{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://balint.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=318", "Rep. Becca Balint and Rep. Lizzie Fletcher Introduce Legislation to End Discrimination Against LGBTQI+ Community in the Jury Selection Process", "2024-06-12", "2024", "2024-06", "Democrat", "House", "VT", "Becca Balint", "B001318", "balint.house.gov", "balint", "https://balint.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx?DocumentTypeID=27", "scraper", "Today, Rep. Becca Balint (VT-AL) and Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07) introduce the Juror Non-Discrimination Act, which explicitly clarifies that it is illegal to discriminate in jury service based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics. This bill is included in the Equality Act, a landmark package of LGBTQI+ rights bills to guarantee full equality for LGBTQI+ Americans.\n\n\u201cToday in 2024, federal law does not explicitly protect LGBTQI+ people from discrimination in the jury selection process. When we exclude people from our judicial process, we make our system inherently less free and fair. Diverse participation in the American justice system is critical to strengthening our democracy.\u201d said Rep. Becca Balint. \u201cExplicitly banning this kind of discrimination is an important step to ending anti-LGBTQI+ bias everywhere. It\u2019s long past time our community is guaranteed equality under federal law and is free from discrimination because of who we are or who we love.\u201d\n\n\u201cJury service is a privilege and a responsibility of citizenship. As a former courtroom lawyer, I know how important it is to ensure that prospective jurors have the opportunity to serve and that parties have an impartial jury of their peers,\u201d said Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher. \u201cI am glad to introduce the Juror Non-Discrimination Act with Congresswoman Balint to ensure that LGBTQI+ people can serve on juries and neither fear nor experience discrimination in jury selection.\u201d\n\nThe bill is cosponsored by Reps. Beyer, Bonamici, Brownley, Chu, Clarke, Connolly, Crockett, Davids, DeLuzio, Espaillat, Frost, R. Garcia, S. Garcia, Goldman, Hayes, Hank Johnson, Kamlager-Dove, S. Lee, Moulton, Nadler, Norton, Peters, Pocan, Scanlon, Schakowsky, Soto, Swalwell, Takano, Tonko, R. Torres, Watson Coleman, Williams\n\nThe bill is endorsed by the following organizations: Congressional Equality Caucus, Human Rights Campaign, National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Center for Transgender Equality.\n\nBill text can be found here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:11:47Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://balint.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=318"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.764479860663414, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}