Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020): Time to Carry on the Fight

I was having dinner with my family to celebrate the Jewish New Year when I learned that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died.  As my friend Lauren Johnson Norris posted on Facebook, “According to Jewish tradition, a person who dies on Rosh Hashanah, which began tonight, is a tzaddik, a person of great righteousness. We found that very comforting. So strange to be eating these apples and honey with this sadness.”

We have lost a woman of valor and righteousness. We have lost our warrior and champion.

Salt water next to our apples and honey.

Mixed with our sadness is the acute realization that the tragic loss of Justice Ginsburg means that a woman’s right to control her own body, already under extreme siege, is more in danger now than at any time since Roe v. Wade was decided nearly 50 years ago.

Now, more than ever, we must ensure that our representatives, at every level of government, are fully committed to protecting our fundamental reproductive rights.

I want to share with you the statement released today by my friend and Irvine Community Services Commissioner Lauren Johnson-Norris.  It eloquently puts into words what I and many other women are thinking and feeling at this difficult and pivotal moment in our history:

“Justice Ginsburg is an icon for many women, especially women lawyers, because she dedicated her professional life to a singular focus in moving the law toward equality for women. She entered spaces where women were not welcomed and won time and again, not just because of her brilliant mind and persuasive advocacy, but because she stood on the side of equality. As a jurist, she sought to build consensus but, when that was not possible, she provided an essential voice of dissent that spoke truth to power.

The loss of Justice Ginsburg on the United States Supreme Court is devastating at a time when women’s fundamental rights to reproductive health care is under attack. The right of a woman to make autonomous decisions about her own body is the core of her fundamental right to equality and privacy. As a lawyer, mother, and advocate for women, I know that in order to drive equality, we must commit fully and actively to reproductive rights and healthcare for all.”

RBG gave us all she could. She brought us this far. Now it’s our time to carry on the fight, in her name and in her memory, for ourselves, our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters.

There’s lots of work to do.

Let’s get busy.

 

Rally for Flying the Pride Flag in Irvine! Tues., June 23, 2020 Time: 3:30 pm at Irvine City Hall Plaza!

June is Pride Month, when the State of California, and nations and cities around the world, stand with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community as they declare their pride in who they are and who they love.

Show your support for flying the Pride Flag in Irvine by joining Irvine City Councilmembers Melissa Fox and Farrah N. Khan at a Rally at City Hall before Tuesday’s Irvine City Council Meeting! 

What: Rally for Flying the Pride Flag in Irvine
Where: Irvine City Hall, 1 Civic Center Plaza
Date: Tues., June 23, 2020
Time: 3:30 p.m. 

Click here to see the Facebook event page for the Rally.

Remember face coverings and social distancing is legally required in Irvine! Let’s keep each other safe while we make the world a better place!

Please also show your support for flying the Pride Flag in Irvine by contacting Mayor Christina Shea and the Irvine City Council to let them know. We need only one more vote! Contact the Irvine City Council: https://www.cityofirvine.org/city-council/contact-council

Note: At the following meeting on July 14th, we will be urging the Irvine City to repeal and remove its unconstitutional and cruel anti-LGBTQ ordinance!
https://melissafoxblog.com/2020/06/14/irvine-should-repeal-its-anti-lgbtq-ordinance-now/

June is Pride Month: Support Flying the Pride Flag at Irvine City Hall!

June is Pride Month, when the State of California, and nations and cities around the world, stand with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community as they declare their pride in who they are and who they love.

June holds historic significance for the LGBT community.  In 1969, the Stonewall Riots occurred in the New York City as a protest against the police department’s unfair targeting of the LGBT community. The Stonewall Riots led to political organizing that is considered to be the beginning of the modern LGBT civil rights movement. The following year, the first LGBT Pride Parade was held in New York City on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Today, California has the largest LGBT population in the nation and is home to over forty LGBT Pride celebrations. 

