A screenshot of the "Ignite" brochure (Photo: flfamily.org)

The leader of a politically influential Florida group that frequently advocates against LGBT and abortion rights has issued a new fundraising pitch to help gin up support for the work of its “Ignite an Enduring Cultural Transformation” campaign during the Sunshine State’s upcoming legislative session.

In May, The American Independent’s Andy Birkey reported that the Florida Family Policy Council was one of a network of organizations dedicated to raising money through the “Ignite” program to “pass anti-gay marriage amendments, curtail abortion rights and, in at least one case, ban ‘transgender bathrooms.’”

According to a Policy Council campaign brochure (PDF) that has been circulating since the campaign was announced more than a year ago, “Ignite” will champion “Biblically-Based Beliefs” in the state capitol during the upcoming legislative session.

These “beliefs” include:

Moral, physical and spiritual absolutes exist and were given to mankind to govern all of life. The sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman is the essential element of the family and a strong family is the essential element of a strong society. Life is a gift from God and should be protected from the time of conception to the end of natural life. First Amendment religious liberties are critical to our freedom as a people and must be protected and defended.

“Achieving transformation requires a lasting and enduring movement working strategically in key, cultural-defining areas,” the brochure claims. “‘Ignite’ is a two-year plan designed to fan the embers of November 2010 into a lasting movement built to achieve enduring cultural transformation.”

Florida Family Policy Council President John Stemberger (Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

According to a new fundraising pitch from Policy Council President John Stemberger, the campaign is meant to defeat what he calls “radical organizations like MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood, American Atheists, and the ACLU.” He claims those groups “are doing everything they can to force through their liberal agenda.”

“Our opponents are preparing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 12 months to advance their radical agenda in Florida and across the country,” he writes.

Among the goals listed on the campaign brochure are:

Education – Preparing Leaders:

• 1,000 worldview training attendees.
• 700 pastors equipped at briefings.
• 5,000 couples trained as marriage mentors
• 100 student leaders networked and engaged
• 65 legislators briefed and informed on issues

Legislation – Promoting Values:

• Continue Tallahassee Office and Staff
• Pass Ultrasound Option before Abortion
• Pass Marriage Strengthening Initiatives
• Defeat Radical Homosexual Agenda

Providing Accountability:

• Distribute 3 million voter guides.
• Reach 5 million values voters.
• Engage 3,000 pastors and churches

The group has already begun reaching out to religious voters. In November, Stemberger started “Project Active Citizen” to get as many religious voters to the polls as possible. In an email to supporters asking for donations to the project, he described it as “an effort … to help encourage thousands of pro-life and pro-family Floridians to register to vote.”

Stemberger has also already begun to distribute voter guides specifically geared towards pastors and how they can legally influence voters.

Project Active Citizen is just one of a handful campaigns or events that have come on the heels of Stemberger’s involvement in the Florida Renewal Project’s Pastors’ Policy Briefing. The “briefing” was held in order to involve churches and religious leaders in elections. Media outlets were barred from the event and a reporter was even escorted away from a meeting between presidential candidates Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich and pastors. Since the briefing, Stemberger helped lead a religious right get-out-the-vote event that took place in about 100 churches all over the country — including 34 in Florida.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. (Photo: Facebook)

As the Independent’s Birkey reported, Stemberger’s influential group has received big-name endorsements, including one from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who “loaned his name to the Florida Family Policy Council’s Ignite plan, which calls for spending $300,000 to mandate that women view an ultrasound before having an abortion and to ‘defeat the radical homosexual agenda.’”Rubio is quoted in the group’s campaign brochure touting its success. “FFPC’s successes in education, legislation and accountability have made them an indispensable asset in promoting and defending traditional values,” Rubio said, according to the Policy Council.

Birkey reported that the group has “averaged revenues of $384,000 over the last three years.”

Although no new specific legislative goals have been listed by the group, Stemberger writes in his fundraising pitch that the group “has an aggressive plan” for 2012.

