Houston Equal Rights Supporters Raise Over $3 Million – Five Times More Than Anti-LGBT Activists
HRC, ACLU, Gill Action Fund Kick in Hundreds of Thousands Each
Groups supporting Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance have raised more than $3 million, almost five times as much as opponents, according to the latest campaign finance reports.Â
The pro-HERO haul includes hundreds of thousands each from the Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU of Texas, the Gill Action Fund and the American Unity Fund, underscoring the perceived national significance of the Nov. 3 vote on LGBT protections in the nation’s fourth-largest city.
However, the main PAC supporting the ordinance, Houston Unites, reported that more than 85 percent of its 1,500Â donors were from Texas, more than two-thirds were from Houston, and that more than $100,000 was raised online from more than 1,000 donors.Â
By contrast, HERO opponents had raised a total of only about $660,000. One anti-HERO PAC’s latest campaign finance report had not yet been posted online, but the estimate is based on a report from The Houston Chronicle.Â
“Compared to the handful of wealthy opponents funding the rollback of needed protections for African-Americans, Latinos, women and veterans, we have put together a massive, diverse grassroots coalition backing Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance,†Richard Carlbom, campaign manager of Houston Unites, said in a statement. “We anticipate this to be the closest of races, so these final days are critical for HERO supporters to keep investing in the campaign.â€
Indeed, despite the lopsided fundraising totals, polls indicate the HERO vote may be tight. One recent survey from KPRC 2 News found that 45 percent of respondents backed HERO (or Proposition 1), 36 percent opposed it, and 20 percent were undecided.
With one week to go before Election Day, the main anti-HERO PAC, Campaign for Houston, listed only $2,700 in cash on hand, and has a $50,000 outstanding loan. Houston Unites reported $267,000 in cash on hand. Â
Out lesbian Mayor Annise Parker, who’s championed the ordinance, contributed $90,000 from her campaign account to Houston Unites. Parker has also pledged to match donations to Houston Unites through Thursday up to $50,000.
Separately, the Human Rights Campaign’s Houston PAC raised more than $400,000, and the Business Coalition for Prop 1 raised $87,000, including $72,000 from the Greater Houston Partnership, which is the local chamber of commerce.
The largest anti-HERO donor is believed to be longtime anti-gay activist Dr. Steve Hotze, who reportedly has kicked in hundreds of thousands. GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick spent $70,000 from a campaign account on an anti-HERO TV ad.Â
The Chronicle notes that a large chunk of the money raised by the two sides, more than $1 million, has been spent on TV ads. Opponents have flooded the airwaves with ads promoting the debunked transgender bathroom myth.
In an amusing side note, Texas Outhouse Inc., which provides portable toilets, contributed $5,000 to the anti-HERO campaign. (Last we checked, portable toilets are unisex.)
The latest pro-HERO ad, released Tuesday, features former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, who now serves as secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Castro supported a similar ordinance that passed in San Antonio in 2013.Â
“Texas is a great place to live and raise a family, but we can always make it even better. Sadly, too many Texans still face discrimination,” Castro says in the ad. “In Houston, 56 percent of discrimination reports filed in the last year were based on race, and 14 percent were based on gender or pregnancy. That’s why Houston needs Proposition 1, the Equal Rights Ordinance. It’s a local tool that helps protect everyone; regardless of race, religion, gender, military status and more. Without local protections against discrimination, people can’t get the legal help they need when it happens. It’s wrong and it hurts families and our whole community.”
HERO would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and 13 other characteristics in employment, housing and public accommodations.Â
After the City Council approved the ordinance in May 2014, officials rejected a petition seeking to repeal it, saying it didn’t have enough valid signatures. Anti-LGBT activists filed a lawsuit, but a district judge upheld the city’s decision, saying the petition contained widespread forgery. However, HERO opponents eventually obtained a decision from the elected, all-Republican Texas Supreme Court, ordering the city to repeal the ordinance or place it on the ballot.Â
Watch the ad featuring Castro below.Â
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABvv2RDZ55M&feature=youtu.be
Â
Image via Houston Unites/Facebook
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
