Seattle Pride honors Washington Congressmember Randall

For her first time back to Seattle Pride in two decades, Congressmember Emily Randall (D-Washington) was feted as one of the parade grand marshals June 29. Randall, a queer Latina who won election to the House of Representatives last November, has been deeply critical of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress while also working to keep her constituents informed about policy changes, she told the Bay Area Reporter in an interview.

The B.A.R. met up with Randall, who represents the Evergreen State’s 6th Congressional District that includes Bremerton, Tacoma, and the surrounding areas, in Westlake Park after she rode in the parade. It’s a small plaza downtown where the march began. She said Seattle Pride officials contacted her months ago about being one of the grand marshals. (The other grand marshal was Cheer Seattle.)

Randall is the first out member of Congress elected from Washington state as well as the first out Latina. She serves alongside other LGBTQ colleagues from California, Delaware, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, and other states. There are 12 LGBTQ House members in the 119th Congress, all of them Democrats. There is one lesbian in the U.S. Senate, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin).

Randall said that she enjoyed taking in the positive atmosphere of the Pride parade, which had some 250 contingents and went on for several hours, similar to San Francisco’s event. The parade route along Fourth Avenue was crammed with people cheering and showing their Pride.

“It was really beautiful in the parade,” she said, remarking on “gorgeous costumes” worn by many participants. “It was joyful seeing kids, elders, union folks. Everyone is here to be loudly themselves, and it’s a real testament to our resistance.”

In fact, “Louder” was the theme of this year’s parade, Seattle Pride’s website noted.

Randall said that while she has attended Pride events elsewhere over the years, she has not been to Seattle Pride in 20 years.

“Seattle Pride was my first Pride – I came out here and was home from college,” she said. “It’s special to be back 20 years later and be grand marshal.”

Randall herself wore a custom-designed white jumpsuit adorned with drawings of different symbols – a trans flag, pink triangle, rainbows, and, a U-Haul truck, a long-running joke in the lesbian community referring to women quickly moving in with each other. A high school student named Avery designed the outfit. Randall had posted on Facebook June 28 that Avery entered the Congressional High School Art Competition. She told the B.A.R. that while Avery did not win, she was struck by his work and commissioned him to design the jumpsuit for her to wear in the parade.

Work in Congress
At the time of the interview, Randall was keeping an eye on the U.S. Senate, which was debating President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. The House had approved its version of the bill in May. The Senate approved its version after midnight July 1 by a vote of 51-50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote, following an all-nighter. It increases the federal deficit by $3.5 trillion, noted Senator Alex Padilla (D-California), who voted against it, and makes cuts to Medicaid that will affect millions of people, among other provisions.

“A big, ugly brick is what it is,” Randall said of the bill. “There is some bad stuff coming out of it in the Senate [version] but it pushes tremendous Medicaid cuts and food stamp [cuts]. It increases the deficit dramatically.”

Randall voted against the bill in May and was expecting to soon return to Washington, D.C. to vote against it again. She ended up catching a red eye flight Monday, her campaign spokesperson wrote in an email. The House was scheduled to vote on the bill Wednesday in order to meet a July 4 deadline to send it to Trump for him to sign. Randall said the legislation has the potential to close hospitals around her district.

Randall is a co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, which is led by Congressmember Mark Takano (D-Riverside). The caucus was one of the few political organizations to issue a critical statement after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, which upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors.

“We’re uniquely focused on LGBTQ issues, and the end of the Supreme Court’s term saw an onslaught of terrible,” Randall said. “There’s so much coming so fast. I’m so glad the Equality Caucus shines a light on the community.”

When Randall last spoke with the B.A.R. in January, she showed solidarity with fellow freshman Congressmember Sarah McBride (D-Delaware), the first out trans person elected to the House. At the time, Republican lawmakers barred McBride from using public women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol. (House members have their own facilities in their offices.) Randall opened up her office’s restroom to anyone who needed to use it, regardless of gender identity. She told the B.A.R. that a couple of people have asked to use it, though she did not ask how they identified. She continues to be frustrated by her Republican colleagues’ anti-LGBTQ attitudes and policies.

Randall recounted sitting in on a Department of Government Efficiency subcommittee meeting chaired by Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia). At the time, the issue was allowing trans women to compete on fencing teams, which Taylor Greene opposed. The Public Broadcasting System also came up; GOP congressmembers were working to cut its funding.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene started the committee with a giant picture of a drag queen and talked about all of her feelings about reading [LGBTQ-themed] books to children,” said Randall. “It was so gross.”

“We have real work to do with housing affordability and protecting health care,” she added.

Taylor Greene’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Randall said antics like Taylor Greene’s are performative.

“I think there are Republican members who do want to work,” she said. “It’s unfortunate we don’t see Republican members of Congress standing up to some of the hatred we see or even standing up to the Constitution.”

 Serving her district
Randall said she flies home from D.C. every weekend and usually works most Fridays in the district. She’s held eight town halls since taking office in January and plans another round in the fall.

“Folks – they’re frustrated,” she said, about Democrats not having control of either chamber of Congress. “We use the tools we have.”

One of those is speaking out, which Randall does as a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Recently, gay Congressmember Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) was chosen by the Democratic caucus as the committee’s ranking member, or top Democrat.

“We’re in a good position to win in the midterms,” she said of the Democrats taking back control of the House. “The oversight committee I sit on now, we show up, vote, and tell the truth about what’s happening.”

Randall also serves on the House Committee on Natural Resources and she is on subcommittees for Indian and Insular Affairs, Federal Lands, Health Care and Financial Services, and Government Operations, as the B.A.R. previously noted. The government operations subcommittee deals a lot with federal workers, of which there are many in Randall’s district, she said. On health care and financial services, much of the discussions are about Medicaid, which is likely to see drastic changes due to Trump’s bill.

She said that there haven’t been any raids by federal immigration officials yet in her district, but that there is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Tacoma. She said she has visited it twice, one time was coordinated and one was unannounced. She said that one person she met was a lesbian who was days away from marrying a citizen when she was picked up. She had been in the U.S. for 20 years, Randall said.

Before moving to Washington state and becoming a state senator, Randall lived in Oakland. Back in 2015 and 2016 Randall had managed institutional partnerships for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Last week, the AIDS foundation announced 19 layoffs as the agency grapples with closing a $5.71 million deficit. Other positions are unfilled and will be eliminated, according to the agency. Randall said the state of LGBTQ nonprofits is challenging now.

“Not only are people out of work, but those direct services save people’s lives,” she said. “Cuts to health care and cuts to organizations doing the work is going to kill people.”

Despite how things have changed so much since Trump began his second term in January, Randall tries to look on the positive side.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” she said of her first six months in office. “There have been real high highs, like getting two bills marked up and getting to be grand marshal in the Pride parade.”

But there are lows too. Three of her Democratic House colleagues have died: Congressmembers Sylvester Turner (Texas), Raul Grijalva (Arizona), and Gerry Connolly (Virginia). Democratic political leaders in Minnesota were assassinated and gravely injured during a recent attack, she noted.

Despite it all, Randall draws strength from the people she represents.

“I’m really inspired by the constituents who fight,” she said.