Gatekeepers of the Employment Executive Order

With ENDA languishing in Congress, the fate of an executive order that would protect millions of federal contractor employees from anti-LGBT discrimination may rest with a few top-level White House advisors.

That’s what some advocates are wondering in regards to the latest big ask for LGBT rights: an executive order that would bar federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Such a move, which according to recent polling enjoys broad support among likely voters, could be executed in two ways. It could be a stand-alone executive order — President Obama has signed seven already this year, which have resulted in the freezing of Iranian assets in the United States and the expediting of visas in order to boost American tourism, among other aims — or it could be an amendment to an existing executive order that has prohibited businesses with contracts exceeding $10,000 from discriminating on race, religion, sex, and other factors. The options were outlined in a January memo from the Center for American Progress and the Williams Institute to Congressman Barney Frank, who introduced the latest House version of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) nearly one year ago.

Either route would have far-reaching effects, setting a precedent for the long-languishing ENDA and providing explicit nondiscrimination protections in the workplaces of 26 million people, roughly one-fifth of the nation’s civilian workforce (the top five federal contractors, all in the defense sector, already have sexual orientation and gender identity nondiscrimination policies).

http://www.advocate.com/Politics/The_Executive_Order_Gatekeepers/