Human Rights Campaign - Obama Presidency Oral History

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Joe Solmonese

...2019. We are at the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign [HRC] in the eighth-floor conferenc...
...of the Human Rights Campaign [ HRC ] in the eighth-floor conferenc...
...is your affiliation with the Human Rights Campaign ? I was the Executive Director of HR...
...I was the Executive Director of HRC from 2005 – 2012 and a longtime Federa...
...member. Tell me about your tenure at HRC . When I started Elizabeth [Millen...

...to that not long before I came to HRC . That emboldened this idea that ther...
...of the strong defensive measures that HRC had taken over the years, and creativ...
...Matthew's parents, about working with HRC towards the passage of meaningful hat...
...day of the bill signing. Then at the HRC dinner soon after that, the nationa...
...the really extraordinary things about HRC , and I've not seen it work this wa...
...community, who has been a member of HRC , but also an observer of HRC, for ...
...member of HRC, but also an observer of HRC , for a long time, and feeling like w...
...and about what an unprecedented role HRC played in a way that he had never see...
...leadership role. But leading HRC , working with the staff, and th...
...my career. I say that because I think HRC and I were probably more centrally i...
...nondiscrimination bill. We at HRC , and I personally, had always sai...
...and it was a moment of fracture between HRC and the rest of the coalition tha...
...think that, not surprisingly, there was HRC and SLDN [Servicemembers Legal Defens...
...made great strides after I had left HRC to try to build bridges, and I thin...
...do you want a scholar to read about the Human Rights Campaign ? You know, what I would hope is tha...
...anyone who reads anything about the Human Rights Campaign will focus as much on its beginnings a...
...going to look at the tenure of the Human Rights Campaign , and that they would never do tha...
...at the very beginning. Because the Human Rights Campaign was started at a time when people wer...
...about LGBT history, and in particular HRC , in terms of our current incarnatio...
...I'm talking about the early pioneers of HRC , I would say that the civi...
...of that, to be a student of not just HRC and its first decade or so, but th...
...should say, a part of the brilliance of HRC , I always felt like, was that we said...
...courts. But I think the expectation of HRC was that we were going to go out ther...
...I had a friend who was involved with HRC who brought me in as a Federal Clu...
...then. It's why I went to work for HRC . I think sometimes people approac...
...how it works. Tell me what led you to HRC . You mentioned EMILY's List and you...
...your career there. Yes. To work at HRC , you mean. Yes. I worked at EMILY'...
...for thirteen years. I was a member of HRC . I had some friends on the board o...
...HRC. I had some friends on the board of HRC . Elizabeth Birch left in, I believe...
...I was at EMILY's List, as a member of HRC , as someone who read everything tha...
...failure rate on the whole of what HRC was putting forward as a measure of it...
...at the Democratic Convention in Boston, HRC and EMILY's List were in the sam...
...course of 2004 prompted some people at HRC to think maybe I might have somethin...
...[Solmonese laughs]. When you talk about HRC , what do you say? I talk a lot abou...
...that work today. For me, the power of HRC is, more than anything, those tw...
...what I talk about when I talk about HRC , and what is at the heart of th...
...growth. Towards the end of my time at HRC —I think the notion of expanding ou...
...the things that has been a learning for HRC is that when you take all the thing...
...or talk to them about supporting an HRC dinner, or a Pride event, or an AID...
...describe some of those? When I was at HRC —I'm not sure if the scope and th...
...volunteers had very specific jobs. HRC took a look at, what is our scope o...
...if not the most powerful elements of HRC 's success is that there is this grou...
...view, who have been the champions for HRC ? Internally, or—you mean— I...
...of LGBT equality. I found when I was at HRC that there were people—everybody wa...
...what are your hopes for the future for HRC ? I hope that we defeat Donald [John...
...the political and the advocacy work of HRC , and so I give to that, because that'...
...do that. I think that my confidence in HRC , not unlike where I talked about m...
...that. What haven't I asked you about HRC ? The other thing that I think is a...
...I think is an interesting thing about HRC is where we are in this moment an...
...2021. My name is Michael Falco for the Human Rights Campaign [HRC] Oral History and [Barack Hussein...
...Falco for the Human Rights Campaign [ HRC ] Oral History and [Barack Hussein...
...Joe served as executive director of the Human Rights Campaign from 2005 to 2012. He was a nationa...
...of how you learned to work with the HRC board, how you learned to use the HR...
...HRC board, how you learned to use the HRC board in order to enact your vision...
...especially at an organization like HRC , with its various boards. Yes. Well...
...question, because prior to working at HRC , I had worked at EMILY's List fo...
...a multi-dimensional group, a [ HRC ] Foundation board, a [unclear] [c][4...
...a couple of Republicans. When I was at HRC , Susan [Margaret] Collins was the lea...
...view. There was a lot of energy around HRC then, and people protesting our dinner...
...like—” I said, because whether you like HRC or hate it, we had the bigges...
...like, “You're remarkably cool. How come HRC hasn't been burned down and you're ou...
...until—I will never forget this—it was a HRC dinner in Texas. I want to say it migh...
...Thanksgiving, we didn't have any HRC dinners, we didn't have any events...
...work, and then the first series of HRC dinners, that's when I was like, Oh...
...people had only been part of HRC 's mission for four or five years, s...
...Comfort [Conference]. I don't think an HRC president had ever gone, and I went an...
...they had a job fair. And we had helped, HRC , because of—what do you cal...
...need to do, and to be perfectly honest, HRC had—whenever it was that we became LGB...
...being the most important thing because HRC was never going to pass legislation i...
...that I was really trying to do was get HRC members more supportive of candidates...
...what I was trying to do was to get the HRC membership more, not just aligne...
...I've been at this for twenty years, and HRC has never turned out the way they did...
...road looking for phone bankers? Okay, HRC people, down the road. I tried to pu...
...people, down the road. I tried to put HRC people into more mainstream at th...
...the next year being like, It's a new HRC , I've never seen anything like it. An...
...I haven't paid enough attention to what HRC does with its electoral and politica...
...give them a role and he really helped HRC to be a very big presence in th...
...to them was, if you're in a fight with HRC , there are so many people to th...
...else is going to be with you except HRC . How the hell did you get into a figh...
...the hell did you get into a fight with HRC on day one? So both sides figured— M...
...And Winnie Stachelberg, who had been at HRC and was at CAP [Center for America...
...marriage was funny because I wasn't at HRC but I was chairing the re-elect. I wa...
...a positive reaction. Thinking about HRC and the tools in HRC's toolkit, an...
...about HRC and the tools in HRC 's toolkit, and thinking beyond th...
...Saints], but another example where HRC can move a lot of levers, not just th...
...the year before had appeared at the HRC dinner, somebody in Susan Collins...
...that the truth.” Then he came to the HRC dinner—I forget what year it was th...
...he was like, “I should go back to the HRC dinner because that poor Joe, he reall...
...a time of it.” So he came back to the HRC dinner to—I don't say this to soun...
...inequities, that there's somebody at HRC who's like, That benefits us. We wil...
...legacy that you have of your time at HRC . I'm also curious how you mov...
...amazing people. Taking us back to HRC one more time, we didn't really tal...
...financial strain, though maybe HRC is advantaged in that you have so man...
...know there was an immediate, not from HRC , but there was a knee-jerk reaction t...
...really kept everybody out. And all of HRC polarizing—they were like, “You're jus...
...think about, is the relationship with HRC to the states, to the work that'...
...in there sometimes. There is a sense of HRC swooping in, or—how do you navigat...
...what's the community's relationship to HRC , but what's the community's thinkin...
...[B.] David, when he got hired at HRC , he had that view that we were at thi...