As Governor Newsom stated recently in his Pride Month Proclamation, “The LGBTQ community has worked tirelessly for respect, equality and their very right to exist. Their battles have been fought in the courts, from marriage equality to demanding equal protection under the law.  While there has been remarkable progress towards acceptance and equality in recent years, members of the LGBTQ community in the United States and around the world still face an unacceptable level of discrimination and violence. This includes LGBTQ people who aren’t safe at home and those who do not have a home in which to stay.  We must push back against those who threaten the safety of LGBTQ Californians and challenge our progress. And we must continue to make the case that all human beings share something fundamental in common – all of us want to be loved, and all of us want to love. We cannot march in a parade this June, but we can and will stand with our LGBTQ family, friends and neighbors. Pride celebrations may look different this year, but in California, no matter the circumstances, we are proud to support our LGBTQ community’s right to live their lives out loud. As we celebrate Pride across the state, we must continue to demand equal rights for all to create a California for all.”

Last year, I asked the Irvine City Council to fly the Pride Flag from our Civic Center. In doing so, we would be joining many other cities, including Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach, and Fullerton, as well as the Orange County Fairgrounds, in flying the Pride Flag to recognize Pride Month by making it clear to all that our community is a place where LGBT people are visible, accepted, and welcome.

Unfortunately, although dozens of residents spoke at the meeting in support of flying the Pride Flag, the Council defeated the proposal and I was the only Councilmember to speak in favor of it. Councilmember Mike Carroll even called the Pride Flag “a spectacle of divisiveness.” 

In fact, in direct response to my motion to fly the Pride Flag, the Irvine City Council took the unprecedented step of voting to prohibit a council member from placing an item on the agenda without two other council members’ approval.  As the Orange County Register correctly stated in a powerful editorial opposing the Council’s action, “the transparent goal [was] to shut down the views of the political minority.”

Following the City Council’s rejection of my Pride Flag motion, I joined with numerous other Irvine residents in our own Pride Flag event in front of City Hall, celebrating LGBTQ Pride and diversity in Irvine.  I also placed a Pride Flag in front of my office at City Hall.

I said at the time that I had no intention of being silent.  Therefore, I will again bring a motion to the Irvine City Council to fly the Pride Flag from our Civic Center as a visible and prominent expression of our City’s commitment to equal rights for all and to ensure that our LGBTQ community can live their lives out loud.

Under the new rules imposed by the City Council majority in response to my Pride Flag motion last year, I asked Councilmember Farrah Khan to join me in placing this motion on the City Council agenda.  She told me she was working with other, Republican, councilmembers on a Pride-related agenda item.  When I asked her specifically whether the item included flying the Pride Flag, she did not respond.

I have now seen the agenda item, a proclamation, and it does not call for flying the Pride Flag from the Civic Center as a clear symbol of Irvine’s commitment. 

Accordingly, this year I will again bring a motion to fly the Pride Flag from our Irvine Civic Center.

Please show your support for flying the Pride Flag in Irvine by contacting Mayor Christina Shea and the Irvine City Council to let them know.  Click here for their email addresses.

Click here for a link to e-comment of the agenda item. Your comment is supposed to be read aloud by the clerk during the City Council meeting.

As Harvey Milk told us, “Hope will never be silent.”

UPDATE: Tues., June 9, 2020

I am deeply disappointed that no other member of the Council supported my motion to fly the Pride flag in Irvine during Pride. Not Mayor Christina Shea. Not Councilmembers Farrah Khan, Anthony Kuo, or Mike Carroll. What an embarrassment for our City. 

 

Celebrate Harvey Milk Day — Be an Agent of Change!

Today, Friday, May 22, is Harvey Milk Day. I am proud to join millions of people in California and throughout the world today in celebrating the life of Harvey Milk, born on this day in 1930 and murdered in 1978 because of his outspoken and courageous activism in the fight for equal rights for all people regardless of sexual orientation.

Since 2009, in California, Harvey Milk Day has been recognized as a day of special significance and an opportunity to remember and teach about Milk’s life and his work to stop discrimination against gays and lesbians.

We’ve come a long way, thanks in large measure to the courage of Harvey Milk.

When Harvey Milk first ran for supervisor in San Francisco in 1977, he was told that an openly gay man could never get elected. When he won, he became the first openly gay non-incumbent ever to win an election for public office in the United States.

Now there are hundreds of openly gay men and women serving their communities and states in elected office.

