations of misconduct, make reports public and recommend punishments that are proportional to the offense.
There’s a strong appetite on Capitol Hill to root out and crack down on members engaged in sexual misconduct after two lawmakers — then-Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) — were forced to resign within a week of each other amid accusations of serious misconduct toward staffers. Swalwell has denied an allegation of assault and allegations of sexual misconduct, while Gonzales admitted to an affair with his subordinate who died by suicide.
Gomez was a co-chair of Swalwell’s campaign for governor and quickly called for his former colleague to withdraw from the Democratic primary.
A third member, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) was pressured to drop his bid for reelection earlier this month after the Ethics Committee released a report with findings that the lawmaker engaged in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers.” Lawyers for Edwards said that the Ethics Committee “failed to demonstrate that either of the two staffers expressed discomfort to Representative Edwards regarding his conduct with them.”
Banks and Nesbitt, the attorneys for the woman who made claims against Gomez, in their statement Wednesday, said the Gomez case was “just the latest example of brazen sexual misconduct by a member of Congress. Congress must act to rein in its members who seem to believe that preying on young women working on Capitol Hill is one of the perks of their job.”
“We will continue to work with our client and with the House Committee on Ethics to ensure there is accountability for Representative Gomez and a safe path for any other survivors to come forward and share their experiences,” they said.
Tom Rust, the staff director for the House Ethics Committee, declined to comment Wednesday.
President Donald Trump says he told Florida Rep. Cory Mills to exit the Republican primary before his election defeat Tuesday but that the embattled lawmaker “wouldn’t listen.”
Mills, who was defeated by former local television news reporter Ryan Elijah on Tuesday night in Florida’s 7th District, was dogged by a litany of scandals, including a restraining order issued by a Florida judge last year after a former girlfriend accused him of threatening to reveal her sexually explicit videos.
Still, Trump endorsed him in February. But the president suggested on Truth Social on Wednesday that he was far from confident in the prospect of a Mills victory.
“I told Congressman Cory Mills of Florida, a friend of mine, to get out of the Race, but he wouldn’t listen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He thought he could win, so who can blame him?”
The president immediately backed Elijah, whom he said “stands for EVERYTHING MAGA, and is respected by ALL.”
Mills isn’t the only Trump-backed Republican to see defeat in a GOP primary this summer. A slew of the president’s governor picks — including Mike Lindell in Minnesota and Randy Feenstra in Iowa — were bested by other candidates. So too were Reps. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) and Navy veteran Amir Hassan. Catalina Lauf, the president’s choice for Florida’s 19th congressional district, lost on Tuesday to media executive Jim Schwartzel.
It isn’t the first time Trump has distanced himself from a Republican after defeat.
Ogles, he said in a Truth Social post after the Tennessee primary, “was a person who I remained loyal to even though he had virtually no chance of winning.” And his opponent, former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher, was another “Great “Trump” Candidate,” the president wrote.
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