Congress
David Cicilline announces resignation from Congress to lead nonprofit
Openly gay R.I. Democrat championed LGBTQ issues
U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) will step down from Congress on June 1 to become CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, the largest nonprofit in the state, the congressman announced on Tuesday.
The move bookends 28 years in public service for Cicilline, who was elected to Rhode Island’s House of Representatives in 1995 before becoming mayor of Providence — making history as the first openly gay mayor of a state capital — in 2003, and then representing Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2010.
The 61-year-old’s announcement likely came as a surprise to many in Washington: Cicilline, now serving his seventh term, was favored to continue winning reelection for his seat in Congress, where he has distinguished himself to such an extent that he is often described as one of his party’s rising stars.
A member of House Democratic leadership who was elected to chair the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee from 2019-2021, Cicilline serves as a senior member of the powerful House Foreign Affairs and the House Judiciary Committees and was distinguished as one of the nine Democrats selected in 2021 by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to manage the chamber’s second impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
In Rhode Island, Cicilline’s departure will trigger an off-year special election for his replacement. While it is unclear when the state’s Gov., Dan McKee (D), will schedule the ballot, two lawmakers have announced plans to explore whether to run: State Sen. Meghan Kallman, a progressive Democrat, and Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera.
“For more than a decade, the people of Rhode Island entrusted me with a sacred duty to represent them in Congress, and it is a responsibility I put my heart and soul into every day to make life better for the residents and families of our state,” Cicilline said in a statement.
“The chance to lead the Rhode Island Foundation was unexpected, but it is an extraordinary opportunity to have an even more direct and meaningful impact on the lives of residents of our state.”
The Rhode Island Foundation is one of the state’s biggest philanthropic organizations. With an endowment exceeding $1.3 billion, the group funds a variety of initiatives addressing issues like housing shortages and opioid addiction, often in coordination with the state government. Last week, the foundation announced plans to distribute nearly $110,000 to support Black community services.
“The same energy and commitment I brought to elected office, I will now bring as CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation,” Cicilline said in his statement, “advancing their mission to ensure all Rhode Islanders can achieve economic security, access quality, affordable healthcare, and attain the education and training that will set them on a path to prosperity.”
Dr. G. Alan Kurose, chair of the foundation’s board of directors, said in a statement: “Congressman Cicilline’s career-long fight for equity and equality at the local, national and international level, and his deep relationships within Rhode Island’s communities of color are two of the many factors that led us to this decision.”
A champion for LGBTQ and other progressive causes
Cicilline, a longtime member of the House Progressive and Congressional Equality Caucuses, became the fourth openly gay member of Congress with his first election and has since been one of the most powerful voices on LGBTQ matters before the legislature.
“Congressman Cicilline is a tireless champion for the LGBTQI+ community,” Equality Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said in a statement Tuesday. “Our community has greatly benefited from his leadership, including his work as the lead sponsor of the Equality Act, and the victories he has secured on our behalf,” he said.
Cicilline first introduced the Equality Act in 2011 and would subsequently reintroduce the bill in 2015, 2017 and 2019 — when it was finally passed by the House but languished in the then-Republican controlled U.S. Senate.
The legislation, which remains a major priority for Congressional Democrats and LGBTQ groups, would expand nondiscrimination protections in the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in areas from housing and employment to credit and jury service.
Pocan’s statement on Cicilline’s plans to step down also addressed the congressman’s work on behalf of the Equality Caucus.
“David represents his district honorably,” Pocan said. “He is a mentor to many of our LGBTQI+ co-chairs and has become a close friend and colleague of mine during our time in Congress.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, wrote in a statement issued Tuesday that “Representative Cicilline will end his time in Congress with an unparalleled track record of advancing LGBTQ+ rights in our nation.”
Robinson noted the congressman “has been a driving force in introducing and rallying support for the desperately needed Equality Act” as well as for the Respect for Marriage Act — a landmark bill signed into law at the end of last year that protects same-sex and interracial couples in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court should revoke or weaken their constitutional rights to marry.
LGBTQ Victory Fund & Institute President and former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who was also among the first openly-LGBTQ mayors of a major American city, said in a statement that Cicilline “has consistently gone to bat for pro-LGBTQ legislation, stood up against homophobic and transphobic policies and passed laws to make our country more equitable for all.”
“From speeches on the House floor to conversations with colleagues behind closed doors, David changed the hearts and minds of folks on both sides of the aisle – and our entire community is better because of it,” Parker said, adding that the congressman “will go down as one of the most groundbreaking LGBTQ leaders in American history.”
Other legislation impacting LGBTQ Americans that was supported by Cicilline includes a bill that he co-sponsored in 2011 to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the Clinton-era law banning same-sex marriage, and another that he co-sponsored in 2018, the Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act, which would prohibit courts that are adjudicating the assaults or murders of LGBTQ people from accepting, as mitigating or exculpatory factors, a defendant’s claim that he was driven to violence by unwanted sexual advances from the victim.
