Following Sen. Bill Nelson’s lead, House Democrats from Florida have sent a letter to House leaders requesting hearings on the impact of new state voting laws on voter rights.

The St. Petersburg Times reports that Reps. Alcee Hastings, Corrine Brown, Ted Deutch, Frederica Wilson and Kathy Castor “are seeking a House investigation into new voting laws they contend were designed to make it harder for some people (Democrats) to vote.”

They are joining a list of almost 40 U.S. Representatives who signed the letter (.pdf).

The letter reads:

Congress has the Constitutional authority to act to protect the rights of all voters. In the face of voter suppression laws being enacted across the nation, Congress must determine the extent of the problem and provide appropriate remedies. Despite years of progress, inequities and obstacles still remain. We must work together to strengthen our nation’s democracy and ensure that the voting rights of all Americans are protected. Again, we respectfully request that Committees hold a hearing to address this extremely important matter.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., recently requested that the Senate conduct its own hearings. Nelson sent a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., requesting that he consider “conducting investigative field hearings” to see if the new voting laws were “an orchestrated effort to disenfranchise voters” in a manner that is possibly illegal.

All 19 GOP Representatives helped pass a bill that opponents say would endanger the health of women by cutting funding (even through private insurance) for medically necessary abortions. The bill also aims to expand the Hyde Amendment to private insurance plans because some could receive public dollars through the 2010 health care reform law. Women’s health advocates have said the Hyde Amendment has consistently burdened low-income women and minorities seeking legal abortions. The bill passed 251-172.

Only four out of Florida’s six Democratic representatives showed up to vote against the bill. Both Rep. Corrine Brown and Frederica Wilson were not present.

However, the Democratic members that were present gave impassioned speeches against the bill.

Rep. Ted Deutch, like many other House Democrats, criticized the House majority for focusing efforts on abortion, a legal right, instead of alleviating the country’s jobs crisis.

“Americans don’t want a war on women,” he said, “they want a war on joblessness.”

Deutch also called the bill “appalling” and a “cruel attack on women’s health”

Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement that the “bill would override core patient protections and allow hospitals to legally refuse life-saving treatment to women.”

However, it was Rep. Alcee Hastings that gave the most scathing criticism of the bill. During his statement, Hastings said:

My Republican colleagues should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. Instead of working to create jobs for the millions of Americans struggling all across this nation, they have decided they would rather spend time considering a bill that is a direct attack on a woman’s constitutionally protected right to choose and that does not create one single job. Furthermore, it stands no chance of becoming law and is a complete waste of time.

What the Republicans have decided to do is resort back to their old bag of tricks by pulling out the ‘abortion card’ in order to score political points with their base and hide the fact that they have yet to pass a jobs bill.

The Protect Life Act poses a direct threat to the health and lives of women by restricting access to abortion services, including factually accurate information such as the availability and coverage of abortion care by insurance plans. This is beyond irresponsible; it is reprehensible.

All I hear from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is that they want the government to butt out. Why, then, are we considering legislation that effectively overturns the privacy rights enumerated by the Supreme Court, as well as increases burdensome government regulations on insurance companies? Congress and, for that matter, men in this institution, should not be making personal health care decisions for women. That should be between a woman, her family, and doctor.

The Republican arguments are full of fuzzy facts and they have continually pushed through legislation this year that has weakened environmental protections; cut funding for child nutrition, the unemployed, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries; and torn to shreds any form of a social contract. So whose lives are we protecting here?

President Obama has said we will veto the bill if it makes it to his desk.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R- Miami, has become the first member of the GOP to co-sponsor the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

Respect for Marriage was filed by Rep. Jerald Nadler, D-N.Y., and has 124 co-sponors, until now all Democrats.

The Miami Herald reports today that Freedom to Marry and the Log Cabin Republicans announced Ros-Lehtinen’s support for the bill. According to the Herald:

Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen said, “I’m pleased to join the Log Cabin Republicans in our fight for marriage equality. I co-sponsored the repeal of DOMA because I firmly believe that equality is enshrined in our constitution and in our great democracy.”

