The Northeast Florida LGBT Leadership PAC announces edorsements of candidates

[Cheshire Cat]

New LGBT PAC backs Bishop, Davis, 19 other city candidates

By Rhema Thompson Tue, Feb 24, 2015 @ 5:59 pm | updated Tue, Feb 24, 2015 @ 6:15 pm
Keri Kidder (L-R front row) secretary, Jimmy Midyette, vice chair, and Carrington Mead, chair, explain the Northeast Florida LGBT Leadership PAC's endorsement procedures. The Northeast Florida LGBT Leadership PAC made endorsements for local elections on the steps of City Hall, on Tuesday February 24, 2015, in Jacksonville, Florida. Bruce.Lipsky@jacksonville.com
Bruce.Lipsky@jacksonville.com
Keri Kidder (L-R front row) secretary, Jimmy Midyette, vice chair, and Carrington Mead, chair, explain the Northeast Florida LGBT Leadership PAC's endorsement procedures. The Northeast Florida LGBT Leadership PAC made endorsements for local elections on the steps of City Hall, on Tuesday February 24, 2015, in Jacksonville, Florida.

A newly-formed gay-rights political group endorsed Republican mayoral candidate Bill Bishop, supervisor of elections contender Tracie Davis and more than a dozen city council candidates who organizers say expressed support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

The nine-member Northeast Florida LGBT Leadership PAC, which filed with the Duval County Supervisor of Elections earlier this month, announced their endorsements Tuesday on the steps of City Hall.

"Our PAC was organized for one purpose to identify, support and assist in the election of candidates for office in Jacksonville who value the civic contributions made by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community," said PAC Vice Chairman Jimmy Midyette. "...We have not had a place at the civic table."

PAC Chairwoman Carrington "Rusty" Mead said the candidates were selected for the statements they've made in support of expanding the city's controversial human rights ordinance.

The ordinance currently provides anti-discrimination protection in housing, employment and public accommodations on the basis of race, sex, national origin, disability and the like, but does not provide protection on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. A measure to expand the ordinance was rejected by city council members in a 17-2 and 10-9 vote in 2012.

"You will find in some of the city races we have made co-endorsements and that's because both candidates had made a statement that leads us to believe that they are strong supporters of an inclusive ordinance to support LGBT people," Mead said.

Midyette and Mead declined to say how much the group has raised so far, stating they have just begun fund-raising efforts.

The leadership PAC is the latest in a growing list of LGBT political committees weighing in on this years' race, following the 2012 defeat if the proposed city human rights ordinance.

"Obviously, with what happened in 2012, we've seen a bit of an evolution in both the community and in the resources that we have in the community to direct political causes," Midyette said.

Earlier this month, the Log Cabin Republicans, a statewide organization of gay and lesbian conservatives, announced their endorsement of Bishop and city council candidates Anna Brosche, Aaron Bowman, Greg Anderson, Michele Tappouni and Jim Love.

More recently, the political action committee for anti-discrimination group Equality Florida issued a list of "financially viable candidates" who have voiced support the expansion of the human rights ordinance. That list also includes Bishop, Tappouni, Love, Hazouri, Shacter, King, Fields, Glorius Johnson as well as Marc McCullough and Lynn Sherman.

For full article click link:
http://jacksonville.com/news/2015-02-24/story/new-lgbt-pac-backs-bishop-davis-19-other-city-candidates

[coredumped]

So has change 4 Jax if you're in to that sort of thing:

http://www.change4jax.com/

Personally, I think it would be better if everyone studied the candidates and voted accordingly,regardless of endorsements or party affiliation.

[Jimmy]

Well, that's something we hope people will do, too, core... As for the LGBT PAC, we have endorsed a broad group of folks, without regard to party affiliation. 

Which, as a Democrat, is already causing me a LOT of grief with the local party.  But the fact is some Republicans are better on this issue than some Democrats.  And vice versa. 

[coredumped]

Jimmy, you sound like an educated voter. I wish more voted for the best candidate,who cares about party affiliation, especially when politicians just change theirs (ahem, Charlie).

[IrvAdams]

Yes. In my opinion you need to look at more than party affiliation, especially in Jax.