But much more needs to be done.

We must continue to fight for the elimination of violence and discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity – in our own communities and throughout the world.

We must ensure that governments everywhere respect the dignity and human rights of all people in regard to their own gender identity.

We must continue to fight for the sexual and reproductive rights of all people.

Last year, I introduced a resolution of the Irvine City City to fly the Pride Flag from Irvine City Hall.  

That resolution failed on a 2-3 party-line vote last year. As the OC Weekly reported, “the Irvine City Council voted down Fox’s proposal. Instead, they approved an utterly meaningless substitute motion that authorized councilmembers to fly flags of their choosing in their own offices. Even worse, Councilmember Michael Carroll accused Fox of trying to ‘divide the community’ with her resolution. It’s no wonder Fox – who noted during the meeting that LGBT people around the world face violence for who they choose to love – called the vote a ‘circus’.”

I will bring the resolution forward again this year.  If you agree, please email the Irvine City Council to let them know that Irvine should join the State of California, as well many other states and cities, including Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach, and Fullerton, and the Orange County Fairgrounds, in making it clear to all that our community officially rejects prejudice against people based on who they love and that Irvine is a place where LGBT people are visible, accepted, and welcome.

When President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Harvey Milk the Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian award, he said Milk was “an agent of change” who “saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way.”

Let’s each of us honor Harvey Milk by committing to being an agent of change.

As Governor Newsom reminds us, today we should remember Harvey Milk’s own words “Hope will never be silent” as we “carry on his fearless  advocacy and work toward a California for all.”

I Will Sponsor Legislation to Prohibit the University of California from Affiliating with Hospitals that Impose Non-Medically Based Restrictions on Health Care or Discriminate Against LGBTQ People

The LA Times has recently noted that “Religious restrictions on healthcare [at the University of California] have been developing into a public health crisis of the first order.”

The problem is that the University of California has entered into clinical and educational training contracts with religion-based hospitals that place non-scientific and non-medically based constraints on University of California personnel and students at every one of UC’s six medical schools, as well as some nursing, nurse practitioner, physician assistant and pharmacy programs.

These constraints include prohibitions on abortion (even in cases of sexual assault), sterilization procedures such as tubal ligations, provision of contraceptives, counseling patients about contraception and abortion, fertility treatments, use of egg or sperm donor outside of a heterosexual married couple, use of a gestational surrogate, use of fetal tissue, the provision of medical or surgical gender-affirming services for transgender people such as hysterectomy or mastectomy for transgender men, and physician assisted suicide or aid-in-dying.

Due to public outcry against the University of California acquiescing to these non-scientific or healthcare based constraints on medical care, in August 2019 UC President Janet Napolitano appointed an 18-member working group of faculty and administrators from across the UC system to establish guidelines for future collaborations with outside health systems that impose these constraints. UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman was designated the group’s Chair.

In January 2020, the working group issued its report.

Unfortunately, the group failed to reach agreement on whether the University should subject its employees, faculty, and students to religious and non-scientific prohibitions in their medical care.

I agree with working group member Michele Bratcher Goodwin, UCI Law School Chancellor’s Professor and founding Director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy, that UC policies “that impede, restrict, or hinder the care that UC students, faculty, or staff receive based on religious doctrine violate state and federal constitutional law as well as specific California legislation that forbid the imposition of religious doctrine on UC students, faculty, or staff. . . These actions are illegal and thus impermissible.”

Accordingly, when elected to the Assembly, I will sponsor legislation to ensure that UC employees, faculty and students receive medical care based solely on scientific and health-cased factors, and prohibiting the University of California from affiliating with any hospital that imposes non-health based restrictions on care or discriminates against LGBTQ people.

Here is my press release:

“The University of California is publicly funded to serve the people of California as a center of higher learning, transmitting advanced knowledge, discovering new knowledge, and functioning as an active working repository of organized knowledge. As a Californian, I am proud that UC is recognized as the world’s leading public research university system. It is therefore extremely disturbing that the University of California would affiliate with any hospital organization that discriminates against LGBTQ people and imposes non-health based restrictions on care.

