Listeners, every Thursday night during President Biden's first hundred days in office, I'm hosting a series of call-in specials called America, Are We Ready?

And we've been having such good discussions with our guests and with callers from across the country that we want to share them with you on this podcast feed.

So here's this past Thursdays, America, are we ready?

I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my Daily Politics Podcast from WNYC Studios. This is a Saturday special.

Our main question this hour is America, are we finally ready for bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform? We also have some breaking news from the House of Representatives this afternoon.

They passed a bill called the Equality Act, which would ban discrimination in housing and in education against LGBTQ Americans.

Now it goes to the Senate, where its prospects are uncertain, but the Supreme Court could

become an interesting player on this, too.

We'll explain.

We'll open the phones in a few minutes on immigration, but we'll do a short interview first with Democratic Congresswoman Linda Sanchez of California, representing parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties.

She is the lead sponsor in the House of the Democrats' immigration reform bill.

Congresswoman Sanchez, so good of you to join us tonight. Welcome to America. Are we ready?

Yeah, great to be with you. I'm excited. And first briefly on the Equality Act, looks like you only got

three Republicans in the House. You'll need 10 in the Senate. Think there's any way that many are ready to

say people can't deny housing to lesbian and gay and trans people

based on the landlord's religious beliefs? Well, one would certainly hope in this day and age that

we could get those votes in the Senate. Whether we will, I don't know. But, you know, I always remain

guardedly optimistic that people are more motivated by democratic ideas than by their own hate.

And as you know, the Supreme Court ruled last year that the protections against sex discrimination

in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also applied to protecting LGBTQ Americans from employment

discrimination. The court took sex discrimination to also mean

sexual orientation and gender identity. Is there any reason to think the court wouldn't also

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