NY-18: Openly Gay Congressional Candidate Sean Eldridge Announces

Sean Eldridge is the male spouse of Chris Hughes, the openly gay co-founder of Facebook who bought The New Republic last year and was the architect behind Presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign website BarackObama.com in 2007. Eldridge has been rumored to want to run for Congress from New York State for quite awhile. Eldridge is 27 years old and probably best known in LGBT circles as the former Political Director of Freedom To Marry, the campaign to win the freedom to marry nationwide

Bizarrely, if elected, he would be the second, not the first openly gay guy named Sean who is a Congressman from New York. Sean Patrick Maloney was elected in 2012 to represent the 18th Congressional District of New York. There are currently 7 openly LGBT members of Congress, 6 in the U.S. House and Wisconsin's U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin.

This week Eldridge indeed announced that he is running to represent the 18th Congressional District of New York, in a curious video where he mentions his family (but not the fact that he is married to a man) and touts his supports for abortion rights and small business. It's not clear if this would count as "straight-washing" but it does appear a little odd to this openly gay viewer.

Then again maybe we are now living in a world where the fact that you are gay will not be brought up or of interest to the general public during a political campaign. I seriously doubt it. After all, he is running against a Republican incumbent Congressman (named Chris Gibson).

With his husband's hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal Eldridge should be able to make the race for the 19th District competitive, at the very least.

Hat/tip to BuzzFeed

26yo Gay Spouse of Facebook wiz eyes Congress

Sean Eldridge last made news when his marriage to Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, was featured on the front page of the New York Times last year. Eldridge, 26, was the political director of FreedomtoMarry.org until July 2011 and a Democraic political activist since, while Hughes, 29, recently re-launched The New Republic to great fanfare with an in-depth interview with President Obama.

Now comes word that Eldridge wants to follow in the footsteps of openly gay Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18) and challenge sitting Republican congressman Chris Gibson in New York's 19th Congressional District. Presumably, Eldridge will have access to some of the estimated 500-million-dollar fortune of his husband. Eldridge has filed the necessary paperwork that allows him to further explore a run for Congress.

According to the filings, Eldridge, a Democratic activist and the head of an investment firm, will be seeking a House seat in New York's 19th District, currently represented by Representative Chris Gibson. Gibson, a two-term Republican and former West Point professor, was reelected in November by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. But the 19th District also broke for Obama; it is one of the dozens of vulnerable districts Democratic strategists are gunning for in 2014 in an effort to reclaim the House.

It will be interesting to see how serious Eldridge is about running. If he wins, that would most likely make New York the first state with two openly gay Representatives in Congress. (Of course, Wisconsin currently has a openly gay Congressman in Mark Pocan and an openly lesbian Senator in Tammy Baldwin.)

Speaker Boehner Meets Gay Congressman's Family

Charles Dharapak / AP

Last week the 113th Congress was sworn in and John Boehner was re-elected Speaker of the U.S. House. One of his ceremonial duties in that position is to take pictures with all of the newly sworn in members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Happily, 7 of the new Congressmembers are members of the LGBT community, including Sean Patrick Maloney, representing the 18th Congressional District of New York. Pictured above is Boehner with  U.S. Representative Maloney, right, with his legally married husband Randy Florke, and their two kids!

It's really 2013, y'all!

Hat/tip to Chris Geidner of Buzzfeed.

Next Congress To Have 7 Out LGBT Members!

The 113th Congress of the United States will have a record seven people who are either lesbian, gay or bisexual. In the U.S. House there will be four newly elected Members who are LGB: Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18), Kyrsten Sinema )AZ-09), Mark Pocan (WI-05) and Mark Takano CA-41). In addition, there are 2 LGB incumbents who will be returning to the U.S. House: Jared Polis (CO-02) and David Cicilline (RI-01).

And in a dramatic first, lesbian Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (WI-05) gave up her congressional seat and ran (against former governor and Bush cabinet member Tommy Thompson) for the open U.S. Senate seat to represent Wisconsin. She not only became the first openly LGB person to be elected to the U.S. Senate but the 5th Congressional District of Wisconsin became the first congressional district in the United States to be represented by two different openly gay U.S. representatives (Baldwin and Pocan).

Two other important historic firsts will be achieved on January 3rd, 2013 when the new Congress is sworn in. Takano will be the first-ever openly LGBT person of color congressmember and Sinema will be the first-ever openly bisexual member of Congress, one of the youngest, at age 36, and one of the few who claims to be religiously unaffiliated.

The 6 openly LGB members of the U.S. House make up 1.4% of the 435-member body, which is still an under-representation of the 3.4% of Americans who are willing to tell a pollster that they are LGB or the 9% of Americans who are estimated to be LGB.

Baldwin will be 1 of 100 United States Senators, but in a body which allows a single member great latitude to wield disproportional power over federal legislation and public policy.

Victory Fund's 12 Races To Watch

The Victory Fund has put out a list of "12 races to watch" out of the 120 candidates that they have endorsed in state, local and federal elections throughout the country.

• Tammy Baldwin – U.S. Senate (Wisconsin) – Would be the first openly LGBT American in the U.S. Senate.
• Josh Boschee – North Dakota House of Representatives – Could become the first out member of the N.D. legislature.
• Kate Brown – Oregon Secretary of State – Second highest-ranking elected official in the state.
• David Cicilline – U.S. House (RI1) – Running for his first reelection to Congress in a tight race.
• Sean Patrick Maloney – U.S. House (NY18) – Would be the first openly LGBT member of Congress from N.Y.
• Marie Mayor – Delaware House – Could become the first out state legislator in Delaware.
• Tim Brown – Ohio House of Representatives – Tim would become the only openly LGBT Republican state lawmaker in the U.S.
• Kyrsten Sinema – U.S. House (AZ9) – Would become the first out bisexual elected to Congress.
• Stephen Skinner – West Virginia House of Representatives  – Could become the first openly LGBT state lawmaker in W.V.
• Andy Staton – Delaware Senate – Could become the first out state legislator in Delaware.
• Mark Takano – U.S. House (CA41) – Could become the first openly LGBT person of color in Congress.
• Richard Tisei – U.S. House (MA6) – Would become the first out Republican elected to Congress as a non-incumbent.

I pretty much agree with this list, and have been blogging about many of these same races, especially AZ-09, RI-01, MA-06, CA-41 and WI-SEN all year long, since the openly LGBT congressional candidates won their primaries. The most important to me is the Tammy Baldwin Senate race in Wisconsin, primarily because she is a great progressional candidate, and the simple power that an individual Senator can wield in that dysfunctional body. Happily, Tammy has had a clear lead in her race for weeks, has more cash on hand than her opponent, and she has never lost an election ever.

There are some races that I was unaware of, like the Kate Brown race for Secretary of State in Oregon. The number of openly LGBT people who have won statewide races is just more than a handful, so that would be another important milestone.

Of course, these candidate races are probably slightly less important than the specific ballot measure campaigns over marriage equality in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington.