Elected Officials Panel

Aisha Moodie-Mills is president and CEO of the Victory Fund and Institute, the nation’s largest resource for openly LGBT public officials. She is also the co-host of “Politini,” a weekly show on BLIS.FM. Among other honors, she was named one of the top “Forty Under 40” national LGBT leaders by The Advocate and one of The Root’s 100 emerging and established leaders in the African-American community. Her work has been featured in numerous print media outlets, and she appears regularly as a political commentator on MSNBC. She was a key strategist for the campaign that brought marriage equality to the District of Columbia, where she and her wife, Danielle, were among the first to receive a marriage license. She has served as a political adviser, liaison and fundraiser to more than 50 members of Congress.

Maura Healey is the first openly gay state attorney general elected in the United States. A graduate of Harvard College, she spent two years playing professional women's basketball in Austria before receiving her law degree from Northwestern University. Working for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in 2007, Healey served as chief of the Civil Rights Division, where she spearheaded the state's challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. She led the winning arguments for Massachusetts in America’s first lawsuit striking down the law. She subsequently served as chief of the Public Protection and Advocacy Bureau and then chief of the Business and Labor Bureau before running for attorney general in 2013, when Coakley resigned to run for governor.

Sean Patrick Maloney represents New York's 18th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Initially elected in November 2012, he is the first openly gay member of Congress from New York. Maloney serves on the House Agriculture Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. His priorities in Congress include strengthening the health and financial security of America's retirees, creating jobs, investing in and improving infrastructure, and keeping communities safe. Previously, he served as a senior advisor in President Clinton's White House on a team that balanced the budget and paid down the debt, while creating over 800,000 jobs in New York. In June 2014 after 22 years together, he and his partner, Randy Florke, married in Cold Spring, NY, where they live with their three children. 

David Richardson is the first openly gay person to win a seat in the Florida Legislature. He represents House District 113, which includes the city of Miami Beach and Little Havana. Now in his second term, he serves as House Minority Floor Leader and sits on the Caucus Leadership Team. He is also the ranking Democratic member of the Rules, Calendar, and Ethics Committees. Among other accomplishments as a legislator, he prevented adoption agencies from discriminating against gay parents; he secured budget funding for a pilot project combatting LGBT youth homelessness; and he spearheaded the effort to make conversion therapy on minors illegal in the state. He also fought to kill the so-called bathroom bill, which would discriminate against transgender people, along with the bill that would allow discrimination on religious grounds.

Mark Takano of California's 41st District became the first openly gay non-white person in Congress when he took office in 2013. He was born in Riverside, California, where his family resettled after their internment in Japanese American camps during World War II. A graduate of Harvard College, he taught school in his hometown and has served on the Riverside Community College Board of Trustees since 1990. He is a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee; the Education and Workforce Committee; and the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.