“Attacks from those who work to undermine life, marriage, family and religious liberty are more sophisticated, more aggressive, and more frequent than ever,” the “Ignite” brochure says. ”‘We the people’ spoke loud and clear in November of 2010 but that one moment, by itself, will not achieve the cultural transformation we seek.”

Photo: A screenshot of the “Ignite” brochure (flfamily.org)

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (Photo: Flickr/ryanjreilly)

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will be giving a speech today about laws recently enacted all over the country that some say will suppress voter turnout among minorities, young people and low-income and disabled voters.

The speech comes during a flurry of activity following restrictive voting laws passed all over the country in the past year. Policymakers in states such as Florida have maintained the laws were crafted to prevent voter fraud.

Florida’s Republican-led Legislature passed an elections law last session that reduces the number of early voting days, creates onerous regulations for third-party voter registration drives and shortens the shelf life for ballot initiative signatures, among other things. A sponsor of the bill has said the bill makes Florida’s elections more “reliable.”

Many groups have denounced the laws, saying the new rules restrict voting rights from minorities and other Democratic-leaning voters as the 2012 election looms. Those complaints are gaining traction at the state and federal level. Yesterday, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., announced that the Senate will commence with field hearings in January in Florida to investigate the effect of the state’s new law. Holder will today give a speech on the same subject.

The Washington Post reports:

With the presidential campaign heating up, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will deliver a speech Tuesday expressing concerns about the voter-identification laws, along with a Texas redistricting plan before the Supreme Court that fails to take into account the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population, he said in an interview Monday.

Holder will speak at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Libary and Museum in Austin, Tex., which honors the president who shepherded the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law.

“We are a better nation now than we were because more people are involved in the electoral process,’’ Holder said in the interview. “The beauty of this nation, the strength of this nation, is its diversity, and when we try to exclude people from being involved in the process . . . we weaken the fabric of this country.’’

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Holder said his department “will be aggressive” in investigating “jurisdictions that have attempted for whatever reason to restrict the ability of people to get to the polls.”

“I think a fundamental question is raised: Who are we as a nation?” Holder said. “Shouldn’t we be coming up with ways to encourage more people to get to the polls to express their views? I am not talking about any one particular state effort, but more generally I think for those who would consider trying to use methods, techniques to discourage people from coming to the polls — that’s inconsistent with what we say we are as a nation.”

The Post reports that “a staff attorney for the ACLU Voting Rights Project … said the Justice Department could reject some laws through the pre-clearance process and file lawsuits seeking to stop others from taking effect.” According to the Post, Holder has already said that “the laws could depress turnout for minorities, poor and elderly people and those with disabilities who would have difficulty securing valid identification documents.”

Florida is currently waiting for a ruling on controversial aspects of its law from a court in the District of Columbia. Five counties in Florida require federal preclearance of voting laws per the Voting Rights Act.

The Associated Press reports:

Some doctors, crisis pregnancy centers and women who say they’ve had abortions want to help defend a new North Carolina law that would set more ultrasound requirements before an abortion.

The potential defendants filed a motion Tuesday in Greensboro federal court with the help of legal groups opposed to abortion. They want to intervene in the case to present evidence on why the law should be enforced in its entirety.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles put implementation of the law on hold “until she can hear more arguments.” The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, Planned Parenthood Health Systems, Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina and the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit against the state in October alleging that “the new law violates the rights of health care providers and women seeking abortions.”

This week, anti-abortion groups Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project and the Alliance Defense Fund have filed a motion to intervene in the ruling to defend the law.

Crisis pregnancy centers have been created to attract women facing an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy in order to convince them to keep the pregnancy. NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina recently released an undercover investigation into crisis pregnancy centers. The report said the centers were “a threat to public health.“

While the ACLU isn’t representing the protesters, ACLU legal counsel Teresa Nelson asked that the county rescind the conditions on the protest–including limits on space, personal possessions and temperature–which the county announced earlier this week.

The ACLU of Minnesota said in a press release that restrictions on free speech need to be narrow, definite and objective.

