Today, HRC enthusiastically announced its endorsement of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for re-election.

In her tenure as Speaker, the LGBTQ community has seen more legislative progress than under any previous Speaker. In 2019, the Pelosi-led House passed the Equality Act for the first time in history -- giving the bill a top 10 number indicating its high priority for both her and her caucus. In addition to the Equality Act, Pelosi led the fight for the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Pelosi has prioritized the LGBTQ community throughout her entire career. Even before many Americans supported marriage equality, Pelosi stood in vocal opposition to anti-equality initiatives like the Defense of Marriage Act and California Proposition 8. In her first speech on the House floor in 1987, then-freshman Congresswoman Pelosi called for action from President Reagan to mitigate the ongoing HIV & AIDS epidemic. While others, even some in her own party, showed a willingness to ignore the ongoing crisis, Pelosi refused to allow them helping secure the permits for the AIDS Memorial Quilt to appear at the National Mall for the first time. 

“Speaker Pelosi has always been there for the LGBTQ community in our lowest lows and highest highs,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “At each and every moment when our community has needed her, Speaker Pelosi has been there for us asking how to help. Without her commitment to progress and dedication to equality, our movement would be years if not decades behind where we proudly stand today. HRC is proud and privileged to endorse Speaker Pelosi for re-election. Our community needs her, and we will do whatever it takes to ensure that happens.”

“Our great city of San Francisco is blessed with a vibrant LGBTQ community and a history of advocacy for equal rights for all. Under my leadership, we have repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, secured passage of legislation to protect communities against violence, and passed the Equality Act,” said Speaker Pelosi. “It is an honor to receive the support of Human Rights Campaign as we fight to end discrimination and achieve full equality under the law once and for all.”

In the 2018 midterms, HRC helped register more than 32,000 voters and recruited more than 4,200 volunteers, who worked over 8,500 shifts and clocked more than 30,000 volunteer hours. In the critical final four days of the campaign, HRC staff and volunteers in get-out-the-vote efforts alone knocked on more than 80,000 doors, and held 36,400 conversations with voters at their doors and by phone on behalf of our endorsed candidates. HRC's unprecedented grassroots mobilization represented an investment of approximately $26 million to recruit volunteers, mobilize constituents, register voters and grow the organization's grassroots army in an all-out effort to pull the emergency brake on the hateful anti-LGBTQ agenda of the Trump-Pence administration and elect a Congress that would hold them accountable.