Win some, lose some.

Three lesbian and gay members of Congress are reelected, but a gay candidate fails in his attempt to make history as the first gay U.S. senator

Ed Flanagan always had an uphill battle to become the first openly gay U.S. senator, but the Vermont state auditor has no regrets about campaigning.

"I broke a barrier, and I'm proud of it," Flanagan says. "There is a great need for our community to have a place at the table. We are taking important steps to gain those seats."

Voters reelected the three openly gay and lesbian members of Congress on Election Day, but the effort to expand their ranks with Flanagan and another lesbian congresswoman turned out to be a losing cause. While three U.S. representatives--Republican Jim Kolbe and Democrats Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin--won their races, Gerrie Schipske's bid to enter Congress apparently failed in a squeaker.

Flanagan won only 25% of the vote in his challenge against Republican incumbent James Jeffords. Currently the only gay holder of a statewide office in the nation, Flanagan made history despite his loss. In September he won a hotly contested primary, becoming the first openly gay person to win the nomination of a major party for the U.S. Senate.

However, unseating Jeffords was a daunting challenge, as he has been an extremely popular politician in Vermont for a decade. He also has a strong record of support for gay rights, prompting the Human Rights Campaign to take the unusual step of issuing a dual endorsement in the race.

While Flanagan was stunned by the "brutality" of some bigots he met on the campaign trail, he found that stumping for votes is an effective way to connect with people who have biases against gays and lesbians. "Once the voters get a sense of the person and you engage them in the issues that touch their lives, they no longer deal with you as a stereotype," he says.

Flanagan's campaign was overshadowed by the Vermont electorate's backlash against civil unions. "It had to hurt," Flanagan says. "It engulfed all of the races in Vermont. This really was an extraordinarily inflamed environment."

While gay and lesbian friends helped Schipske with an aggressive campaign to get out the vote, she said there was little talk during the race about gay and lesbian issues. Schipske, who lost a state assembly race in 1996, refused to admit defeat until all absentee ballots had been counted. Her race against Rep. Steve Horn, the Republican incumbent, turned out to be unexpectedly close; Horn apparently won reelection by a slim margin. "We're holding on," Schipske said just after the election.

Baldwin says the fact that Schipske had come so close to unseating an incumbent, which would have been a first for a gay candidate, is a major achievement. "Even if she falls a couple of votes short, she has proved with [her success against] his campaign that my race wasn't a fluke," Baldwin says.

Baldwin faced what some supporters said was gay baiting in her race. Her Republican opponent, John Sharpless, placed advertisements criticizing her for taking "out-of-state money," which critics say was a thinly veiled reference to Baldwin's financial support from gays and lesbians nationwide. One ad featured an illustration of a bag of money with BANK OF WEST HOLLYWOOD written on the side.

Baldwin won her second term by a narrow margin, with just 51% of the vote. While Frank and Kolbe acknowledged being gay after winning election to the House, Baldwin in 1998 became the first person who ran from the start of a campaign as openly gay to win a seat in the House. Frank easily won reelection in his district, which is just outside Boston. And Kolbe, who represents the Tucson area, won a ninth term handily. Although he expressed concerns in a preelection interview with The Advocate that his sexual orientation could be used against him in the race, voters apparently didn't care that he is gay.

"Almost none of our polling showed that it mattered," Kolbe said. "It was a negative for about 5% of the voters and a positive for 3%."

With a Republican majority in the House and the Senate apparently split evenly between the two parties, Baldwin says she and the other gay representatives may spend much of their time in defense mode.

"One of the most significant responsibilities we will have is to stop antigay Republican legislation from going through," Baldwin says. "We bring a clear credibility on gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual issues. When we speak, people listen."

But Kolbe dismissed Baldwin's assertion that Republicans will push through antigay legislation, saying the GOP majority is so slim, it would be impossible to pass it. "I think there will be very little stuff like that," he says. "We need to move forward on [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act]. We're winning that war in little bits and pieces."

RELATED ARTICLE: Ready for battle

The success of state and local gay and lesbian candidates could prove critical in future legislative fights By Bill Ghent

The South elected its first openly gay member of a state legislature, a 19-year-old gay man won a seat in the New Hampshire state assembly, and a lesbian sheriff in Texas held her ground against Republican conservatives in what turned out to be a promising round of gay victories in state and local races.

Overall, more than 200 gay politicians were elected across the country November 7, a number that is about "on par" with expectations, says Brian Bond, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which helps elect gay officials. Of the 39 candidates Bond's group endorsed and helped finance, 23 won, and two face runoffs.

The most significant victories, according to Bond, were in the state assemblies, where battles over marriage, adoption, and antidiscrimination laws have been fought during the past several years.

"Since 1994 there has been an effort to start pushing more of the decisions that affect our daily lives to the state level," says Bond. "And we're winning many of these cases" in states where gay legislators serve.

First-time victories for gays in Georgia, by Karla Drenner, and in Michigan, by Chris Kolb, could prove meaningful over time, as neither state has a law on the books to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Similarly, in California, a hotbed of gay legislative activity, the number of lesbians serving in the California assembly increased with the elections of Christine Kehoe and Jackie Goldberg and the reelection of Carole Migden. Sheila Kuehl, the former house speaker pro tempore, became the first lesbian elected to the state senate.

"One of the things most significant for them is that they all have such different issues and different constituencies," Bond says. "It will allow them to show other legislators that we care about the same issues they do, and when mean-spirited legislation comes up, they'll be able to better temper the falsehoods that are out there."

Bond also notes that in this election an increased number of lesbians and gays ran for office in regions of the country where few had traditionally done so, while some moved up the political ladder, filling spots vacated by other gays who were promoted to higher office. For instance, Toni Atkins was elected to the San Diego city council seat vacated by Kehoe. In at least one case, however, a gay seat was lost. Terrell Brown failed in his bid to replace retiring Minnesota state senator Allan Spear, who was one of the first elected officials in the country to come out.

The upward movement by current elected officials could continue in 2002, Bond predicts, as districts are redrawn and gay candidates look for new windows of opportunity to take a shot at top posts.

Among other highlights from the election:

* Nick Panagopolous, 19, won a seat in the New Hampshire state house.

* Margo Frasier won a tough reelection bid for sheriff of Travis County, Tex.

* Republican Steve May, the openly gay Republican state legislator who was kicked out of the U.S. Army Reserve after admitting his sexual orientation, was reelected to the Arizona state house. Also reelected to the Arizona house was Ken Cheuvront.

Ghent is a reporter for The National Journal.