Ros-Lehtinen is also a member of the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus, created last week ”to examine methods by which the United States can maintain global leadership in the response to the epidemic in the U.S. and around the world.” Ros-Lehtinen, the only Florida Republican in the HIV/AIDS Caucus, joins all of Florida’s congressional Democrats: Corrine Brown, Kathy Castor, Ted Deutch, Alcee Hastings, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Frederica Wilson.

Florida has some of the highest rates of HIV and AIDS reported cases in the United States and currently has the longest AIDS Drug Assistance Program waiting list in the country.

The AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (known as ADAP) provide medications for the treatment of HIV and AIDS for people who cannot afford to pay because they are unemployed, uninsured or underinsured. It has been in a funding crisis since last year.

The National Alliance of States and Territorial AIDS Directors’ latest ADAP Watch (.pdf) indicates that, as of Thursday, at least 8,800 people in 10 states were on AIDS Drug Assistance Program waiting list. With almost 4,100 people, Florida has 47 percent of the people on a Drug Assistance Program waiting list in the U.S.

Florida’s Bureau of HIV/AIDS reported that through 2010, the total number of people living with HIV and AIDS in the state increased to about 98,000. The report also shows that HIV incidence was by far highest among black men who have sex with men. The state Department of Health defines HIV incidence as the “number or proportion of new HIV infections within a specific population during a defined time period”

In 2008, Florida ranked third among states in the number of reported AIDS cases and third among 38 states that reported HIV cases.

Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fort Lauderdale, said in a press release that job creation remains the No. 1 priority, adding that “there continues to be major racial and economic disparity that continues to go unaddressed in the broader discussion of job creation and economic recovery. ” #

While Florida’s July jobs report (.pdf) released last Friday indicates that “the state’s unemployment rate is unchanged from the revised June 2011 rate of 10.7 percent,” a little more than 22,000 jobs were lost. Florida unemployment remained steady during the month of June, and added manufacturing jobs. #

The report also indicates that unemployment remains above the state average in several counties, including Miami-Dade at 12.5 percent, down from almost 14 percent in June. The July report adds that in the Miami-Fort Lauderadale-Pompano Beach metropolitan area, unemployment was 11.5 percent, down from 11.9 percent in July 2010. #

A report issued in late July by the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy (aka RISEP) at Florida International University shows that “the last five months have seen steady declines in Florida’s unemployment rate, from 12% in December to 10.6% in May.” #

The RISEP report adds that “the majority of the jobs created are in industries that pay below the average wage in the state. The industry that added the most jobs, Accommodation and Food Services, also has the lowest average annual wage at $18,842 per year.” #

RISEP has also reported that through 2009 and 2010, the number of unemployed blacks in Florida was almost 17 percent, while Hispanics experienced 13 percent unemployment. #

While the U.S. unemployment rate was 9.1 percent in July, it was 8.1 percent for whites, 15.9 percent for blacks and 11.3 percent for Hispanics. #

According to a Center for American Progress report issued in early August: #

African Americans have endured stagnated unemployment at 9.2 percent or higher—as high as 16.3 percent—since early 2008. This news is not new but it’s crucial in an ongoing debate about job creation, social service funding, high national debt, and a very slow recovery. Namely, investing in jobs for people of color is good for the economy in the long run. #

The report adds that “even in the ‘recovery’ African Americans are still the most likely to be unemployed and to economically languish in comparison to other demographics of working people.” #

Bill Clinton campaigns with Kendrick Meek in Florida. (The Palm Beach Post/ZUMApress.com)

Days before Florida’s primary, President Obama finally did what Rep. Kendrick Meek’s (D-Fla.) supporters had been begging him to do for some time: He showed up in the Sunshine State and referred to Meek as “the next senator from the state of Florida.”

[Congress1] But the in-person endorsement came with a caveat. On the way to the airport, the President made an unannounced stop with Meek at Jerry’s Famous Deli in South Beach. He bought each of them a corned beef sandwich and cautioned Meek, “Don’t say I never gave you anything.” The tone was playful, but the meaning profound. Meek supporters had criticized the White House for tacitly backing Gov. Charlie Crist, who recently became an independent, in his Senate bid. At the sandwich stop, Obama clearly threw his weight behind the Democrat. In turn, Obama seemed to imply, Meek would need to turn the race around and step forward as a force in the state.

