On Tuesday, May 19, the U.S. House passed H.R. 2616, the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act,” by a vote of 217-198. The bill would hand the Trump administration enormous leverage to strip federal funding from any school that “teaches or advances concepts” related to transgender people, codifying into federal law the anti-trans definitions from Trump’s executive order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism.” It would also require public schools to forcibly out transgender students to their parents before using their pronouns or chosen names. The bill is significant on its own terms for the harm it would inflict on transgender youth if it became law. But what made Tuesday’s vote especially notable was the eight Democrats who joined every Republican to pass it—the largest Democratic defection on any standalone anti-trans bill of this Congress.

      • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        And representatives are supposed to represent the constituents. Moreover, they can’t get elected if they don’t. People calling for the Dems for be more progressive don’t seem to realize that that’s moving away from where the votes are. There aren’t enough votes on the left to be worth courting because (and here’s the crux of the issue) the left has this purity test so candidates can’t get their support unless they are impracticality progressive. Moving left does not get them votes unless they move so far left that they lose many many more votes. The left’s failure to appreciate ‘better’ means the US is stuck with continued slide to the right.