UC employees, faculty, and students are entitled to medical care based solely on scientific and health-based factors. As a government entity committed to serving the public under the rule of law, UC and its providers and trainees must not restrict access to any lawful care because certain procedures or medical options may be controversial from a particular political or religious point of view. In particular, UC must never deny a woman’s right to receive comprehensive reproductive health care including abortion and all forms of contraception and assisted reproductive technologies, and must never refuse to provide medical procedures, such as gender affirmation for transgender people and reproductive technologies that support the ability of LGBTQ+ people to have biological children. UC must also provide the full range of medically appropriate and legally available options to patients at the end of life, including legally sanctioned aid in dying.

When elected to the State Assembly, one of my first pieces of legislation will be to ensure that UC employees, faculty and students receive medical care based solely on scientific and health-cased factors, and prohibiting UC from affiliating with any hospital organization that imposes non-health based restrictions on care or discriminates against LGBTQ people.”

— Melissa Fox, Candidate for State Assembly AD 68

For more information, contact J& Z Strategies at info@jacobsonzilber.com.

Learn more about Melissa Fox for California Assembly at http://votemelissafox.com

 

Join Me at the OC Women’s March!

“There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.” — Michelle Obama

I’ll be joining the Women’s March in Orange County this Saturday, January 18, 2020, because I am committed to making Orange County and our nation safer, fairer, and stronger.

Women have long been in the vanguard of positive change in our country, from the abolition of slavery to the modern human rights movement.

Even before women had secured the right to vote, we were at the forefront in calling for social change to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, especially children, the sick, and the elderly.

We’ve had historic victories, but we still have much to do to make the world a better place.

In fact, many of our historic victories are now under serious attack.

This year, we march for equal pay, reproductive rights, gun safety, climate action, workplace safety, childcare, and healthcare for everyone.

The theme of our march is “March Today, Vote Tomorrow!

The keynote speaker will be Rep. Katie Porter.

I will be meeting with my team and volunteers from my campaign for California Assembly at 9:00 a.m. at the parking lot of the Orange County Employees Association (OCEA) located at 830 N Ross St, Santa Ana, CA 92701.  We will then walk together to join up with the Women’s March at the corner of W. Civic Center Drive and N. Flower Street.

Join us!

OC Women’s March Basic Information

Date: January 18, 2020

Time: 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

March Starting Point: Corner of W. Civic Center Drive and N. Flower Street in Downtown Santa Ana.

See you there!

Defend Democracy. Tell the Irvine City Council: These are the Public’s Meetings!

City Councils are not private clubs. Public meetings in a real democracy should not be stage-managed by the political majority to prevent public discussion of issues that they want to avoid for their own political advantage.

Last July, while I was on a long-planned vacation to visit my son in Alaska, the Irvine City Council adopted a new anti-democratic policy that prohibits an item from being placed on the agenda unless the mayor or two city council members agree to do so.

As the Orange County Register correctly stated in a powerful editorial opposing the Council’s action, “the transparent goal is to shut down the views of the political minority.”

The new policy was in direct response to my proposal in June to fly the Gay Pride Flag from City Hall during Gay Pride Month. Although dozens of residents spoke at the meeting in support of flying the Pride Flag, the Council defeated the proposal and I was the only Councilmember to speak in favor of it.

In opposing this restrictive and anti-democratic agenda policy, the Register observed that “Public-meetings laws have a vital purpose in a free society. The public is supposed to be privy to the inner workings of government so they can witness the sausage-making legislative process in action, ugly and unappetizing as it can be. Unfortunately, many local officials act as if hearings are a show – a way to put their best foot forward before the citizenry.”

The Register also recognized that while the new rule was adopted specifically to silence me, the effect of the rule will be to silence all disagreement and dissent:

“Fox has previously discussed supposedly ‘divisive’ issues ranging from flying the LGBTQ flag at City Hall to creating a veterans’ cemetery near the Great Park. But this fracas isn’t about the particular issues any member might want to discuss, but about whether a duly elected official has the right to publicly discuss them. Councils are not private clubs . . . These are the public’s meetings and all officials, even minority voices, represent their constituencies. All elected bodies need to encourage wide-ranging discussions so the public can be part of the self-government process – and not just observers of a carefully crafted script. That’s the essence of representative democracy.”

