June 20, 2025
USEFUL RESOURCE: FEDERAL BUDGET RECONCILIATION
Here is a comparative table from Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF between the House-passed bill and the current Senate Finance text –
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Trump Administration Will End L.G.B.T.Q. Suicide Prevention Service
The federal government says it will maintain funding for a national suicide prevention hotline, but no longer pay for specialized support for L.G.B.T.Q. people.
By Maggie Astor, NY Times
June 18, 2025
The Trump administration has instructed the national suicide prevention hotline to stop offering specialized support to L.G.B.T.Q. callers next month, saying those callers can rely on the hotline’s general services.
The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that has provided that specialized support to L.G.B.T.Q. callers to the 988 suicide prevention hotline, said Wednesday that it had received a stop-work order for that service, effective July 17, and provided a copy of the order to The New York Times.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees the hotline, confirmed the decision.
The option for L.G.B.T.Q. support was established in 2022 based on a recognition that gay and transgender people experience distinct mental health issues — often driven by family rejection and societal discrimination — and have disproportionately high suicide rates.
In a statement that referred to “L.G.B.+ youth services” — omitting the “T” for transgender — SAMHSA said the decision was based on a desire to “no longer silo” those services and to “focus on serving all help seekers.” A spokesman for the White House responded to an inquiry by referring to that statement, and a spokeswoman for H.H.S. said that the L.G.B.T.Q. section had “run out of congressionally directed funding” and that continuing to fund it would jeopardize the entire hotline.
However, the White House Office of Management and Budget has previously described the hotline’s L.G.B.T.Q. section as “a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by ‘counselors’ without consent or knowledge of their parents.” That language reflects the Trump administration’s broader efforts to eliminate services for and legal recognition of transgender people.
Those efforts have also included cutting funding for research on L.G.B.T.Q. people’s health, and executive orders seeking to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which affect L.G.B.T.Q. people as well as people of color and others.
Some groups that rely on federal funding have scaled back services in response. The RAINN sexual assault crisis hotline, for example, instructed employees earlier this year not to refer callers to resources specific to L.G.B.T.Q. people, immigrants and other marginalized groups.
The news of the hotline’s L.G.B.T.Q. cut came just before the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, one of a slew of state anti-transgender laws passed in recent years.
The Trevor Project said it would continue to provide crisis services through its own hotline.
“I want every L.G.B.T.Q.+ young person to know that you are worthy, you are loved and you belong — despite this heartbreaking news,” Jaymes Black, its chief executive, said in a statement. “The Trevor Project’s crisis counselors are here for you 24/7, just as we always have been.”
The government’s decision could cut the number of people the organization serves in half. In 2024, Trevor Project counselors helped about 500,000 people, of which 231,000 came through the 988 line, said Zach Eisenstein, a spokesman for the organization.
The Trump administration had previously indicated that it wanted to cut funding to 988’s L.G.B.T.Q. section; its budget proposals for the federal health department called for zeroing it out. (The hotline would maintain the same overall funding of $520 million, but not direct any to an L.G.B.T.Q. section, which accounted for a small portion, $33 million.)
However, those proposals were for the 2026 fiscal year and subject to congressional approval. The new announcement makes the elimination imminent.
In May, more than 100 House members signed a letter urging the health department to preserve the L.G.B.T.Q. option, and seven senators signed a similar letter. The Trevor Project is also circulating a petition and running a crowdfunding campaign to try to compensate for lost federal dollars.
“But now it’s the Hail Mary, the true five-alarm fire,” Mr. Eisenstein said, “because we only have a matter of days.”
Maggie Astor covers the intersection of health and politics for The Times.
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Hundreds of CVA lawsuits against NYS could be dismissed, advocates say
By Robert Brodsky, Newsday
June 20, 2025 5:00 am
An estimated 400 to 500 lawsuits, including many on Long Island, filed against New York State under the landmark Child Victims Act, could be dismissed after the State Assembly adjourned this week without approving legislation that would no longer require victims to remember the exact date and time of their abuse, advocates said.
In March, the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chi Bartram Wright, a New York City man who alleged in court papers that he was sexually abused as a child by multiple men between 1986 and 1990 at a state-run theater in Albany.
The Court of Appeals argued Wright provided only vague generalities about his alleged abusers, locations and time frames and that his claims were “too spare” to effectively impose liability on the state.
The Court of Claims, which hears lawsuits against the state, requires a level of specificity about the alleged abuse which Wright failed to meet, the high court said.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- Hundreds of Child Victims Act lawsuits against the state could be dismissed after the Assembly failed to approve a bill that would no longer require survivors to recall the date and time of their abuse, advocates say.
- In March, the Court of Appeals dismissed a suit by a New York City man who alleged he was sexually abused as a child by multiple men sometime between 1986 and 1990 at a state-run theater in Albany.
- The Court of Claims, which hears lawsuits against the state, requires victims to recall the location, dates and other specificities of their abuse. CVA cases against other entities are not held to the same standard.
Child Victims Act cases brought against all other entities, including the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, local school districts and other government municipalities do not require the same standard.