At the primary, Meek lived up to expectations, notching a convincing win over his billionaire Democratic challenger Jeff Greene. But he still faces an uphill battle convincing skeptical Democrats, both in Florida and in Washington, that he’s the only candidate who represents their interests — and, more importantly, that he has a better shot than Crist at beating popular Republican Marco Rubio in November’s three-way race. The congressman’s chances remain slim. But his drawn out battle with Greene appears to have bolstered his support from up north and helped rally Democrats around the battle-tested, if not totally battle-ready, candidate.

Meek has thus far struggled to make his mark in Florida’s chaotic, crowded race. When Crist announced this spring that he was dropping out of the GOP primary and running as an independent, effectively splitting the conservative vote with Rubio, it looked like a blessing for Meek. On the next day, however, Greene decided to challenge Meek for the Democratic nomination and the party was thrown into turmoil. Democrats lacked a dominant candidate, and polls showed Crist off to an early, healthy lead over both Rubio and Meek. As a result, many Democrats, long skeptical about Meek’s chances of extending his base of political support beyond south Florida, either stayed mum or drifted toward Crist.

“Despite Obama carrying the state in 2008, Democrats haven’t been very optimistic about Florida this year from the beginning,” expains Ed Kilgore, managing editor of The Democratic Strategist. “When [Crist] switched and immediately was running ahead of Rubio, that was like a gift.”

Crist sensed the receptiveness among Democrats, and implicitly courted traditional liberal interest groups by vetoing a merit pay bill for teachers and another bill that would have forced women to have an ultrasound before receiving an abortion. He also talked up a conversation he had with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), stoking hopes among liberals that he might caucus with the Democrats if elected.

On top of that, some Democrats in Washington made moves that implied the White House was silently standing behind Crist. And SKDKnickerbocker, a leading polling and communications firm headed by a number of prominent Democratic operatives like Anita Dunn, Obama’s former communications director, gave new life to the whisper campaign when it agreed to take on Crist as a client.

The party faithful reacted with confusion, and sometimes anger. Some Democrats described the SKDKnickerbocker decision as a slap in the face to Meek. The Obama administration dismissed accusations that it was anything other than firmly behind Meek, but anecdotal evidence to the contrary kept fanning the flames. After Senior Advisor David Axelrod refused to explicitly commit the president to campaigning for Meek, members of the Congressional Black Caucus became livid.

“If they do not step up their support for Kendrick, then they cannot expect that I and my allies will support them in 2012,” Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) told Politico at the time, right after describing the administration’s treatment of Meek as “poor.”

Then came the news that Democratic pollster and former Hillary Clinton advisor Mark Penn was hosting a Crist fundraiser in his Washington home in early August. The party supported the narrative that Dems were jumping ship for Crist, but it also provoked a backlash among loyalists. “Mark Penn screwed up Hillary Clinton’s campaign and now he’s screwing the party that made him a multimillionaire,” one Democrat, who wishes to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the situation, says.

In Florida, the Greene campaign also ginned up shock and anger among Democrats on Meek’s behalf — in no small part because Greene profited from the bust of the housing bubble, which has decimated Florida’s economy. “Because of their fears about Greene and what he represented as a self-funder, the symbolism of his relationship with the housing meltdown, and some of the people around him… a lot of Democratic loyalists have probably gone to Meek’s standard who might not have otherwise,” says Kilgore.

Greene’s profligate spending and sleazy dealings soon provoked a backlash big enough to help consolidate support for Meek among powerful Democrats who couldn’t stand to see Greene’s name on the ticket. The chance that he could spend his way into office forced wavering Dems to show their hand and raise Meek’s profile in the process.

In direct response to Greene’s attempt to spend his way into office, Ben Pollara, a former finance director of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in Florida, formed an independent expenditure committee called “Florida Is Not For Sale.” He managed to attract wealthy Florida donors, like real estate mogul Stephen Bittel, who were happy to donate large sums to defeat a man who made millions betting against the housing market.

When it came to attracting big name endorsements and appearances on behalf of Meek, Greene’s involvement had the same effect. While campaign insiders admit the congressman’s relationship with the White House was “rocky” at first, Meek campaign spokesman Adam Sharon says that what mattered more than little slights from Democratic operatives were the appearances that President Obama and former President Clinton eventually made with Meek in the home stretch.