Cicilline also used his platform to draw attention to non-legislative matters impacting the LGBTQ community, particularly during the Trump administration, during which time the congressman became vocal advocate for LGBTQ migrants in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a vocal critic of the State Department’s decision to deny or revoke diplomatic visas that were issued to unmarried same-sex partners of foreign diplomats.
Cicilline has also advocated for other causes and legislation championed by progressive Democrats including: strengthening gun control laws, an issue for which in 2016 he organized a 26-hour sit-in with House members including the late-U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), in support of reproductive freedom, including the right to safe and legal abortions.
A major voice in consumer rights, economic policy and foreign affairs
Last year, Roll Call proclaimed that Cicilline “got Congress to care about antitrust again,” having motivated U.S. lawmakers, including through his role as chair of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust, to meet the moment amid the one-in-a-generation sea change in competition policy that began to take shape a few years ago.
No other U.S. lawmaker, with the possible exception of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust and authored a book on the subject in 2021, has exerted more influence over Congress’ efforts to strengthen enforcement of the antitrust laws.
Cicilline and other advocates for antitrust reform argue that with more vigorous enforcement, the government can better moderate the outsize power and influence exerted by the dominant tech platform companies while providing relief for American consumers who suffer higher prices for goods and poorer quality for services as a result of the government’s failure to challenge anticompetitive mergers — a gun-shy approach that has persisted since the 1980s.
Last week, Cicilline challenged the exercise of economic power that harms the integrity of America’s democratic elections, introducing legislation with U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) that would impose additional disclosure requirements for corporations, labor organizations, and super PACs to fight the flow of dark money into politics.
“Great economic power should not translate into outsized political power,” he said.
On the Foreign Affairs Committee, Cicilline was an influential voice on matters that tend to attract comparably more controversy, such as America’s military footprint overseas. The congressman pushed back against the Obama administration’s proposal for intervention in Syria in 2013, and against Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-Un in 2018, warning that it would elevate the standing of North Korea’s supreme leader in the international community.
Congress
McBride, other US lawmakers travel to Denmark
Trump’s demand for Greenland’s annexation overshadowed trip
Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride is among the 11 members of Congress who traveled to Denmark over the past weekend amid President Donald Trump’s continued calls for the U.S. to take control of Greenland.
McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, traveled to Copenhagen, the Danish capital, with U.S. Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), and Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.). The lawmakers met with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic MP Pipaluk Lynge, among others.
“I’m grateful to Sen. Coons for his leadership in bringing together a bipartisan, bicameral delegation to reaffirm our support in Congress for our NATO ally, Denmark,” said McBride in a press release that detailed the trip. “Delaware understands that our security and prosperity depend on strong partnerships rooted in mutual respect, sovereignty, and self-determination. At a time of growing global instability, this trip could not be more poignant.”
Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark with a population of less than 60,000 people. Trump maintains the U.S. needs to control the mineral-rich island in the Arctic Ocean between Europe and North America because of national security.
The Associated Press notes thousands of people on Saturday in Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, protested against Trump. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is among those who have criticized Trump over his suggestion the U.S. would impose tariffs against countries that do not support U.S. annexation of Greenland.
A poll that Sermitsiaq, a Greenlandic newspaper, and Berlingske, a Danish newspaper, commissioned last January indicates 85 percent do not want Greenland to become part of the U.S. The pro-independence Demokraatit party won parliamentary elections that took place on March 12, 2025.
“At this critical juncture for our countries, our message was clear as members of Congress: we value the U.S.-Denmark partnership, the NATO alliance, and the right of Greenlanders to self-determination,” said McBride on Sunday in a Facebook post that contained pictures of her and her fellow lawmakers meeting with their Danish and Greenlandic counterparts.
Congress
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is among those who spoke at an “ICE Out for Good” protest that took place outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s headquarters in D.C. on Tuesday.
The protest took place six days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis.
Good left behind her wife and three children.
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
Congress
Advocates say MTG bill threatens trans youth, families, and doctors
The “Protect Children’s Innocence” Act passed in the House
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has a long history of targeting the transgender community as part of her political agenda. Now, after announcing her resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives, attempting to take away trans rights may be the last thing she does in her official capacity.
The proposed legislation, dubbed “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” is among the most extreme anti-trans measures to move through Congress. It would put doctors in jail for up to 10 years if they provide gender-affirming care to minors — including prescribing hormone replacement therapy to adolescents or puberty blockers to younger children. The bill also aims to halt gender-affirming surgeries for minors, though those procedures are rare.
Greene herself described the bill on X, saying if passed, “it would make it a Class C felony to trans a child under 18.”