“How does it make any sense to have one standard of claims for people who were sexually abused by the State of New York and a completely different one for every other entity,” said David Catalfamo, executive director of the Coalition for Justice and Compassionate Compensation, which advocates for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. “It makes zero sense. It’s not fair.”
Earlier this month, the Democrat-controlled State Senate voted 57-5 to make a technical change to state law that would no longer require victims who bring cases against the state in the Court of Claims to recall specific information about their abuse.
But the State Assembly, also controlled by Democrats, adjourned for the session on Wednesday without considering a vote on a matching bill, sponsored by Assemb. Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan).
Rosenthal and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s office each did not respond to requests for comment.
Gary Greenberg, who helped spearhead passage of the Child Victims Act — which permitted victims of childhood sex abuse to file lawsuits, regardless of when the abuse was alleged to have occurred — said abuse survivors will rarely recall exact details of their trauma.
“I fought for a lot of victims over my lifetime,” said Greenberg, himself a survivor of childhood sexual assault. “And, I don’t know one victim that could give an exact time and an exact date about when they were abused.”
Catalfamo estimates that up to 500 lawsuits filed against the state under the Child Victims Act — and hundreds more under the Adult Survivors Act, a similar bill for victims of sexual assault that occurred when they were over the age of 18 — could be dismissed if the “loophole” is not closed.
Wright alleged in his 2021 lawsuit that his abuse occurred when he was between ages 12 and 15 at the Performing Arts Center at the Empire State Plaza in Albany.
But Court of Appeals Judge Caitlin Halligan wrote that Wright’s “claim lacks critical information about the abusers. It alleges that the perpetrators included teachers, coaches, counselors, and perhaps other employees of the state, but it does not explain whether those employees were Wright’s teachers, coaches, and counselors, or why, as a child, he was in their company multiple times between 1986 and 1990.
The ruling, Catalfamo said, opened the door for State Attorney General Letitia James’ office to seek the “mass dismissal” of Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act cases involving state-run facilities, such as prisons, group homes and schools.
James’ office did not respond to requests for comment.
Catalfamo and Greenberg Thursday also criticized Gov. Kathy Hochul and the State Department of Financial Services for failing to pressure or penalize insurance companies for delaying efforts to pay out claims in a host of Child Victims Act cases.
Hochul spokesman Gordon Tepper said “it’s ludicrous for this organization to weaponize the pain of survivors in a cynical attempt to pull this administration into a contractual dispute between two private entities.”
Newsday’s Yancey Roy contributed to this story
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Federal Update
Thune’s megabill timeline troubles
The Senate majority leader is ramping up efforts to quell rebellions within his conference over the megabill as he works to get it to the floor next week. That includes talking to Trump, who he frequently refers to as his “closer,” on a near-daily basis, Thune told Jordain.
Thune’s got his work cut out for him. Hawley is urging GOP leaders to strike Senate Finance’s language that would largely reduce the provider tax to 3.5 percent from 6 percent, warning that it won’t fly with House Republicans who voted to freeze, rather than reduce, the tax that many states use to fund their Medicaid programs.
Hawley told Jordain in an exclusive interview that House Republicans have told him they were “not consulted” and it “cannot pass.” (Read more from that conversation on our Inside Congress Live blog later this morning.)
“I don’t know why we would pass something that the House can’t pass and will force us into [a] conference,” Hawley said.
House Republicans — including members of Speaker Mike Johnson’s circle — were indeed blindsided by the Senate’s move, Mia reports with our Meredith Lee Hill. Moderates in the chamber are now scrambling to undo it, working with hospitals and planning to set up calls with leadership.
Hawley told Jordain he’s prepared to support the House’s provider-tax freeze — with minor technical clarifications that 13 states’ hospital associations, including his own, asked for in a letter Inside Congress scooped Monday. GOP leaders are also pondering a fund to support rural hospitals, but Hawley says that isn’t enough. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt declined in a press conference Thursday to share Trump’s preference for how to break the stalemate, “out of respect for the ongoing discussions that the White House is very much actively involved in.”
Thune also has other policy disputes to resolve, including over the state-and-local-tax deduction cap critical to a cadre of moderate House Republicans. That’s leaving some of his members openly doubting whether Thune can meet his party’s self-imposed July Fourth deadline to send the bill to the president’s desk. Sen. Tommy Tuberville put it at a “50/50 chance,” saying there could be half a dozen Senate Republicans still wavering; Thune can only afford to lose three.
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FEDERAL
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley — the ranking members on Agriculture, Finance and Budget, respectively — are spearheading a letter from the Senate Democratic Caucus urging Thune to work across the aisle on health care and food assistance rather than forging ahead with changes in Republicans’ party-line push.
That won’t happen. But the letter, ATTACHED, is a preview for Democrats’ lines of attack against two of the most controversial pieces of the GOP megabill: Changes to Medicaid and shifting part of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to states.
“If enacted, these cuts to food assistance and health care will mean widespread hardship for Americans,” Democrats wrote in the letter. “Just because the House has acted in this regard does not mean the U.S. Senate must make the same mistakes.”
Schumer and Senate Democrats will convene a Zoom call Saturday to discuss their strategy ahead of anticipated floor action next week, a person with direct knowledge told Jordain.