Palm Springs elects an all-LGBTQ City Council, showing the power of gay politics

Javier Panzar

With its tolerant culture, Midcentury architectural style and lively arts scene, Palm Springs has for decades been a mecca for the LGBTQ community. The city is ranked first in the state and third in the nation among cities with the most same-sex couples per 1,000 households, according to an analysis of U.S. census data by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

But now, the city is marking a new milestone in gay politics as well. When the two new members of the Palm Springs City Council are sworn in next month, every person on the panel will be a member of the LGBTQ community.

Lisa Middleton, a transgender woman, and Christy Holstege, a woman who identifies as bisexual, each won about 30% of the citywide vote to beat four other candidates and fill two vacant seats on the council. The pair will join three gay men on the five-person body.

It is a historic feat — decades in the making — for the town of 47,000 in the Coachella Valley that has slowly shed its conservative political identity that developed in the Rat Pack era and continued in the 1990s.

Ron Oden became the first gay person elected to the council in 1995. He made international headlines eight years later when he became the city’s first gay mayor and ushered in the council’s first gay majority.

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http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-palm-springs-lgbt-council-20171115-story.html