Sanders decides on Dems to raise funds for - two of them seeking to defeat openly gay contenders

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Following criticism that he hasn’t aided candidates down ballot from the presidential race, Bernie Sanders has announced three congressional hopefuls he supports — and two of them are seeking to defeat openly gay contenders.

In a fundraising email on Wednesday, Sanders announced he has endorsed three U.S. House candidates who support him in the presidential race and are seeking the Democratic nomination to run for Congress.

Sanders declared support for Lucy Flores, a former Nevada Assembly member running in Nevada’s 4th congressional district; Pramila Jaypal, a member of the Washington State Senate running in Washington’s 7th congressional district; and Zephyr Teachout, a law professor at Fordham University running in New York’s 19th congressional district.

The candidate makes the endorsements amid criticism he hasn’t aided other candidates seeking office despite having raised $140 million this election cycle. An unprecedented amount comes from small donors, whom Sanders often says have contributed a average of $27 to his campaign.

...But two of these three candidates are seeking to defeat openly gay contenders seeking the Democratic nomination to run for Congress. As of right now, a total of seven lawmakers serving in the Congress are openly gay, lesbian or bisexual, or slightly more than 1 percent of the legislative body. That’s short of the estimated 3.5 percent of the U.S. population as a whole who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, according to the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. (Transgender people make up an estimated one-third of one percent of the U.S. population, but no member of Congress, nor any member of a state legislature, is openly transgender.)

Teachout is running against Will Yandik, an openly gay farmer and Livingston deputy town supervisor who recently had a child with his same-sex spouse. Their primary is on June 28, weeks after the presidential contest on Tuesday.

Jayapal is competing against two openly gay candidates: Joe McDermott, a former member of the Washington legislature and now a member of the King County Council, and Brady Walkinshaw, a member of the Washington State House. Their primary is set for August 2, some time after the Washington presidential caucuses for Democrats, which took place on March 26, and the Republicans, which is set for May 24.

Both McDermott and Walkinshaw told the Washington Blade they objected to Sanders’ endorsements of their opponents at a time LGBT people aren’t proportionately represented in Congress.

McDermott called Sanders’ endorsement out-of-state interference in a race that should be decided by people of his district n Washington State.

“The people of Washington’s seventh congressional district should decide their next representative, not out of state interests, whether from Super PACs or presidential candidates,” McDermott said. “As a gay legislator, I led efforts to include our transgender citizens in our state’s hate crime statute, and was a leader in the years long work to achieve marriage equality in Washington. I’ll put my track record of proven progressive results up against anyone, and so long as the voters of the seventh district aren’t drowned out by outside money, I’m very confident we’ll be successful in November.”

Walkinshaw said Sanders’ effort is undermining efforts to seat an openly LGBT and Spanish-speaking person as a representative in Congress.

“It’s sad that any national campaign would ignore the fact that multiple progressive leaders are running in competitive Democratic primaries like Washington’s 7th, where we have the chance to send our State’s first openly LGBT member to Congress and a first native Spanish speaker,” Walkinshaw said. “We’re seeing states and a radicalized Republican party around our country pursuing discriminatory policies with newfound fervor, and now is not the time to be closing doors on LGBT candidates.”


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