Chuck Wolfe, President and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a political action committee dedicated to increasing the number of openly GLBT public officials in the United States, addressed the organization’s current state and success rate in front of an audience of local and state GLBT public officials and community leaders at its annual lunch, last Friday, at Bahia Resort Hotel in Mission Beach.

“2008 was a very good year for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. Last year, we endorsed 111 candidates, blowing away any previous record,” Wolfe told the nearly 200 GLBT political movers and shakers who attended on Feb. 27.

Of the 111 candidates the Victory Fund endorsed, 82 won their respective elections, including Jared Polis, D-Colo., who became the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Congress as a non-incumbent.

Polis joins Sen. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., both reelected last November, as the only openly GLBT members of Congress.

That gives the Victory Fund a 72 percent success rate among the candidates it endorsed in 2008. When the Victory Fund decides to endorse candidates, it provides them with a number of resources, including an assessment of their “viability,” intensive training, financial support, fund-raising, media support and campaign consultants. Since its establishment in 1991, the Victory Fund has helped 400 GLBT candidates win positions in local, state and federal offices.

Through candidate endorsements, the Victory Fund attempts to increase GLBT representation in what it calls “horizon states” and “legislative horizons.” Horizon states are states with no openly GLBT-elected officials. Legislative horizons are states with at least one openly GLBT-elected official but no representation in the state Legislature. At the moment, there are four horizon states (Alaska, Mississippi, North Dakota and West Virginia) and 15 legislative horizons, including Hawaii, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico and South Carolina.

“The number seems to be changing every day,” said Victory Fund Vice President Denis Dison.

Just this month, South Carolina came off the horizon state list. Nick Shalosky, the 21-year-old secretary of South Carolina’s Stonewall Democrats, became the first openly gay elected official in the state. When a vacancy opened on the Charleston County District Constituent School Board, Shalosky put his name on the ballot, received 22 votes and won the seat.

Last year, the Victory Fund started the Presidential Appointment Project to provide the future president with a list of qualified GLBT candidates to appoint. In collaboration with a dozen LGBT national organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Victory Fund developed a list of 250 candidates. So far, 20 have secured positions in the Obama administration.

“That’s a remarkable percentage for our community, nearing 10 percent, better than we’ve ever had before,” said Wolfe.

The 20 appointees include the former director of the project, Mark Perriello. Recently hired by the Obama administration, Perriello now works in the office of Presidential Personnel, where he makes appointments for all constituency groups. The Obama administration has also hired Brian Bob, past executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, to work in the office of Public Liaison.

“Losing two alumni to the president is not such a big deal as far as losing staff people. But when they go to the president of the United States, it’s OK,” Wolfe said, adding that electing such leaders to public office is pivotal for LGBT rights.

“In the history of LGBT rights, no state, no jurisdiction has ever enacted pro-LGBT legislation without first electing a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person into office. It’s never happened. So a precursor to gaining our rights is electing someone into office.”

When GLBT public officials are elected, non-GLBT officials become conscious of the impact of policy on us, said District 46 Assemblymember John Perez, the event’s keynote speaker and past Victory Fund endorsee.

“The amount of education that occurs when people have to serve with a member of our community….They start looking at issues that affect us differently when it impacts one of their colleagues,” Perez said.

“They start to change the nature of the debate. It’s a big deal,” Wolfe said.

Recently elected councilmembers, District 3’s Todd Gloria and District 5’s Carl DeMaio will be a test to Perez’s and Wolfe’s hypothesis.

While San Diego has seen some recent success in electing GLBT candidates to public office, electing them at the state level has been more of a challenge. Currently, there is only one open lesbian, District 39’s Sen. Christine Kehoe, in the Legislature. Not since 1995 has California had only one openly lesbian official in the state Legislature, said Perez.

“California is “backslippin’,” said Perez. “We have a lot of work to do to make sure that we don’t slide even further.”

One strategy Perez believes is most successful for getting more GLBT people elected is supporting candidates who speak to a broad range of issues.

“When you look at the LGBT members who got elected to the Legislature, it has been those who have been engaged in a variety of issues … [and who are] able to not be pigeon-holed as just a gay candidate or a lesbian candidate,” Perez said.

Such is the case with Perez, who is not only the first gay Latino elected to the California Legislature, but the first gay Assemblymember to represent a district with no openly identified GLBT population. As the representative of the predominately Latino and low-income district, Perez tackles a range of issues, everything from environmental racism to the lack of affordable health care.

“Frankly I was elected because of my work in those areas” and not because I was gay, Perez said.