U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Patrick Toomey (R) this week again voted against a pro-LGBT measure.
Toomey was one of 45 Senators to reject the Student Nondiscrimination Act. Offered by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) as an amendment to the Every Child Achieves Act on Tuesday, the bill would have protected students in public schools from discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. Currently, federal law prohibits discrimination against students based on race, color, disability, sex and national origin.
The amendment garnered 52 favorable votes — from all Democrats, six Republicans and two Independents — but not enough to achieve the needed 60 votes.
American Civil Liberties Union legislative representative Ian Thompson called the vote “disappointing.”
“What could be more commonsense?” he asked. “It is, however, encouraging that a bipartisan majority of senators came together in support of the idea that all children, regardless of who they are, deserve the right to learn in an environment that is safe and free from the fear of discrimination looming over their heads.”
During committee consideration of the Every Child Achieves Act, U.S. Sen. from Pennsylvania Bob Casey (D) offered as an amendment his Safe Schools Improvement Act, which would have required schools receiving federal funding to adopt enumerated anti-bullying policies, which would protect against anti-LGBT discrimination, among other forms of discrimination. That amendment was also thwarted by Republicans.
Last month, Toomey also voted against a measure that would have granted same-sex spouses of veterans equal access to health benefits, regardless of their home state’s marriage laws; that legislation was offered prior to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Toomey faces a re-election challenge in the spring from Democrat and former Congressman Joe Sestak.