“When a regulatory scheme limits speech in a traditional public forum, the courts take care to ensure that the constitutionally protected expressed activity at issue be protected from government censorship,” Nelson wrote. “Rules such as the new rules that Hennepin County seeks to impose have the effect of subjecting the First Amendment activity to a prior restraint.”

The letter points out that the rules appear to be “ad-hoc” rules that weren’t previously enforced and that are designed to deal with just Occupy MN protesters: ”Because we believe that these new ad-hoc restrictions run afoul of the First Amendment, we request that you revoke your plan to oppose them.”

The letter was sent to Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, Hennepin County Administrator Richard Johnson, Hennepin County commissioners and Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman.
OccupyMNletter11.3.

“I certainly support the need to prevent certain sensitive, personal, classified, or law enforcement information from being disclosed under FOIA,” Udall wrote in his letter. “But I also believe it is extremely important that we do not attempt to protect our citizens by lying to them.”

Under the new regulation, government officials could simply tell citizens that the records they’re looking for don’t exist, when in fact the records do exist. A “no record” response, writes Udall, is very likely to head off any further inquiry. Yet all parties would know that the “no records” response could well be a lie. The regulation would erode trust and rightly lead to legal action on the part of skeptical investigators of all stripes.

Udall suggests an alternative approach drafted by government watchdog and civil liberties groups– the ACLU, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Open The Government– where government agencies could instead simply inform requestors that the documents they seek, if they exist, “are not subject to the disclosure requirements established by the Freedom of Information Act.”

Such an approach would be effective as well as “truthful and informative,” writes Udall.

Concerns expressed among the public, media and watchdog organizations prompted the justice department to keep the comments period on the proposed regulation open longer than planned. That period closed last week. Udall’s letter is a personal response aimed to throw additional weight behind calls to rethink the new regulation.

The history behind the debate is one of tug of war between the right to information and the need to protect government sources and secret investigations. It’s also a history of the battle to ensure that checks and balances between branches of government can operate effectively.

Criminal organizations, for example, have worked the FOIA system for years. They submit information requests and, based on the varied responses of the government agencies, try to uncover the identity of informants. A “No records exist” kind of response regarding, say, a “Johnny Fingers” would mean Fingers was no snitch. A “Will not confirm or deny” kind of response regarding, say, a “Leftie Knuckles” would suggest Knuckles couldn’t be trusted.

Yet, in the post-9/11 era, government agencies have become increasingly brash in denying information to all sorts of requestors– including those with no intention of whacking informants– and in flatly lying to requestors and to judges tasked with reviewing paper trails meant to detail the reason for request denials.

In a case heard this past spring titled Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, et al. v. FBI, the FBI lied to the plaintiffs about the existence of documents and then lied to the district court judge as well. When the fact came out that the documents did exist, it was clear that judicial review of national security document hoarding had been seriously eroded.

As the judge in the case put it, the information the FBI delivered to the court was “blatantly false.” It was a fundamental breech in accountability laws, he said.

“The Government’s… submission raised a very disturbing issue,” the district judge wrote in the Islamic Shura case. “The Government asserts that it had to mislead the Court regarding the Government‟s response to Plaintiff’s FOIA request to avoid compromising national security. The Government’s argument is untenable. The Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court. The United States Constitution entrusts the Judiciary with the power to determine compliance with the law. It is impossible for the court to determine compliance with the law and to protect the public from Government misconduct if the Government misleads the Court. The Court simply cannot perform its constitutional function if the Government does not tell the truth.”

If 16.6 is accepted the way it stands, the kind of legal breech on display in Islamic Shura would be written into standard procedures.

Below view Udall’s letter to Attorney General Holder and a fairly comprehensive brief on the matter filed to the Department of Justice by the ACLU.

Letter to Attorney General Holder on the Freedom of Information Act

FOIAACLUbrief

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The Washington Post reports:

The American Civil Liberties Union sued, and [Health and Human Services] officials said they made a policy decision to award the grants to agencies that would refer women for those services.

The bishops conference is threatening legal action and accusing the administration of anti-Catholic bias, which HHS officials deny.