According to KFF, a nonpartisan source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, 27 states have enacted policies limiting youth access to gender-affirming care. Roughly half of all trans youth ages 13–17 live in a state with such restrictions, and 24 states impose professional or legal penalties on health care practitioners who provide that care.
Greene has repeatedly introduced the bill since 2021, the year she entered Congress, but it failed to advance. Now, in exchange for her support for the National Defense Authorization Act, the legislation reached the House floor for the first time.
According to the 19th, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first trans member of Congress, rebuked Republicans on the Capitol steps Wednesday for advancing anti-trans legislation while allowing Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire — a move expected to raise health care costs for millions of Americans.
“They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable one percent of the population, instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone’s health care,” McBride said. “They are obsessed with trans people … they are consumed with this.”
Polling suggests the public largely opposes criminalizing gender-affirming care.
A recent survey by the Human Rights Campaign and Global Strategy Group found that 73 percent of voters in U.S. House battleground districts oppose laws that would jail doctors or parents for providing transition-related care. Additionally, 77 percent oppose forcing trans people off medically recommended medication. Nearly seven in 10 Americans said politicians are not informed enough to make decisions about medical care for trans youth.
The bill passed the House and now heads to the U.S. Senate for further consideration.
According to reporting by Erin Reed of Erin In The Morning, three Democrats — U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Don Davis of North Carolina — crossed party lines to vote in favor of the felony ban, joining 213 Republicans. A total of 207 Democrats voted against the bill, while three lawmakers from both parties abstained.
Advocates and lawmakers warned the bill is dangerous and unprecedented during a multi-organizational press call Tuesday. Leaders from the Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project joined U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Dr. Kenneth Haller, and parents of trans youth to discuss the potential impact of restrictive policies like Greene’s — particularly in contrast to President Donald Trump’s leniency toward certain criminals, with more than 1,500 pardons issued this year.
“Our MAGA GOP government has pardoned drug traffickers. They’ve pardoned people who tried to overthrow the government on January 6, but now they want to put pediatricians and parents into a jail cell for caring for their kids,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “No one asked for Marjorie Taylor Greene or Dan Crenshaw or any politician to be in their doctor’s office, and they should mind their own business.”
Balint, co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, questioned why medical decisions are being made by lawmakers with no clinical expertise.
“Parents and doctors already have to worry about state laws banning care for their kids, and this bill would introduce the risk of federal criminal prosecution,” Balint said. “We’re talking about jail time. We’re talking about locking people up for basic medical care, care that is evidence-based, age-appropriate and life-saving.”
“These are decisions that should be made by doctors and parents and those kids that need this gender-affirming care, not certainly by Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
Haller, an emeritus professor of pediatrics at St. Louis University School of Medicine, described the legislation as rooted in ideology rather than medicine.
“It is not science, it is just blind ideology,” Haller said.
“The doctor tells you that as parents, as well as the doctor themselves, could be convicted of a felony and be sentenced up to 10 years in prison just for pursuing a course of action that will give your child their only chance for a happy and healthy future,” he added. “It is not in the state’s best interests, and certainly not in the interests of us, the citizens of this country, to interfere with medical decisions that people make about their own bodies and their own lives.”
Haller’s sentiment is echoed by doctors across the country.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest organization that represents doctors across the country in various parts of medicine has a longstanding support for gender-affirming care.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” their website reads.
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, senior vice president of public engagement campaigns at the Trevor Project, agreed.
“In Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill [it] even goes so far as to criminalize and throw a parent in jail for this,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “Medical decisions should be between patients, families, and their doctors.”
Rachel Gonzalez, a parent of a transgender teen and LGBTQ advocate, said the bill would harm families trying to act in their children’s best interests.
“No politician should be in any doctor’s office or in our living room making private health care decisions — especially not Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Gonzalez said. “My daughter and no trans youth should ever be used as a political pawn.”
Other LGBTQ rights activists also condemned the legislation.
Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, called the bill “an abominable attack on the transgender community.”
“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s last-ditch effort to bring her 3-times failed bill to a vote is an abominable attack on the transgender community and further cements a Congressional career defined by hate and bigotry,” they said. “We are counting down the days until she’s off Capitol Hill — but as the bill goes to the floor this week, our leaders must stand up one last time to her BS and protect the safety of queer kids and medical providers. Full stop.”
Hack added that “healthcare is a right, not a privilege” in the U.S., and this attack on trans healthcare is an attack on queer rights altogether.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene has no place in deciding what care is necessary,” Hack added. “This is another attempt to legislate trans and queer people out of existence while peddling an agenda rooted in pseudoscience and extremism.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, also denounced the legislation.
“This bill is the most extreme anti-transgender legislation to ever pass through the House of Representatives and a direct attack on the rights of parents to work with their children and their doctors to provide them with the medical care they need,” Takano said. “This bill is beyond cruel and its passage will forever be a stain on the institution of the United States Congress.”
The bill is unlikely to advance in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass.
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