Victory in the News

Openly Gay David Cicilline Front-Runner In Rhode Island House Race

Providence Mayor David Cicilline is the front-runner in the race to represent Rhode Island's 1st Congressional District.

The openly gay Cicilline is up by double digits in the polls. According to the New York Time's FiveThirtyEight Election Forecast, Cicilline has a 91.9 percent chance of winning on November 2.

The 49-year-old Cicilline, who has served two terms as mayor of Providence, enjoys the endorsement of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a group that supports openly gay elected officials, and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest gay rights advocate.

He also holds a fundraising advantage against his Republican rival, John Loughlin II.

If elected, Cicilline would become the fourth House member who is openly gay, provided Democratic front-runners Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Jared Polis of Colorado win their re-election bids.

Cicilline boosters say he's up in the polls because his campaign has focused on jobs and the economy.

“He has a strong reputation for building Providence's economy and I think that focus for him has really been what has propelled him to the front of this race,” Robin Brand, deputy executive director of the Victory Fund, told CNN.

Brand added that Cicilline's honesty about his sexuality is a plus in the eyes of many voters.

“It's clear that it may not be easy to run as openly gay or lesbian, but they are being open and honest about who they are. Voters really respect that, and I think that, in some ways, can really be an advantage especially in times like this.”

Denis Dison, a Victory Fund vice president, echoed a similar sentiment.
“Every year more and more brave people are stepping up to run for office while being honest about who they are,” Dison told On Top Magazine in an email. “That's going to change politics in America.”

A fifth openly gay candidate, Steve Pougnet, is challenging Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack in California.

Openly gay candidate a front-runner in R.I. House race

If elected, Cicilline, 49, would be one of four openly gay members of Congress -- joining the ranks of Democratic Reps. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Jared Polis of Colorado (assuming they win their re-election bids).

Robin Brand, deputy executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, said her nonpartisan political action committee decided to endorse the mayor mainly because of his leadership track record.

"He had been a successful state legislator, successful mayor and really came out of the starting gate as the front-runner in this race," Brand said. "He is a really strong campaigner."

But he still has work to do, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

The report deems the district "Lean Democrat." It previously changed its ranking in September from "Likely Democrat" to "Lean Democrat" after Cicilline was forced to acknowledge that the city had "improperly given him pay raises as mayor between 2006 and 2009."

It's a point that Loughlin was able to capitalize on.

"David Cicilline illegally collected more than $20,000 in salary that he was not entitled to -- and he only gave it back because he got caught," Loughlin said at a press conference last week. "If we can't trust him to watch our money in city hall, how can we trust him to watch our money in Washington?"

Cook Political Report points out that while Loughlin has begun to rip into Cicilline's record as mayor, "Cicilline still enters the homestretch in reasonably good shape. ... Loughlin doesn't have a ton of money left, and Cicilline is ahead anywhere from one to two dozen points in public polling."

Brand said that Cicilline's record on gay and lesbian issues is hardly a reason why he may appeal to a large swath of Democratic voters in the district, a seat now held by Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a liberal Democrat, who isn't seeking re-election.

Cicilline's "focus has been on the issues that people care about right now, which is economic development and jobs," she said. "He has a strong reputation for building Providence's economy and I think that focus for him has really been what has propelled him to the front of this race and put him in a really strong position to win this seat on November 2."

The state's largest newspaper -- The Providence Journal -- is also supporting him.

The paper's endorsement reads: "Mr. Cicilline has been an honest, energetic and often innovative mayor. ... He has cleansed city government of much of its reputation for corruption and hired capable people. ... He has brought a level of fiscal discipline (including in relations with the city's far too powerful public-employee unions) that has not been seen in the city for many decades."

Perhaps the most likely reason that Cicilline can win, Brand added, is that voters are less likely now to care about a candidate's sexuality because of the economic problems facing the country.

"Ultimately, voters vote for candidates who are going to help improve their lives. It doesn't matter if you're gay or lesbian," she said. "If you've demonstrated that you've helped improve people's lives on the issues they care about, our research shows that being openly gay or lesbian is really secondary to that."

