After forcing EMILY’s List to rescind support for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) just two months ago, the Arizona Coalition to End the Filibuster is now demanding that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) do the same. Instead, the letter suggests giving to local organizations that are fighting the uphill battle made necessary in part by Sinema’s obstruction. The move pits a collection of community activists and statewide organizations against HRC.
A new open letter, with even more signatories than the last, calls on progressive donors to stop funding HRC unless it also pulls support for Sinema, whose refusal—along with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin—to support filibuster reform has for all intents and purposes killed efforts to pass federal legislation to protect LGBTQ+ Americans, voting rights, reproductive rights, and more.
In January, it took just four days for EMILY’s List to drop Sinema after the coalition published the first open letter with more than 70 signatories calling on Emily’s List to drop Sinema.
The new letter, which has more than 100 signatories including representatives of local Arizona community groups, religious leaders, and national names including filmmaker Josh Fox and actor and activist Piper Perabo, makes it clear that the stakes in this fight are extremely high. Citing the desperate need for passage of the federal Equality Act and other federal legislation to protect voting rights, abortion rights, and more, the letter expresses appreciation for HRC’s leadership on the Equality Act. Still, the letter says, “in this emergency, delay is unacceptable, and quiet, indirect measures without accountability are not enough.”
Coalition organizers told Blue Tent they are appealing directly to HRC donors after earlier direct appeals to the organization and attempts to meet with decision-makers at HRC both failed. HRC has advocated for the federal Equality Act, but strangely refused to engage the fight against the filibuster that could lead to the act’s passage. It is also heavily subsidized by corporations that benefit from GOP efforts to block a higher minimum wage and other legislation that might affect the corporations’ bottom line.
Kai Newkirk, a coalition organizer who worked on the letter, said the increase in the number of signatories, and the addition of several national voices, is the result both of the “level of anger and betrayal” people feel about Sinema’s obstruction “and also the confidence that people have to make these kinds of demands given that we've seen so many different organizations and leaders draw a line with Sinema. HRC is becoming more and more of an outlier by refusing to do so.”
Democratic donors, the Arizona state Democratic Party, and staff at a for-profit Democratic consulting firm are among the many organizations and individuals who have either pulled their support from Sinema or agitated for others to end theirs. Newkirk is the founder of For All, a center for nonviolent organizing and action, and a co-founder of the Arizona Coalition to End the Filibuster.
Asked for its response to the letter, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson pointed Blue Tent to a February blog post expressing the organization’s “frustration” with Sinema and the importance of holding politicians “accountable” and reiterated its commitment to passing the Equality Act while fighting the many bills filed across the country attacking LGBTQ+ people.
HRC has failed to specify any actions it plans to take to hold Sinema accountable other than expressing its frustration with her. JoDee Winterhoff, a senior vice president at HRC, once worked as Sinema’s chief of staff.
While the coalition faces down the Human Rights Campaign, a national organization that seems for now to have chosen its corporate donors over the good of the people it claims to serve, small donors who care about LGBTQ+ people in Arizona do have other options for giving. In its letter to HRC’s donors, the coalition offers three alternatives: Trans Queer Pueblo, which serves LGBT migrants of color; Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, a power-building organization for transgender and queer Latinx; and AZ Trans Youth & Parent Organization, a support organization for the families of transgender children. (Note: none of the organizations recommended by the coalition have yet been researched or vetted by Blue Tent)
Funding these organizations is critical because transgender people in Arizona are under attack by the increasingly radical state Republicans. The state legislature is currently considering several bills that would, among other things, require school officials to out trans kids to their parents, forbid gender-affirming healthcare, and ban trans children from using the appropriate bathroom or participating in school sports. The Arizona bills are among those in more than a dozen state legislatures that seek to enshrine medical abuse of trans children specifically in their own state laws, a move the American Medical Association says could have “tragic consequences” for the children’s mental health and suicide risk.
“We’re facing a tsunami of legislative discrimination. And Arizona is ground zero. But if we had the federal protections of the Equality Act, Arizona and other states wouldn't be able to be jamming through all of these hateful bills,” said Gina Griffiths, an Arizona-based mother of a trans 19-year-old woman who signed onto the letter in a press release provided by the coalition. “Kyrsten Sinema is betraying the entire LGBTQ community down, and my daughter is not as safe as other people because of it. HRC needs to pull support from Sinema now.”