At this Tuesday’s Irvine City Council meeting, the political majority will propose to extend this anti-democratic policy to the Great Park Board (composed of the members of the Irvine City Council) as well as to all City Commissions.

The public should not tolerate this extension of the current majority’s attack on representative democracy.

Please attend the Tuesday, September 10, 2019, Irvine City Council meeting and let them know that your City Council is not a private club. The meetings of the City Council, the Orange County Great Park, and Irvine City Commissions belong to the public and cannot be staged managed for political advantage. 

As the O.C. Register eloquently stated, “These are the public’s meetings and all officials, even minority voices, represent their constituencies. All elected bodies need to encourage wide-ranging discussions so the public can be part of the self-government process – and not just observers of a carefully crafted script. That’s the essence of representative democracy.”

As I stated in July, I have no intention of being silent.

And neither do you.

Happy Women’s Equality Day! Let’s Make the World a Better and More Equal Place for Women Everywhere!

Happy Women’s Equality Day, commemorating the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment prohibiting denying the right to vote on the basis of sex.

We’ve come a long way, but much more needs to be done!

While we’ve had historic victories, we still have much to do to make the world a better and more equal place for women and girls everywhere. 

While more women are members of state legislatures than ever before, we still make up only 28.9 percent of all state legislators nationwide.  In fact, women make up 50% or more of the state legislature in only one state (Nevada).  In California, women make up only 30.8% of the state legislature.

Crucially, studies have shown that the more women who serve in legislatures the stronger family-friendly policies are enacted.  Women legislators focus more on passing legislation that lifts women and children out of poverty, ensures fair pay and family-friendly workplaces, and expands quality childcare access. Women legislators are also more likely to strengthen laws that protect the victims of sexual assault.

Sex discrimination and inequity remains serious issues in our workplaces. Lawmakers must work to ensure that women in the workplace get equal pay for equal work, and they must address the racial pay gap between white women and women of color.

So while we celebrate our victories and honor our mothers and sisters whose courage and persistence made these victories possible, we should use this day to recommit to the fight for equality and to make the world a better and more equal place for women and girls everywhere!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, Let’s Create a Gun Violence Task Force — And Let’s Also Have a Real Discussion about How to Prevent Mass Shootings and Gun Violence

Based on her recent social media post, it appears that in the wake of three recent mass shootings (in Gilroy, California, El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio) leaving at least 45 people dead and many dozens more injured, Irvine Mayor Christina Shea intends to create a task force to discuss what we can do in Irvine to prevent gun violence.

Significantly, Mayor Shea asks that we not turn this discussion into a “partisan” issue, and that we not hold local, state, or national politicians responsible for their actions, or lack of action, leading to the proliferation of mass shootings and gun violence.

I fully support a discussion of how our City Council can help prevent Irvine from becoming the site of the next gun violence atrocity. This discussion is long overdue. Our nation is suffering from a gun violence emergency.

But the discussion must not be a sham, and not be muzzled from the very beginning by preventing mention of the fact that Republican politicians — at every level of government — have sided with gun dealers and the NRA over the safety of our communities and families, and have stubbornly blocked Congress from enacting meaningful, common sense federal gun regulation.

We must also be willing to acknowledge the fact that President Donald Trump has incited violence and manipulated racial hatred in ways that many of us had hoped belonged to our tragic past. And we must explicitly reject and condemn Trump’s racist rhetoric.

As President Obama recently said, as elected officials and community leaders, we must reject the rhetoric of those “who demonize those who don’t look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people.” Such language “has no place in our politics and our public life” and it is time “for the overwhelming majority of Americans of goodwill, of every race and faith and political party, to say as much — clearly and unequivocally.”

Let’s have a real discussion of mass shootings and gun violence — without any attempts at mirco-management by the Mayor or self-serving limitations on that discussion being imposed in advance by local politicians who are afraid that the public is fed up with the Republican Party’s spinelessness in the face of the NRA and the racist rhetoric of Trumpism, and their policy of creating diversions after each mass shooting rather than enacting real, common sense, gun control regulation.