The fight further sours an already difficult relationship between the government and some Catholics over several issues. The bishops fiercely oppose the administration’s decision in February to no longer defend the federal law barring the recognition of same-sex marriage. Dozens of Catholic groups also have objected in recent weeks to a proposed HHS mandate — issued under the health-care law — that would require private insurers to provide women with contraceptives without charge.

Last week, a Catholic political action committee released an ad asking President Obama to “meet with Catholic leaders to discuss compromise” on religious conscience laws. The ad accused the president of not seeking “common ground” with religious groups.

Catholic groups have asked to be exempt from federal mandates non-religious groups have to follow, particularly when it comes to birth control and abortion services. They are only asked to these follow mandates when they receive taxpayer funding.

For years, powerful groups such as the Conference of Bishops have won their fights for exclusion — but lately the feds are reconsidering some programs.

The Post reports that the Bishops feel they are being discriminated against for their religious beliefs, but “HHS officials denied any bias and pointed out that Catholic groups have received at least $800 million in HHS funding to provide social services since the mid-1990s, including $348 million to the bishops conference”:

One of those grants, $19 million to aid foreign refugees in America, was awarded to the bishops three days after the anti-trafficking contract expired Oct. 10.

“There wasn’t an intention to go out and target anybody,’’ said George Sheldon, acting assistant secretary for HHS’s Administration for Children and Families. “Nobody has ownership of a contract.’’ He added that the agency “followed standard procedure.”

The Bishops have released papers in the past few months accusing the federal government of exhibiting antagonism toward religion and displaying a “distorted view of sexuality,” as well as claiming that Health and Human Services’ birth control mandate violates the First Amendment.

Last week, police evicted the “99 percenters” from Yale Park, and arrested over two dozen protesters who peacefully resisted the eviction after UNM refused to renew the permit for the protest site.

In a statement, the ACLU of New Mexico said they were “involved in facilitating the balancing of protesters’ First Amendment rights with the university’s desire to impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place and manner of the protest.”

ACLU state offices across the country have been intervening in civil rights disputes involving the “Occupy” movement.

ACLU attorneys in Nashville, Tenn. sued on behalf of arrested Occupy Nashville protesters, saying the state had violated their rights to free speech and assembly. In San Diego, Calif., the ACLU asked local police to release many Occupy San Diego protesters arrested when they refused to leave their encampment last week, over concerns that the protesters would be in jail for days before bail is posted.

The permit for (Un)occupy Albuquerque lasts through November 6, and is more restrictive than the previous one: The protestors can be in the park from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM during the week, and from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM on the weekend.

The ACLU of New Mexico’s managing attorney Laura Schauer Ives said they would ”continue to closely monitor the situation to ensure that these rights remain intact.”

The board game’s creator, Bob Johnson, says in a statement that the game “was forced off the retail market in the 1980s by government officials working with the NAACP, NOW, and other welfare ‘rights’ groups.”

According to a press release announcing the rerelease of the game:

“Obozo’s America” is essentially the same as “Public Assistance” with these new features: the “Welfare Promenade” is now “Obozo’s Welfare Promenade;” each of the 50 Welfare Benefit cards and each of the 50 Working Person’s Burden cards begins with “Obozo Says;” and, an image of Obozo the Marxist Clown, juggling Hope and Change balls, appears in each of the corners.

Players begin on Obozo’s Welfare Promenade with an initial welfare grant of $1,000, then maneuver along the Promenade, getting cash for producing out-of-wedlock children, for drawing extensive welfare benefits, and for their success in four “Saturday Night” crimes (Prostitution, Armed Robbery, Gambling, and Drugs). Players can also get a job for their live-in on the “Government Cakewalk,” and if they are caught in crime, experience the “Jail Jaunt” – one roll of the dice and they’re back at the welfare office collecting all benefits. [Emphasis mine]

Players try to avoid landing on one of the dreaded “Get a Job” blocks which forces them off Obozo’s Welfare Promenade into the Working Person’s Rut. Hey, somebody has to pay for all the welfare, crime, and government!

