California Democrat flips final House seat, dealing Republicans narrow majority
Valerie Plesch/picture alliance via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — ABC projects that Democrat Adam Gray will win the race for California’s 13th Congressional District, unseating incumbent Republican John Duarte and flipping the final unresolved seat in the 2024 election.
With all 435 House races projected, ABC News estimates Republicans will hold 220 seats and Democrats 215 in the 119th Congress.
But it’s not clear how vacancies — or, illness or other absences — will impact the day-to-day division of power when the House convenes on Jan. 3.
President-elect Donald Trump initially tapped three House Republicans for positions in his upcoming administration: Florida Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. Gaetz has already resigned from Congress and withdrew last month from consideration to serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general. And though he won reelection to his seat last month, he said he won’t serve another term.
Republicans could have a 217-215 majority while their seats are vacant — the narrowest GOP majority in history — and special elections to fill those seats can take months to complete.
In this case, any single Republican can hold Johnson hostage: Losing just one Republican on a vote would result in a 216-216 tie.
The speaker acknowledged the thin majority, which could pose a challenge in passing Trump’s agenda.
“Well, just like we do every day here, we’ve developed an expertise in that. We know how to work with a small majority. That’s our custom now,” Johnson said. “So, yes — do the math. We can, we have nothing to spare. But all of our members know that we talked about that today, as we do constantly, that this is a team effort that we’ve got to all row in the same direction.”
But several elderly Democrats have missed votes recently, which could give Republicans a little more breathing room next year.
In California’s 13th District, Duarte conceded to Gray on Tuesday, according to the Turlock Journal.
“I’m a citizen legislator, and I didn’t plan on being in Congress forever,” Duarte told the newspaper. “But whenever I think I can make a difference, I’ll consider public service in different forms, including running for Congress again.”
Gray released a victory statement on X Tuesday evening, extending his gratitude and saying the “final results confirm this district is ready for independent and accountable leadership that always puts the Valley’s people ahead of partisan politics.”
-ABC News’ Marilyn Heck and Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Three newly elected lawmakers representing the LGBTQ community will make history Friday when they are sworn in to the 119th Congress, marking several firsts in the House of Representatives.
Sarah McBride will be the first openly transgender member of Congress. She will represent Delaware’s sole congressional district in the House of Representatives after more than three years in the state Senate, which marked a historic first for trans representation at the state senate level.
Julie Johnson, set to be the first LGBTQ+ member of Congress from the South, had served in the Texas state legislature since 2018. In her campaign for the congressional seat, she touted her record in fighting anti-LGBTQ bills on the state level among her passions as a legislator.
Emily Randall will be the first LGBTQ Latina in Congress after serving as a Washington state senator since 2018.
The 118th Congress set the record for having the most LGBTQ representation in U.S. history, with 13 legislators openly identifying as gay, lesbian or bisexual. This year’s slate of members being sworn in are doing so as the country experiences growing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and violence.
In the 2024 state legislative session, the ACLU tracked more than 500 bills they say are “anti-LGBTQ.” Transgender people — who make up less than 1% of Americans over the age of 13, according to UCLA’s research organization, the Williams Institute — have particularly been the subjects of such legislation, including restrictions on bathroom use for transgender residents, bans on gender-affirming care, and more.
In recent years, federal and local authorities have warned about the increase in violence against the LGBTQ community.
McBride has received backlash from some colleagues ahead of her swearing in. Republican Rep. Nancy Mace introduced a bill in November to restrict transgender women from using women’s restrooms at the U.S. Capitol, saying the bill was “absolutely” in response to McBride’s entering Congress. She cited concerns about her safety in restrooms, to which McBride responded by calling the bill a distraction. The bill is now dead.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said transgender women cannot use women’s restrooms, changing rooms or locker rooms in the Capitol and House office buildings. In terms of how Johnson plans to enforce this policy is not entirely clear if he’s elected Speaker again, but the speaker has “general control” of facilities, according to House rules.
McBride responded to the order by saying, “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.
LGBTQ groups have applauded the incoming legislators “when the fight for equality and justice faces unprecedented opposition,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson in a statement to ABC News.
“The American people deserve a bold vision for our country, one led by champions who bring experiences to the table that have often gone unheard,” Robinson said in the statement. “They have proven themselves to be leaders through their lived examples and their careers in advancing equality and civil rights. It’s why we were proud to mobilize our grassroots forces last year to support them in their races so that every LGBTQ+ American knows that they have a voice in Washington.”