I also ask that this Task Force be comprised of and led by real experts in the field of gun violence prevention. We have many such experts here in Irvine on the faculty of UCI and the UCI School of Law.  Our task force should not be solely composed of — or led by — politicians with an interest in self-promotion or self-protection, or protecting their political allies from justified and necessary criticism.

In addition, I suggest that the Irvine City Council immediately direct our Irvine Police Department to promote awareness of California’s Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO) law, which allows family members and law enforcement to seek the temporary removal of firearms from someone they believe poses a danger to themselves or others.

While GVROs have been called “the best tool in the state of California for responding to a threat of gun violence,” they are rarely used because residents and law enforcement remain largely unaware of the law and its potential to help stop a crime before it has been committed.

You can see a video presentation of California GVROs here:

I also propose that the City of Irvine and the Irvine Police Department remind residents about California’s safe storage laws requiring that guns be locked away from minors and anyone who should not have access to them.

I look forward to a lively, positive and open-minded discussion of what we can do in Irvine to prevent mass shootings and gun violence, including an awareness and educational campaign about GVROs, issuing official statements from our City Council calling on President Trump to stop his inflammatory rhetoric demonizing immigrants, Muslims, and people of color, and calling on Congress to pass common sense gun regulations relating to universal background checks, military-style assault rifles, and high capacity magazines.

 

A Most Personal Decision

The question of what a woman should do when she is pregnant but does not want to raise a child is extremely personal for me.

It is the question that my birth mother, unmarried and 16-years-old, faced fifty one years ago.

This was before People v. Belous (1969) and Roe v. Wade (1973) established a woman’s fundamental right to decide whether to give birth.

Just a few months before I was born, California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the “Therapeutic Abortion Act,” which changed California’s criminal code to permit the termination of pregnancy by a physician when there was substantial risk that its continuation would “gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother” or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

I am not sure whether my birth mother would have qualified for a legal abortion under the “physical or mental health” requirements of the new law, but she could have risked terminating her pregnancy by illegal means – as more than 100,000 California women did every year before the Act’s passage. In fact, Governor Reagan said that he signed the new law to prevent the death and injury of thousands of California women each year from illegal and dangerous “back alley” abortions.

My birth mother decided not to have an abortion, and instead gave me up for adoption.

Of course, I’m happy with her choice – I would not be here otherwise. I was raised by parents who wanted and were able to care for me. I have also had the incredible joy of being able to thank my birth mother for her decision – reuniting with her and my two younger brothers several years ago.

I received a great gift from my birth mother’s decision – but I would not have wanted her to have been forced by the government to give birth to me despite being unable at that time to properly care for a child.

Whether or not to have an abortion – or whether to give a child up for adoption – is a deeply personal and often painful decision for a woman or couple to make, and it is a decision they have to make based on their own faith and values, not someone else’s – and certainly not the government’s.

Our current representative — and my opponent — for the 68th Assembly District, Steven Choi, believes otherwise.

During his political career, Choi has earned a 0% rating from Planned Parenthood.

When seeking the Republican nomination for the Assembly, he stated that “he is pro-life, and he wants to protect all lives, including those of the unborn.”  He has tried to use his position in the legislature to bring back the days when thousands of women each year in California were forced to make the horrific choice between having unwanted children or illegal, dangerous abortions.  He recently voted against a bill in the California legislature that would provide young people with basic contact information about reproductive health. He has been endorsed by groups that are aiming to do to California women what has been recently been done to the women of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Utah — subjecting them to the most restrictive abortion laws in decades.  And he has received thousands of dollars in contributions from groups outside our district that are determined to deny women the right to control their own bodies.

As your representative for the 68th Assembly District, I’ll fight to protect and defend women’s access to the full range of reproductive health care services.  That’s why I’ve been endorsed by Women in Leadership, a bipartisan political action group committed to electing women who share their commitment to women’s rights and freedoms in reproductive health, and why I’ve been endorsed by Fund Her and the Womens Political Committee.

We can’t allow politicians like Steven Choi to deny women basic human rights such as access to safe and affordable reproductive health care or allow the government to intrude into this most personal of decisions.