Besides depicting welfare recipients as prostitutes, violent thieves, gamblers and drug addicts, the game’s website features an image of the president as “Obozo the Marxist Clown.”

In the right-wing publication American Thinker, Johnson writes:

First, ACORN is the NAACP, NOW, ACLU, and other “welfare rights advocates” all rolled into one, funded by you and me to facilitate the expansion of the welfare empire and its socialist/Marxist agenda. Obama was, and still is, an advocate for ACORN. That means he is an advocate for the suppression of free speech and free press. The only “civil right” Obama honors is the “right” of some to fare well at the involuntary expense of the productive members of society.

Second, the American Public Human Services Association, or APHSA (formerly the APWA) runs a half-a-trillion-dollar welfare empire. Had you ever heard of this fourth branch of government and its elitist parasites before? They, or an affiliated group, will run Obama “Care.”

Third, like the APHSA, the Obama administration is determined to maintain its power through propaganda, agitation, and projection. The false “racist” attack worked against us and our game in 1980, and it still works today.

Fourth, the welfare game board graphically portrays Obama’s destructive vision for American society. The hundred-dollar bill in the game pictures Karl Marx with the motto “Equality Taxation Poverty.” Is that not Obama’s unspoken goal?

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida is currently fighting a new law in Florida that requires welfare recipients to take a drug test before receiving benefits. Howard Simon, the executive director of the ACLU of Florida, has called the law a propagation of offensive stereotypes about welfare recipients. “The law is not just unconstitutional and illegal, it’s a public policy that rests on ugly stereotypes,” Simon said.

The ACLU’s client in the lawsuit is a welfare recipient — as well as a Navy veteran, a student at the University of Central Florida and a single father.

The order (.pdf) reads:

Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction is GRANTED. It is therefore ORDERED that the State is hereby ENJOINED from requiring Plaintiff to submit to a suspicionless drug test pursuant to Section 414.0652, Florida Statutes, as a condition for receipt of TANF benefits until this case is finally resolved on the merits. This Order does not address whether Florida is authorized to conduct drug testing of TANF applicants based on some quantum of individualized suspicion, an issue not before the Court.

Maria Kayanan, associate legal director at the ACLU of Florida and lead counsel in the case, says, “I’m delighted for our client and delighted to have confirmation that all of us remain protected from unreasonable, suspicionless government searches and seizures,” according to a press release from the group.

Lebron is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit filed against the state of Florida over the drug testing law. A Navy veteran and single father, Lebron was denied temporary assistance benefits he was otherwise qualified for because he refused to waive his Fourth Amendment rights and submit to a drug test.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the implementation of the new law, the measure has voter support.

The Sun Sentinel reports:

The ACLU argued that the state couldn’t implement the law in some of the counties while waiting to see if the law passed federal muster in the five counties subject to the Voting Rights Act. A U.S. District judge in Miami disagreed.

“I am pleased that the United States district court judge agreed with our position that Florida’s election laws are being appropriately implemented throughout the state,” said Secretary of State Kurt Browning in a press release. “The 62 counties in Florida with no preclearance requirement do not need to wait for the approval of the federal government before implementing Florida law.”

Five Florida counties are waiting for preclearance from the federal government before they can implement the new law, as required by the the Voting Rights Act. The law was created in 1965 to outlaw discriminatory voting rules. Section 5 of the act requires the federal government to review and approve any changes to election laws in certain areas.

Browning last week filed a complaint against the law, arguing that preclearance requirements for state election laws are “unconstitutional.”

Howard Simon, the executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said the state’s challenge to the Voting Right’s Act was “an admission that they know that the federal courts are likely to find that the Voter Suppression Act passed this year is a serious threat to the voting rights of Florida’s language and racial minorities.”

The state is waiting to hear from a federal judge about four of the law’s most controversial measures: new restrictions on third-party voter registration drives, a shortened “shelf life” for signatures collected for ballot initiatives, new restrictions on voters changing their registered addresses on election day and a reduction in the number of early voting days.