Gerry Eastman Studds ( /ˈɡɛri/; May 12, 1937 – October 14, 2006) was an American Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts who served from 1973 until 1997. He was the first openly gay member of Congress in the U.S. In 1983 he was censured by the House of Representatives after he admitted to having had an affair with a 17-year-old page in 1983.

Gerry Studds was born in Mineola, New York. He was a descendant of Elbridge Gerry, the governor of Massachusetts who is commemorated in the word 'gerrymander'. He was the son of (Gerry) Eastman Studds (an architect who helped design the FDR Drive in New York City) and his wife, the former Beatrice Murphy. He had a brother, Colin Studds, and a sister, Gaynor Studds (Stewart).

He attended Yale University, where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall, and from which he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1959 and a master's degree in 1961. Following graduation, Studds was a foreign service officer in the State Department and then an assistant in the Kennedy White House, where he worked to establish a domestic Peace Corps. Later, he became a teacher at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. In 1968, he played a key role in U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy's campaign in the New Hampshire presidential primary.

Mark Adam Foley (born September 8, 1954) is a former member of the United States House of Representatives. He served from 1995 until 2006, representing the 16th District of Florida as a member of the Republican Party.

Foley resigned from Congress on September 29, 2006 acting on a request by the Republican Leadership after allegations surfaced that he had sent suggestive emails and sexually explicit instant messages to underage males who had formerly served and were at that time serving as Congressional pages. As a result of the disclosures, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted investigations of the messages to find possible criminal charges. Each ended with no criminal finding. In the case of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the “FDLE conducted as thorough and comprehensive investigation as possible considering Congress and Mr. Foley denied us access to critical data,” said FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey with the closure of the case. The House Ethics Committee also conducted an investigation into the response of the House Republican leadership and their staff to possible earlier warnings of Foley's conduct.

Wade Sanders is an attorney from in San Diego, California and a retired United States Navy Captain who served as Deputy Assistant United States Secretary of the Navy for Reserve Affairs during the Clinton Administration. He was formerly California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi's senior adviser for veterans and military affairs. As an attorney, he specialized in the legal practice of corporate governance and ethics, as well as employee owned companies and lobbying for major corporations. In December 2008 he pled guilty to one charge of possession of child pornography.

Sanders is the son of a career U.S. Navy officer who was injured while serving as Gunner's Mate aboard the USS Pensacola, and Mary Houston, an artist.^{[citation needed]}

Sanders was the senior adviser for veterans and military affairs to John Garamendi, D-Calif., while Garamendi served as California's Lt. Governor in 2008.

A former Deputy Assistant United States Secretary of the Navy for Reserve Affairs during the Clinton Administration, he contributed to the Post Cold War restructuring and modernization of the Armed Forces of the United States and worked with the United States Secretary of Defense to achieve full integration of the Reserve and Guard Components of the U.S. Military.^{[citation needed]}

Barney Frank (born March 31, 1940) is the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district since January 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee (2007–2011) and is considered the most prominent gay politician in the United States.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Frank graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He worked as a political aide before winning election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1972. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980 with 52 percent of the vote. He has been re-elected ever since by wide margins. In 1987 he came out as gay, becoming the first member of Congress to do so voluntarily. From 2007 to 2011, Frank served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, where he remains the ranking Democrat.

On November 28, 2011, Frank announced that he would retire from the Congress at the conclusion of his term in 2013. On January 26, 2012 it was announced in The Hill that Frank would marry his partner James Ready.

Alcee Lamar Hastings (born September 5, 1936) is the U.S. Representative for Florida's 23rd congressional district, serving since 1993. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He is one of only eight federal officials in American history to be impeached and removed from office.

Born in Altamonte Springs, Florida, Hastings was educated at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee and Howard University in Washington, D.C. He received his law degree from Florida A&M University in 1963.

He began to practice law in 1964.

Hastings ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1970, losing in the first primary to Lawton Chiles.

In 1977, he became a judge of the circuit court of Broward County, Florida. In 1979, he was appointed by President Carter as a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Florida.

In 1981, Hastings was charged with accepting a $150,000 bribe in exchange for a lenient sentence and a return of seized assets for 21 counts of racketeering by Frank and Thomas Romano, and of perjury in his testimony about the case. In 1983, he was acquitted by a jury after his alleged co-conspirator, William Borders, refused to testify in court (resulting in a jail sentence for Borders).