And that's certainly the case for Laure Rondeau, an elderly Catholic woman in Providence, who told NPR that sexuality doesn't play a factor in her vote.

"[Sexual orientation] doesn't bother me at all,'' Rondeau said in the interview. "He's been a good mayor of Providence, and I think he'd do well in Congress.''

In many ways, his sexuality may be a plus to some voters angry at Washington's backroom deals and candidates deemed distant, out of touch and dishonest, Brand said.

"It's clear that it may not be easy to run as openly gay or lesbian, but they are being open and honest about who they are," she said. "Voters really respect that, and I think that, in some ways, can really be an advantage especially in times like this."

Across the country, another openly gay House candidate -- backed by the Victory Fund -- is hoping to ride that same wave.

Steve Pougnet, 47, the Democratic mayor of Palm Springs, California, is running against Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack in the state's 45th Congressional District.

Record number of openly gay officials serve in Obama administration

"From everything we hear from inside the administration, they wanted this to be part of their efforts at diversity," said Denis Dison, spokesman for the Presidential Appointments Project of the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute.

The pace of appointments has helped to ease broader disappointment among gay rights groups that Obama has not acted more quickly on other fronts, such as ending the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bans gays from serving openly in the military.

In a sign of how times have changed, few of the appointees — about two dozen required Senate confirmation — have stirred much controversy. It's a far cry from the 1993 furor surrounding Clinton's nomination of then-San Francisco Supervisor Roberta Achtenberg as assistant secretary for Housing and Urban Development.

Achtenberg was the first openly gay official to serve at such a senior level, and she won confirmation despite contentious hearings and Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, who denounced her as a "militant extremist."

"It's both significant and rather ordinary," said Michael Cole, a spokesman for the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign. "It's a simple affirmation of the American ideal that what matters is how you do your job and not who you are."

Gay activists, among Obama's strongest supporters, had hoped he would be the first to appoint an openly gay Cabinet secretary. While that hasn't happened — yet — Obama did appoint the highest-ranking gay official ever when he named John Berry as director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the nation's 1.9 million federal workers.

Other prominent names include Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Fred Hochberg, chairman of the Export-Import Bank. Obama also named Amanda Simpson, the first openly transgender appointee, as a senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department.

White House spokesman Shin Inouye confirmed the record number, saying Obama has hired more gay officials than the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations combined. He said Obama "is proud that his appointments reflect the diversity of the American public."

"He is committed to appointing highly qualified individuals for each post," Inouye said. "We have made a record number of openly LGBT appointments and we are confident that this number will only continue to grow."

Dison's group lists 124 of the appointees on its website. He said the remainder are not listed because they are lower-level officials not formally announced by the White House.

"We learn about a lot of these through informal networks and then work to confirm that they are indeed appointed and that they are openly LGBT," Dison said.

Advocates Hope Transgender Identity Is Not a Defining One

And while the issues that face gays and transgender people often differ, a recent spate of suicides among young gay men has intensified the need for positive political role models, said Chuck Wolfe, the president and chief executive of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which backs gay and lesbian political candidates.

“Knowing there’s openly gay people sitting in those positions will definitely have an impact,” he said.

Mr. Wolfe said that recently he had seen more and more “inspired, comfortable and confident” transgender people in his group’s training classes. There are also more gay and lesbian candidates in general now, a surge that Mr. Wolfe ascribes, in part, to newly elected — and openly gay — leaders like Mayor Annise Parker in Houston and Simone Bell, a lesbian who won a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives in December.

West Hollywood Mayor: The Gay Place In Politics

Another reason for the growth in LGBT elected officials is the tremendous work being done by the Victory Fund. The Victory Fund train people to run for office and have helped people raise money to run their campaign.  The Victory Fund has largely been responsible for many of the newer LGBT elected officials. The Victory Fund has provided crucial guidance and support to people running in areas where there haven’t been LGBT elected before.