Norton Presses Gay Rights for Federal Employees (9/18/07)

Washington, DC-Two Norton bills-one upgrading the pensions of District police and firefighters and the other barring workplace discrimination against gay and lesbian employees-passed subcommittee today and were sent to the full Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for consideration. Norton, a cosponsor of the Federal Merit Systems Reauthorization Act, strongly pressed a section of that bill that clarifies and requires enforcement of an existing executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Norton strenuously argued against a Republican effort to define "sexual orientation." She successfully said that courts, agencies, businesses and individuals have had no problem enforcing similar laws throughout the country without definitions spelling out what people do in bedrooms in detail in statutes. Norton believes that the bill and executive order correctly regard sexual orientation as a status, not a group of sexual practices.

At a hearing this year, Norton challenged the director of the Office of Personnel Management for his refusal to enforce the existing non-discrimination order, claiming that a case before the Merit Systems Protections Board (MSPB) ran counter to the executive order. However at that hearing, the chair of the MSPB contradicted this assertion regarding the case. Norton opposed a delay in the vote, which she said would only be used to stir up anti-gay groups' hostility. She said that Republicans could be accommodated between now and full committee consideration and could offer amendments there. "GLBT employees and job seekers should not be left in doubt concerning their civil rights on the say-so of one man, who is defying a valid executive order," Norton said. "Delay is too much to ask of those of us who believe that important rights to jobs and careers in the federal services are at stake."

The subcommittee also approved Norton's Metropolitan Police and Fire Department Act of 2007. This bill will reduce the minimum number of years D.C. police and firefighters are required to serve in order to get their long term annuity benefits due from the federal government. Federal law divides the responsibility for paying the District's first responders between the federal government and the city. Norton's bill is necessary to conform the federal formula for calculating pensions, under which D.C. officers and firefighters must serve a minimum of 25 years, to the new 20 year threshold adopted by the District government earlier this year. In 1999 the D.C. City Council set the minimum at 20 years of service, but later increased it to 25 years because the MPD was concerned that hundreds of longtime police officers who were eligible to retire at 20 years might leave in droves, draining the department of too many experienced officers. Now that the timeframe for these retirees has passed and the District has reset the eligibility to 20 years, Norton's bill will bring the federal government in line. She introduced the bill at the request of the first responders' union.