As Democrats look to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives next year, one of the candidates that may help them do that is a gay former federal prosecutor.
That candidate, 38-year-old Will Rollins, is again running against Republican incumbent Ken Calvert in California’s 41st Congressional District after losing narrowly to him in 2022. National Democratic leaders have identified the district as one of the most flippable in 2024. It encompasses a large area east of Los Angeles, including the heavily LGBTQ+ city of Palm Springs and other desert communities.
While Rollins was processing the news that he’d lost the 2022 election, he saw Donald Trump’s announcement that he’d once again seek the presidency in 2024. That drove home to Rollins why he’d run for Congress in the first place — that democracy is under threat.
“All of the reasons I originally did this came back to me,” Rollins tells The Advocate.
Protecting democracy is key, and Calvert, Rollins says, can’t be trusted to do that. Calvert, who has been in the House since 1993, voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election and against establishing the committee that investigated the insurrection that took place at the Capitol as the certification vote was taken January 6, 2021.
Calvert has been cozy with Trump, having received the former president’s endorsement in 2022, and just this year Calvert responded to federal charges against Trump by condemning the “weaponization” of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The congressman also has a poor record on LGBTQ+ issues, gun control, and reproductive freedom, although he changed his tune somewhat on LGBTQ+ rights during his campaign against Rollins in 2022, when their district had been redrawn to include Palm Springs. Calvert endorsed marriage equality after having opposed it for years, and he voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, which wrote marriage equality into federal law, protecting it in case the Supreme Court reverses its 2015 decision for equal marriage rights.
What’s more, supporters of Calvert outed an opponent of his in 1994 — Mark Takano, a gay man who’s out now but wasn’t then — and Calvert’s campaign amplified it with a mailer full of innuendo that said Takano had a “secret agenda.” Takano’s now a congressman representing a nearby district.
Rollins says he offers a clear alternative to Calvert in a district that’s trending more and more Democratic. Registered Democratic voters now outnumber registered Republicans in the 41st.
Rollins grew up on the Southern California coast and now lives in Palm Springs with his partner of 12 years, Paolo Benvenuto. In his youth, Rollins feared coming out. “In high school I knew that I was gay,” he says. “I just had a lot of trouble accepting it.” After he finished college, he realized what he was really afraid of was what other people would think. Once he got past that, he came out in his early 20s. His family has consistently been supportive of him, and he’s also benefited from the “family” of LGBTQ+ activists who’ve paved the way for him.
Image: Will Rollins for Congress
Rollins and partner Paolo Benvenuto
After the terrorist attacks of 2001, he wanted to enlist in the military, but “don’t ask, don’t tell” was in force then. So he found another path to working in national security — he went to law school and became an assistant U.S. attorney, prosecuting white-collar criminals, drug traffickers, sex offenders, and more, and eventually joined the Terrorism and Export Crimes Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, where he prosecuted several offenders who posed security threats, including some of the January 6 insurrectionists. He would be the first LGBTQ+ member of Congress from a law enforcement background.
If he’s elected to Congress, he plans to work to assure LGBTQ+ equality, including passage of the Equality Act; to secure abortion rights; to combat climate change; to fight inflation; to prevent gun violence; to expand access to affordable health care; to improve public education; to make the criminal justice system more fair and equitable; to protect voting rights; and above all, to support democracy.
“Government should be used to solve complex problems that we cannot solve alone,” Rollins says.
He’s racked up a long list of endorsers, including most Democratic members of California’s congressional delegation and numerous local public officials; LGBTQ+ groups such as Victory Fund, the Human Rights Campaign PAC, Equality PAC, Equality California, and the Stonewall Democratic Club; several labor and environmental groups; and the California Democratic Party.
Under California’s election system, candidates from all parties compete in the primary, and the top two advance to the general election. There’s an independent in the race, Kyle Penna, and another Democrat, Brian Hawkins, a former Republican who’s been arrested on charges of child assault. He’s pleaded not guilty, but his election chances are slim. So the election will come down to Rollins versus Calvert. The primary will be March 5 and the general election November 5.
