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.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