Mary Beth Maxwell

...really attracted, actually, to work at HRC [Human Rights Campaign]; that's where ...
...attracted, actually, to work at HRC [ Human Rights Campaign ]; that's where I went next. I had don...

Robin McGehee

...don't have the kind of money that HRC [Human Rights Campaign] has or th...
...don't have the kind of money that HRC [ Human Rights Campaign ] has or the National Gay and Lesbia...
...of giving million-dollar checks to HRC . He wants to invest in something ne...
...us to shake things up with Obama and HRC . That's really his mission. He'...
...feels like we're just turning into an HRC ourselves. We're just doing i...

...not representing an organization like HRC or whatever, and I had met with the Jo...
...when he said, “Make me do it.” And that HRC speech the night before the rally, h...

Jon Favreau

...strategy around LGBTQ rights. At the Human Rights Campaign dinner in October of 2009, th...

Jim Messina

...it out.” Again, I'd never met with HRC [Human Rights Campaign]. I'd never me...
...out.” Again, I'd never met with HRC [ Human Rights Campaign ]. I'd never met with these groups. M...
...the time the national president of the Human Rights Campaign —had said something in the paper that ...
...first meeting with representatives from HRC and others. What was it about? Publi...
...arm in arm with Joe Solmonese from the Human Rights Campaign and Aubrey Jarvis from the advocac...

Jeremy Bernard

...where he was going next. I think it was Human Rights Campaign , and telling him about which boar...

Jim Obergefell

...went on, I started to be involved with HRC [Human Rights Campaign], with SAG...
...on, I started to be involved with HRC [ Human Rights Campaign ], with SAGE [Services and Advocacy fo...

Gautam Raghavan

...relationships or ties with things like HRC [Human Rights Campaign], the [Nationa...
...or ties with things like HRC [ Human Rights Campaign ], the [National LGBTQ] Task Force...
...movement organizations like HRC , the Task Force, and others, do the...
...[H.] Griffin at that time, who was at HRC ? Twelve? I think it would have bee...

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Human Rights Campaign - Obama Presidency Oral History

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