List of Senators who are wavering on EDNA. Call them today!

Mikhaela posts a list of Senators who haven’t yet confirmed support for the inclusive ENDA that Jeff Merkley (one of my Senators — Oregon for the win!) recently introduced in the Senate. The senators are listed by state; go check it out, and if your senator is listed, please give her or him a call.

For those of you unfamiliar with ENDA, here’s Wikipedia’s nutshelling:

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), is a proposed bill in the United States Congress that would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability. Such protections are already available to employees of the federal government through executive orders for sexual orientation and gender identity in 1998 and 2009 respectively; this would extend them to employees in the private sector (religious organizations exempted).

ENDA has been introduced in every Congress, except the 109th, since 1994, albeit without gender identity protections, but gained its best chance at passing after the Democratic Party broke twelve years of Republican Congressional rule in the 2006 midterm elections. Sponsors found that even with a Democratic majority, ENDA did not have enough votes to pass the House of Representatives with transgender inclusion, and dropped it from the bill, where it passed and subsequently died in the Senate. LGBT advocacy organizations were divided over support of the changed bill.

In 2009, on the heels of the 2008 elections that strengthened the Democratic majority, and after the debacle of the 2007 ENDA divisions, only a transgender-inclusive ENDA has been introduced by House representative Barney Frank. President Barack Obama supports the bill’s passage unlike his Republican predecessor, who threatened to veto the measure.

So if one of your Senators is on the list, please make the call.