(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday that SoftBank will make a $100 billion investment in the U.S. that will create 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. SoftBank plans to complete the work before Trump leaves office in 2029, according to a person familiar with the matter.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Executive orders signed recently by President Donald Trump state that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs prioritize diversity over merit in hiring, claiming DEI efforts are an “immense public waste and shameful discrimination.”
Some experts in the DEI field disagree, and several tell ABC News that diversity, equity and inclusion programs are aimed at creating a true merit-based system, where hiring, salaries, retention and promotions are decided without bias or discrimination toward employees.
Before the anti-discrimination legislative movement of the 1960s — including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 — discrimination against certain groups was widespread, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“If you were from a dominant group — generally white people, generally men, straight, cisgender, fully-abled — you had a huge leg up in terms of getting employment recommendations, higher pay promotions,” Erica Foldy, a professor at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, told ABC News.
She continued, “So, Trump and his allies are harking back to this time that they say was more merit-based, but that’s not at all how these organizations operated.”
DEI initiatives — like implementing accessibility measures for people with disabilities, addressing gender pay inequity, diversifying recruitment outreach, or holding anti-discrimination trainings — are intended to correct discriminatory organizational practices, experts say.
DEI experts argue that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are “on the path of creating more merit-based companies, more merit-based firms,” Foldy said, aiming to ensure that qualified people of all backgrounds have an “equal chance of being hired; you’re going to be paid the same as employees at comparable levels.”
“Business as usual, without attention to discrimination, is deeply, deeply inequitable,” Foldy said.
Amri Johnson, a DEI expert and author, told ABC News that the ideal of meritocracy operates under the assumption “that opportunities are fair.” Today, studies across industries continue to show that discrimination against a person’s race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, military background, or other factors continues to permeate the job market.
“If organizations truly want the best talent, companies need to be intentional about how they source and engage with talent,” said Johnson.
Each year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plays a role in hundreds of legal cases concerning ongoing discrimination against protected classes in the workplace.
The EEOC’s 2023 performance report offers a long list of lawsuits it settled or won that year. One lawsuit noted blatant racist graffiti or comments made by fellow employees, paired with the discriminatory designation of hard physical labor solely for Black employees; others noted the failures of several employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant or disabled workers that led to the employee’s termination or job offers rescinded.
One study found that racial and ethnic discrimination in hiring continues to be a problem globally.
“Relative to white applicants, applicants of color from all backgrounds in the study had to submit about 50% more applications per callback on average,” according to research from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that analyzed 90 studies involving 174,000 total fake job applications tweaked to include racial indicators but with otherwise similar professional credentials.
“Diversity doesn’t go away because DEI goes away. It is an inevitable part of any human community (business or otherwise),” said Johnson. “Not learning how to deal with its tensions and complexity is leaving value on the table.”
Some DEI experts point to research from management consulting firm McKinsey & Company that found that companies with more diversity financially and socially outperform those that are less diverse.
“The most successful companies understand that DEI isn’t just a ‘”nice-to-have,'” said Christie Smith, the former vice president for inclusion and diversity at Apple, in a written statement. “It’s a driver of innovation, talent attraction, and competitive advantage. The question is whether leaders will have the courage to stay the course and hold firm against political headwinds.”
On Thursday, Trump claimed, without citing evidence, that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for air traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration were partly to blame for the tragic plane and helicopter collision in Washington on Wednesday night.
The accusation comes after Trump signed sweeping orders aiming to terminate “diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility” programs in or sponsored by the federal government and its contractors.
The White House argues that DEI programs “deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”
“Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great,” reads Trump’s executive order.
The order revokes several decades-old or years-old executive actions, including the 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity order prohibiting hiring discrimination by federal contractors and its amendments expanding professional development, data collection and retention opportunities.
The order also explicitly revokes a 1994 order to develop environmental justice strategies that address disproportionately high health and environmental impacts faced by low-income or minority communities.
Among the list of orders that are now revoked is a 2011 order requiring federal agencies to develop strategies “to identify and remove barriers to equal employment opportunity.”
Those in favor of axing DEI programs argue that these initiatives could lead to lawsuits claiming discrimination following the Supreme Court’s ruling on SFFA v. Harvard that disallows race to be taken into consideration in college applications.
The National Center for Public Policy Research has been a strong advocate against DEI, submitting shareholder proposals to reverse the DEI policies at major companies like Costco, John Deere, and others. Ethan Peck, deputy director for the NCPPR’s Free Enterprise Project, told ABC News that such companies should be “colorblind.”
“We’re saying that companies have an obligation, a legal obligation, and an obligation to their shareholders, and an obligation to their employees to treat everybody the same, regardless of their race and sex, and we’d submit any proposal to keep that that way,” Peck said.
