POLITICS
Brooklyn LGBTQ Dems Endorse Warren
New York City queer political clubs split 2-1 last week for Warren over Sanders
BY MATT TRACY
After three consecutive
nights of presidential
endorsement meetings,
LGBTQ New York Democrats
have spoken: Two queer political
clubs endorsed Massachusetts
Senator Elizabeth Warren
and one threw its support behind
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Lambda Independent Democrats
of Brooklyn (LID) capped off
the three-day affair on January 23
by endorsing Warren roughly 24
hours after the Stonewall Democratic
Club of New York City backed
her campaign and two days after
the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic
Club endorsed Sanders.
LID’s endorsement meeting at
the Brooklyn Commons in Boerum
Hill drew many of the same surrogates
who attended Stonewall’s
endorsement meeting across the
East River on January 22 — including
Working Families Party
strategy director Nelini Stamp representing
the Warren campaign —
and most surrogates delivered the
same kind of message as they did
at the Stonewall meeting.
But it wasn’t a complete repeat:
Stamp got personal and spoke
about how she became inspired
by Warren’s support of the Occupy
Wall Street movement, while Jared
Trujillo, an out gay defense attorney
who is involved with LID and
also on the steering committee of
DecrimNY — the coalition to decriminalize
sex work — made the
case for Sanders. Brooklyn City
Councilmember Rafael Espinal
represented the Sanders campaign
at the Jim Owles and Stonewall
endorsement meetings.
Along with Stamp, returning surrogates
included Taylor Shubert for
the Amy Klobuchar campaign, Asa
Pace for Pete Buttigieg, and Carson
Tueller from the Andrew Yang
campaign. Unlike at the Stonewall
event, former Vice President Joe
Biden’s campaign did not send a
surrogate, nor did former New York
City Mayor Michael Bloomberg —
whose campaign faced tough scrutiny
during the meeting in Manhattan
Nelini Stamp said Elizabeth Warren’s advocacy at the time of the Occupy Wall Street movement helped
inspire her to get involved in politics.
Asa Pace, here appearing before the Stonewall Democrats on January 22, spoke up again on Pete
Buttigieg’s behalf at LID the following evening.
the evening before.
The mood in the room in Brooklyn
was calmer than the rousing
enthusiasm for Warren in Manhattan
on January 22. Some in
the audience wore pins supporting
candidates like Minnesota Senator
Amy Klobuchar and others donned
Bernie Sanders shirts.
But the club still went on to
vote for Warren after Stamp again
made the case for the Massachusetts
senator and mixed in anecdotes
about her own hardships
growing up. She recalled dropping
out of LaGuardia High School, losing
PHOTO MATT TRACY
PHOTO MATT TRACY
hope in the future, and turning
to retail work before her family was
crushed by 2008’s financial crisis.
“My mom went bankrupt,” she
said. “And there was this one older
white lady who I didn’t think I
would ever have anything in common
with who said, ‘This is a problem.
The banks are to blame, Wall
Street is to blame — not the people
who are suffering.’”
Stamp further noted that Warren’s
ascendance to take the lead
on creating the Consumer Finance
Protection Bureau during Barack
Obama’s presidency marked the
first time she felt engaged with a
national political figure from outside
of New York.
Like Stamp, Trujillo also got personal
in his speech for Sanders,
saying, “Quite frankly, sometimes I
think about myself. As a gay man,
it gives me great pride to be able to
support someone for president who
isn’t just for gay rights now because
it’s popular, but he was standing
up for queer folks in 1983.”
But Trujillo framed much of his
speech around Sanders’ criminal
justice reform platform and how
the Vermont senator’s policies
would benefit the clients Trujillo
represents. Trujillo cited Sanders’
calls for clemency and for the
rights of incarcerated individuals
to vote (the Census counts prisoners
where they are being held,
adding clout but no additional
enfranchisement to those election
districts), among other elements of
his candidacy.
“I think about my clients and I
think about the fact that almost
no one is ever talking about kids
in foster care, but Bernie is,” Trujillo
said. “I think about my clients
who are incarcerated, mostly black
and brown folks, overwhelmingly
transgender folks… I think about
how expansive his criminal justice
platform is.”
He continued, “I think about my
immigrant clients and how they are
worried about deportation, which
Bernie is worried about, but how
they’re also worried about workplace
exploitation and how Bernie
Sanders has a comprehensive plan
to stop worker exploitation. I think
about my disabled clients, and
how Bernie Sanders isn’t just talking
about Medicare for All now, but
he’s been talking about Medicare
for All… I think about my clients
with HIV and how Bernie wants to
use march-in rights to lower the
price of Truvada.”
As for the other candidates, Pace
again showered praise on Buttigieg
and, among several topics discussed,
defended his about-face on
Medicare for All in favor of a public
➤ ELIZABETH WARREN, continued on p.5
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