Rosemary Ketchum has made LGBTQ HERstory: last week she won a seat on the Wheeling City Council, making her the first openly transgender elected official in West Virginia.
"We ran a really, really close campaign with our competitors, but we were able to run a grassroots campaign that, despite the obstacles of COVID, we were able to win," the councilwoman-elect told Cheddar on Tuesday.
Ketchum's victory came after a tight non-partisan race in which she defeated her opponent by just 15 votes. When Ketchum takes office on July 1, she will be one of only 27 transgender elected officials in the United States, according to Victory Fund.
Even though she has a few weeks before she's sworn in, Ketchum said she is already getting the ball rolling on issues she wants to tackle in office.
"Already, I am meeting with constituents to tour spaces that need to be rehabilitated. I've spoken to communities that are vulnerable and need assistance and need a platform and a stage to speak," Ketchum said.
Just a week after Ketchum's win, the larger LGBTQ community won a decisive victory from the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled that under existing civil rights law, LGBTQ workers are protected from job discrimination, meaning gay and transgender employees cannot be fired based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
"This is an incredibly powerful and meaningful ruling by [the Supreme Court]," Ketchum continued. "Truthfully, I wasn't confident that this Court would be thoughtful around this issue and I was very excited that they decided to vote in favor of this and that the majority opinion was written by Justice Gorsuch."
Justice Neil Gorsuch, known as a conservative member of the bench, was President Donald Trump's first nominee to the Supreme Court. He, along with Chief Justice John Roberts, another Republican nominee, joined the Court's more liberal contingent to deliver the 6-3 ruling.
The Trump administration has asked an appeals court to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors by Monday, before the central bank’s next vote on interest rates. Trump sought to fire Cook Aug. 25, but a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her to the Fed’s board.
President Donald Trump's administration is appealing a ruling blocking him from immediately firing Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook as he seeks more control over the traditionally independent board. The notice of appeal was filed Wednesday, hours after U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb handed down the ruling. The White House insists the Republican president had the right to fire Cook over mortgage fraud allegations involving properties in Michigan and Georgia from before she joined the Fed. Cook's lawsuit denies the allegations and says the firing was unlawful. The case could soon reach the Supreme Court, which has allowed Trump to fire members of other independent agencies but suggested that power has limitations at the Fed.
Chief Justice John Roberts has let President Donald Trump remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, the latest in a string of high-profile firings allowed for now by the Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