That’s why I need your help now to keep the decision whether to give birth a deeply personal choice and not the government’s.

You can learn more and join me at VoteMelissaFox.com.

Melissa

OC Register Editorial: Democracy Cannot be Stage-Managed by the Majority for their Own Convenience and Political Advantage

The Orange County Register’s editorial of July 17, 2019, correctly calls out and condemns the recent move by the Irvine City Council to prevent a Council Member from putting an item on the agenda unless two other members agree to do so.

As the Register states, “The transparent goal is to shut down the views of the political minority. Irvine officials said they want to stop ‘grandstanding,’ but one person’s grandstanding is another’s chance to raise vital concerns.”

The Register also recognizes that while the new rule was adopted specifically to silence me, the effect of the rule will be to silence all disagreement and dissent:

“Fox has previously discussed supposedly ‘divisive’ issues ranging from flying the LGBTQ flag at City Hall to creating a veterans’ cemetery near the Great Park. But this fracas isn’t about the particular issues any member might want to discuss, but about whether a duly elected official has the right to publicly discuss them. Councils are not private clubs . . . These are the public’s meetings and all officials, even minority voices, represent their constituencies. All elected bodies need to encourage wide-ranging discussions so the public can be part of the self-government process – and not just observers of a carefully crafted script. That’s the essence of representative democracy.”

Thank you to the OC Register for recognizing that public meetings in a real democracy cannot be stage-managed by the majority for their own convenience and political advantage.

As I’ve said before, Irvine’s current pro-Trump Council majority, again aided by its ostensibly Democratic ally, has made it clear that they are following in Irvine the very same playbook of obstruction and bullying used in Washington by Trump and Mitch McConnell, and with the same goal: to silence opposing voices.

But I have no intention of being silent.

And neither do you.

As with Trump and McConnell, we must persist and resist every day, and throw them out decisively in November 2020.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to raise my voice to speak for progressive policies and values — like respect for LGBTQ people, a state cemetery for our veterans, implementation of a serious plan to tackle climate change, more accessible child care, ending sexual violence and discrimination in the workplace, building affordable housing, and ensuring greater government transparency — as I was elected to do.

 

No, We Won’t Back Down

At its last meeting, the Irvine City Council took the unprecedented step of voting to prohibit a council member from placing an item on the agenda without two other council members’ approval.

Now, only the mayor will be allow to put an item on the agenda — a power that until last week had for decades belonged to every individual member of the City Council.

There have been many shifting majorities on the City Council over the years, but no other Council has gone so far to silence dissenting voices and points of view.

You can read about what took place in this excellent article in Voice of OC, including how this new rule is directed squarely at me in retaliation for proposing that Irvine fly the Pride Flag at City Hall, and how they made sure to propose the new rule — and then quickly enact it —  while I was on a long-planned trip to Alaska.

The truth is that Irvine’s Republican, pro-Trump Council majority — created by appointment in a back-room deal with its ostensibly Democratic ally and the developer FivePoint — has made it clear that they are following in Irvine the very same playbook of obstruction and bullying used in Washington by Trump and Mitch McConnell, and with the same goal: to silence opposing voices.

But I have no intention of being silent.

And neither do you.

As with Trump and McConnell, we must persist and resist every day.

And throw them out decisively in November 2020.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to raise my voice to speak for progressive policies and values — like respect for LGBTQ people, a state cemetery for our veterans, implementation of a serious plan to tackle climate change, more accessible child care, ending sexual violence and discrimination in the workplace, building affordable housing, and ensuring greater government transparency — as I was elected to do.

 

June is Pride Month: Join Me at the Irvine City Council Meeting on June 11, 2019, to Support My Motion to Fly the Pride Flag at Irvine City Hall!

I join California Governor Gavin Newsom in celebrating June 2019 as “LGBTQ Pride Month” in the State of California.

As Governor Newsom beautifully stated in his proclamation:

“As we celebrate and declare June as Pride Month in California, we are reminded of what makes California great — our remarkable capacity to live together and advance together across every conceivable difference. This June, we stand with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community of California as they declare their pride in who they are and who they love.”

