The Republicans have engineered a crisis out of what has always been a routine function of the federal government. The debt limit, often called a "debt ceiling," sets a cap on how much the U.S. Treasury may borrow from the public and from other governmental agencies.

 
 
Once the nation’s outstanding debt nears the debt ceiling, Congress must vote on, and the president must sign, a bill that raises the limit. This has happened more than 90 times since 1940.

We have reached a tipping point in our fight for equality in America.  Forty-two years after the Stonewall riots - a defining moment in the beginning of America’s gay rights movement - New York’s legalization of same-sex marriage and California’s mandate to teach lesbian, bi-sexual, gay, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) history in grade schools, bring this country closer to a more equal society. 

In my decade in Congress, the gay community and its allies have fought numerous battles and this double victory shows we have not fought in vain.  Both California and New York, with their own rich history of LGBTQ activism, have taken courageous steps towards equality. I commend Governors Jerry Brown and Andrew Cuomo for answering the calls of their constituents.  I am also proud of the progress made in Congress including the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and movement towards the Defense of Marriage Act repeal. The fact that the Pentagon announced this week that the U.S. military is prepared to accept openly gay and lesbian service members, and doing so will not harm military readiness, is great news. Yet, I know this is not enough.   

Discrimination in any realm is still inequality.  Now more than never, it is imperative to remind each other, and our elected officials, that until we all have equal rights – be it the right to marry or earn equal wages – liberty and justice has not yet been granted.   Consider California.  California’s groundbreaking legislation – S.B. 48, the California FAIR Education Act (also known as the LGBT History Bill) – requires all public schools to teach significant eras and historical movements, such as the previously omitted topics of  the gay rights movement and disabilities education.  California has laid out a framework for dialogue for the entire country.  This dialogue among young people and educators hopes to break the misconceptions and stigma in our society regarding the gay community, and slowly lead to an increased social awareness among future generations.    

Consider New York.  Even as New York became the sixth and largest state to grant same-sex marriage licenses, thousands of gay couples remain in immigration limbo throughout the country, not able to sponsor their partners for residency or prevent deportation. In fact, one of my constituents, Judy Rickard, is being torn apart from her partner because of unfair immigration laws.  Judy and others face a distinctly different, and unequal, reality compared with heterosexual couples.  We must not forget that these communities continue to struggle, often silently, for their rights.  We must continue to advocate for equal rights within the gay community and to increase the visibility and profile of all underrepresented communities – including the elimination of discrimination in immigration law against same-sex, permanent partners and their families who are seeking to reunite.  It is time to reunite the tens of thousands of lives and livelihoods put on hold due to our current discriminatory immigration law. We must also support non-discrimination laws such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, lifting the HIV Entry Ban on immigrants, and guaranteeing LGBTQ families the right to visit and make medical decisions for their partners.   

These are only a few pieces of legislative accomplishments that we hope to achieve, but we need your help.  We are steadily making progress as we work to repeal legislation such as California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense for Marriage Act.  As long as we continue to fight on all fronts, change will follow.

The Fiscal year 2012 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act includes a provision that would strip key funding for investments in High Speed Rail. This provision would cripple the efforts in California to develop a 21^st Century transportation system, and I joined with a number of my colleagues in opposing the bill on the House floor. My comments are below:

I want to bring attention to an Op-Ed I co-authored with actor and director Martin Sheen on the importance of criminal justice reform and the need to embrace methods that work:

As our country's fiscal crisis forces budget cuts across the board, we are witnessing a renewed interest in criminal justice reform and taking a closer look at the $70 billion spent annually on America's correctional system. State and national leaders are calling for immediate spending reductions and an end to America's costly overreliance on incarceration.

Calls for reform intensified recently with the Supreme Court's ruling on the removal of thousands of inmates from California prisons and with this month's 40th anniversary of the War on Drugs.

On March 16, 2011, I joined my Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Task Force on Peace and Security, and 76 other Members of Congress, in sending a letter to the President asking him to move swiftly to end America’s longest war, the war in Afghanistan.

Since then, the Co-Chairs have continued to call on the Administration to move towards a significant, swift and sizeable reduction in our troops in Afghanistan, meeting or exceeding the number of troops on the ground before the escalation.

Similarly, the Democratic National Committee, of which I am vice-chair, called for a “sizeable and significant” drawdown beginning in July.

Even the U.S. Conference of Mayors called for an end to the Afghanistan war. In poll after poll, the majority of Americans are consistently calling for an end to this war.

Recently, our country marked the 45th Anniversary of the enactment of the Medicare Program. Since 1965, Medicare has fundamentally changed the way many Americans access health care, providing millions of Americans with hospital insurance, preventive care, prescription drugs and other essential medical services. Before Medicare was introduced, more than half of senior citizens did not have health insurance and 25% of beneficiaries lived in poverty. Today, more than 47 million seniors and disabled people receive benefits through the Medicare system and the percentage of those groups living in poverty has declined greatly.

New York State’s passage of historic legislation permitting gay marriage last night shows once again that while the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends towards justice. After yesterday’s news, it is fitting to remember that the modern struggle for LGBT rights began in New York in 1969 when customers at the Stonewall Inn protested against police raids and harassment of LGBT patrons.

Today represents a monumental step forward in that struggle, not only for those in New York, but also for our nation as a whole. As a long-time supporter of equal rights in Congress, today is an opportunity to reflect and reaffirm that I will continue my struggle for equality in our home state of California and federally through legislation such my Reuniting Families Act (RFA) bill that eliminates discriminatory practices in immigration.

Earlier this year, House Republicans passed a budget that makes radical changes to Medicare, changing it from a guaranteed benefit system to a voucher scheme that only pays a portion of health care costs. While Republican leadership has asserted that “if you’re a person who is 55 years of age or older, there’s no change in Medicare for you”, quite the opposite is true. It is expected that the Republican budget will cut Medicare nearly in half, corresponding to about $20 trillion in cuts in today’s dollars. The well respected non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said that the Republican plan will raise costs for seniors and individuals with disabilities currently enrolled in Medicare while reducing their benefits and putting private insurance companies in charge of the program.

On Thursday, June 16th at noon PDT, I will be hosting another telephone town hall; the subject this time will be how the proposed changes to Medicare and the Republican Budget will affect older Americans. With so much happening in Congress over the past few months, many of you have asked important questions about how what is being proposed in Washington will affect the critical services you have come to count on. Considering the effect that this year’s budget will have in setting our country’s priorities for years to come, I believe it is very important to have this discussion.

Each June, we celebrate LGBT Pride month, reflecting on not only the strides we’ve made on the road to equality for America’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, but also honoring those who have pushed for progress and understanding across the world in the past and those who continue to do so today.

During his time in office, I have been proud to work with President Obama on several initiatives to ensure equality under the law for LGBT families everywhere – enacting the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, finally shepherding the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, lifting the HIV Entry Ban and guaranteeing LGBT families the right to visit and make medical decisions for their partners.

Despite this progress, we still have much to do. Families across the United States continue to have to choose between their country and their loved ones due to our broken and discriminatory family immigration system; teens and young adults continue to be bullied for merely expressing who they are; and our men and women in uniform remain in limbo, awaiting the official repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy. These are all issues that I am working to address in the 112^th Congress, through efforts such as my Reuniting Families Act, which would end discrimination in our immigration laws.

I encourage all of you to celebrate LGBT Pride month in your communities. While the struggle for equality is incomplete, we can all work towards ensuring the dream is met during our lifetimes.