“It definitely sent a strong message to have allies come forward, especially in the primary, to help vis-a-vis the ground game,” argues Sharon. “Jeff Greene helped in terms of accelerating that process.”

Even before winning the primary on Tuesday, Meek’s camp has been busy making the case that it’s now in a better strategic position than Crist to win in November. Crist will be no match for the get-out-the-vote efforts of the party machines, they note, and he’ll get hammered on all sides for being untrustworthy and unprincipled.

“The path to victory is clear,” argues Bittel. “You go after the democratic base, get 37 to 38 percent, and you win. We think Rubio tops out at around 30 percent, and when everyone beats up on Charlie for picking every side of every issue, we think his numbers will drop too.”

Although Meek still trails badly, to some extent recent poll analyses are bearing out his camp’s theories about Crist’s support. “A significant part of Crist’s support among Democratic voters is African-Americans. Crist continues to draw 19 percent of the black vote,” noted Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker. “Meek got 68 percent in May and 70 percent in August. Again, once Meek raises his profile by winning the Democratic primary, it is questionable if Crist can continue to draw almost 20 percent of the black vote.”

When it comes to attracting the support of party operatives and donors in Washington, however, a lot could hinge on factors outside Meek’s control — like Democrats’ efforts to maintain a majority in the Senate, and the indications Crist gives as to who he’ll caucus with if he wins.

“For Washingtonians, that’s the ballgame,” notes Kilgore. If it looks like Democrats might be in danger of losing the Senate, all eyes will turn to Florida, Kilgore predicts, and “the more it becomes a pressing question, the more pressure Crist will be under to set out his intentions. Democrats will have to think about the fact that Crist’s been a Republican his whole life — it’s not like he chose to leave — and all things being equal, it’s got to be assumed that he’ll caucus with the Republicans.”

Crist, of course, has no incentive to reveal his hand, and he’s thus far maintained that he’ll caucus “with the people of Florida.” Whether that phrase will continue to reassure Democrats as the contest gets down to the wire remains to be determined, but Meek’s campaign is already trying to use it against him.

“His M.O. is ‘do what’s right for me, first and foremost,’” charges Sharon, previewing a line of attack that’s sure to continue from Meek’s camp. “The answer to who he’ll caucus with, but more broadly what does he stand for, what are his values, is a mystery to people because it’s a mystery to him.”

However many hypotheticals the Meek campaign lays out, however, Democratic fundraisers note that it won’t mean anything unless his poll numbers start climbing steadily, and soon. Most strategists believe the three-way race will effectively become a two-way battle — the casualty being either Meek or Crist, depending on who Democrats think has a better chance of winning the whole thing.

Crist is all too aware of this calculus. When the governor turned up at the St. Petersberg Coliseum in a light rain on Tuesday morning to cast his ballot, reporters prodded him for reasons as to why Democrats should support him in November rather than Meek. “I can win,” he replied.

On June 26, six seven Democrats on the committee — Anna Eshoo (Calif.), John Tierney (Mass.), Rush Holt (N.J.), Mike Thompson (Calif.), Alcee Hastings (Fla.) and Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) [Update: I received an early version of the letter. Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.) also signed it] — wrote to Panetta, “Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all Members of Congress, and misled Members for a number of years from 2001 to this week.” The letter — which doesn’t explain what those “significant actions” concerned* — asks that Panetta “publicly correct” his May 15 statement that it isn’t CIA “policy or practice to mislead Congress.” TWI acquired a copy of the letter, which comes after CQ reported that committee chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) also nebulously stated that CIA “affirmatively lied” to the committee.

But CIA spokesman George Little says it’s “completely wrong” to say Panetta determined CIA misled Congress, as the six legislators charge. “Director Panetta stands by his May 15 statement,” Little said. “It is not the policy or practice of the CIA to mislead Congress. This Agency and this Director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta’s actions back that up. As the letter from these six representatives notes, it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees.”

Little continued: “As for the Congress, as the Speaker has said, ‘We all share great respect for the dedicated men and women of the Intelligence Community who are deeply committed to the safety and security of the American people.’”

Here’s the full letter:

*
Late Update: HuffPost’s Sam Stein nails down that these, uh, “significant actions” are indeed torture-related.
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