“Time and time again, this community has worked tirelessly for respect and equality. Their battles have been fought in the courts, from marriage equality to demanding equal protection under the law. Their fight continues to this day, as we combat discriminatory laws across the country.”

“While there has been remarkable progress towards acceptance and equality in recent years, members of the LGBTQ community in the United States and around the world still face an unacceptable level of discrimination and violence. We must remain vigilant and push back against those who seek to roll back our progress, and continue to make the case that each of us as human beings share a fundamental thing in common – all of us want to be loved, and all of us want to love.”

“In California, we celebrate and support our LGBTQ community’s right to live their lives out loud — during Pride month and every month. As we celebrate Pride across this state, we must continue to demand equal rights for all to create a California for all.”

June holds historic significance for the LGBT community.  In 1969, the Stonewall Riots occurred in the New York City as a protest against the police department’s unfair targeting of the LGBT community. The Stonewall Riots led to political organizing that is considered to be the beginning of the modern LGBT civil rights movement. The following year, the first LGBT Pride Parade was held in New York City on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Today, California has the largest LGBT population in the nation and is home to over forty LGBT Pride celebrations.

At the Irvine City Council Meeting on Tuesday, June 11, 2019, I will be introducing a resolution to fly the Pride Flag from Irvine City Hall.

In doing so, Irvine would join the State of California, as well many other states and cities, including Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach, and Fullerton, and the Orange County Fairgrounds, in making it clear to all that our community is a place where LGBT people are visible, accepted, and welcome.

We would also be joining many of the largest corporations that do business in Irvine and Orange County, including Disney, Banana Republic, Starbucks, Verizon, Nordstrom, Budweiser, Bombas, Sephora, Chipotle, Reebok, Calvin Klein, Express, Kind, Nike, Adidas, Target, Ralph Lauren, Gap, Macy’s, and T-Mobile, in recognizing that taking a stand for LGBT equality is a positive sign to the business world that we are committed to ending prejudice against people based on who they love.

Community support is very important.  If you support this resolution, please attend the June 11, 2019, Irvine City Council Meeting and speak in favor. 

Your presence can make a very big difference.

Your personal stories are our most powerful and persuasive argument!

You can read my memo regarding the Pride Flag resolution HERE.

You can see the Facebook Event for Supporting the Pride Flag at the City Council Meeting HERE.

I hope to see you there!

UPDATE:

Sadly, even though more than a dozen Irvine residents spoke in favor of my resolution, the three Republicans on the Irvine City Council each voted against flying the Pride Flag from Irvine City Hall.

You can read the OC Weekly story about the vote HERE.

In response, Irvine residents initiated their own a Pride Flag flying event in front of City Hall, celebrating LGBTQ Pride and diversity in Irvine.  I joined them on Friday, June 28, 2019.

Below are some photos of the event:

MJF Pride Flag City Hall June2019.01MJF Pride Flag City Hall June2019.02MJF Pride Flag City Hall June2019.04MJF Pride Flag City Hall June2019.05

Celebrate Harvey Milk Day — Be an Agent of Change!

I am proud to join millions of people in California and throughout the world today in celebrating the life of Harvey Milk, born on this day in 1930 and murdered in 1978 because of his outspoken and courageous activism in the fight for equal rights for all people regardless of sexual orientation.

Since 2009, in California, Harvey Milk Day has been recognized as a day of special significance and an opportunity to remember and teach about Milk’s life and his work to stop discrimination against gays and lesbians.

We’ve come a long way, thanks in large measure to the courage of Harvey Milk.

When Harvey Milk first ran for supervisor in San Francisco in 1977, he was told that an openly gay man could never get elected. When he won, he became the first openly gay non-incumbent ever to win an election for public office in the United States.

Now there are hundreds of openly gay men and women serving their communities and states in elected office.

But much more needs to be done.

We must continue to fight for the elimination of violence and discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity – in our own communities and throughout the world.

We must ensure that governments everywhere respect the dignity and human rights of all people in regard to their own gender identity.

We must continue to fight for the sexual and reproductive rights of all people.

When President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Harvey Milk the Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian award, he said Milk was “an agent of change” who “saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way.”

Let’s each of us honor Harvey Milk by committing to being an agent of change.