AP News in Brief
Senate moves forward on gay rights discrimination bill nearly 2 decades after falling short
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate is moving forward on the first major bill barring workplace discrimination against gays in nearly two decades as Americans' shifting views about homosexuality have significantly changed the political dynamic.
• Seven Republicans and 54 Democrats stood together Monday and cleared the bill past its first hurdle on a 61-30 procedural vote, setting the stage for debate on Tuesday and possible passage by week's end. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act would prohibit workplace discrimination against gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
• The legislation, the first significant gay rights bill since Congress ended the ban on gays serving openly in the military in 2010, faces strong opposition in the House, with Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, rejecting the measure.
• Final passage would cap a 17-year quest to secure Senate support for a similar discrimination measure that failed by one vote in 1996, the same year Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, the law prohibiting federal recognition of same-sex marriage.
• "I think back to Martin Luther King's commentary that the great arc of the universe bends toward justice and I feel that our notion of fairness about employment, how central that is to pursuit of happiness, how central it is to equality, how central it is to the golden rule .... means that we will accomplish this," said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., a chief sponsor of the bill. "But I do hope it's sooner rather than later."
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Medicare chief Tavenner faces questions from Senate panel that helped write health law
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- A month into the rollout of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and no end to problems, the senior administration official closest to the law's implementation will answer questions Tuesday from a Senate panel that wrote much of it.
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