[Cheshire Cat]

Alvin Brown's staff chief disputes LGBT leadership PAC version of 2012 meeting
February 25, 2015 By A.G. Gancarski
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Earlier Wednesday, we reported on the Northeast Florida LGBT Leadership PAC's slate of endorsements for the March Jacksonville Unitary Election. In doing so, we have uncovered differing recollections of a 2012 meeting between PAC Vice Chairman Jimmy Midyette and Mayor Alvin Brown's Chief of Staff Chris Hand.

Midyette said at Tuesday's press conference that "before the bill was introduced, members of the LGBT community met with Mayor Brown's staff in an effort to coordinate the effort, as was promised during the 2011 election cycle." However, "instead of assisting with our efforts, many of our elected leaders failed to deliver on campaign promises made to the LGBT community. Despite months of public testimony and comments outlining horrendous instances of discrimination against LGBT people, the mayor and council were unmoved."

I asked Midyette for more details on the meeting.

"Dave DeCamp wasn't at the meeting," he said. "It was Chris Hand, Michelle Barth, myself, and Dan Merkan."

Midyette and Hand concur as to who was at the meeting. And that's about it.

In a detailed email response to my questions on the matter, Hand fleshed out the narrative, after consulting with others to ensure his recollection was reliable.

"At no point did members of the LGBT community meet with me or then-City Policy Director (our City Council liaison) Jessica Deal to coordinate any legislative effort before the bill was introduced in May 2012. I just spoke to Jessica and confirmed that with her," Hand wrote.

"Frankly, since I knew some of the organizers personally, I was surprised at the lack of outreach as they were preparing their legislative effort. But I learned of the introduction of the legislation in late April 2012 when the news media reported that Warren Jones was planning to file a bill," Hand continued.

"The only meeting I had was in the first few months of the administration (Jan. 4, 2012), when Deputy Chief of Staff Michelle Barth and I met with Jimmy Midyette and Dan Merkan to catch up on issues in general," Hand wrote. "I knew Jimmy and Michelle knew Dan, and we're always interested in hearing from citizens."

The meeting, Hand wrote, lasted 30 minutes.

"'Coordination of the effort' was not discussed at that meeting," Hand asserted.  "I just checked with Michelle and she confirms that it was not discussed. While Jimmy and Dan expressed the general hope that City Council would expand the Human Rights Ordinance, they did not indicate if or when legislation was forthcoming or ask us to introduce any legislation. We also discussed a variety of other matters such as appointments to City Boards and Commissions, and other issues they were tracking.

"I remember that Jimmy and Dan thanked us for taking the time to meet. As part of that thanks, Jimmy made a comment that the previous administration would never have agreed to meet with them. I found that comment surprising since my experience with the Peyton Administration was positive during the transition to the Brown Administration," Hand added.

"That was the last time I saw Jimmy before the news broke of the impending bill introduction in late April. As best as I can remember, the only time I have seen him since that January 4, 2012 meeting is when I ran into him at a JCCI event in November 2012," the mayor's chief of staff wrote.

For full story click link:  http://floridapolitics.com/archives/8878

   

[Tacachale]

Wow, retroactive buck passing.

[Jimmy]

I hate being part of "the story." Of any story, really.

I'd like to make something very clear because I respect both Chris and Michelle a great deal. This article is the result of a previous article in which the administration claimed that the meeting in question never took place because their press person, Dave DeCamp, wasn't in attendance. Obviously, the administration had to backtrack from their earlier mistake and clarify that there was in fact a meeting. I'm sorry if perhaps some of the participants misremember the content of the meeting, but it did take place, in 2012, before the bill was introduced to the council.

I should also add that I was completely wrong about Mayor John Peyton. Looking retrospectively at Mayor Peyton's administration, he was much better on LGBT issues than the current Mayor. And to his great credit, during the push to pass 2012-296, Mayor Peyton came out in strong support of the HRO measure, along with other former Mayors of Jacksonville while we endured silent indifference and worse from the current administration.

I've had the chance to review my notes of the meeting in question. The human rights ordinance took up a great deal of our time. The meeting was set, interestingly, because the Mayor terribly bungled the answer to a question about Domestic Partner registries on the the Melissa Ross show. We wanted to give the administration better talking points on issues of concern to the LGBT community and to let them know that we were moving forward on a legislative strategy to address our lack of HRO.