Vitter is co-sponsoring a bill with Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) that would require census-takers to ask people about their immigration status as part of the survey, in order to exclude them from the apportionment process. Vitter yesterday claimed that illegal immigrants counted in the 2000 Census allowed California to gain up to five more seats in Congress than they’re actually entitled to have. But experts warn that changing the census questions at this stage of the process would be extremely costly.

The Vitter-Bennett amendment reportedly stalled passage (sub. req’d.) of the spending bill to which it was attached. The Senate voted no on cloture on Tuesday.

According to USA Today, the U.S. Census Bureau has asked people whether they are native or foreign-born since 1790, but it has never asked about their legal status. Immigrant advocacy groups oppose asking about immigration status because they say it’s already very difficult to get immigrants to participate in the census since they fear government reprisal, especially if they are in the United States illegally.

The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, among others, are actually calling for immigrants to boycott the Census unless laws are changed to give those here illegally a chance to gain legal status, though it’s not clear what exactly a boycott would accomplish.

“Already the public fears that the Census is too intrusive,” Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, told USA Today. “Asking about citizenship status “would raise more questions in the public mind about how confidential the Census is,” Vargas said.

Vitter yesterday claimed that Reid was “going through somersaults” to block a vote on the amendment because he worries that Democrats from states with low immigrant populations might vote for it.

Meanwhile, Congressional Quarterly reports (sub. req’d.) that Census experts oppose adding any new questions to the Census at this late stage because it would be extremely expensive to change the survey now and would  delay the reapportionment process. And on Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said it’s too late to add the question now in time for next year’s census. TPM’s Christina Bellantoni reported that Locke cited in a memo the printing and shipping costs to replace the 300 million Census forms already produced. He also expressed concerns about the possible wording of the question.

“A change will require using untested content in the actual census, which may affect both response rates and data quality and cannot be implemented in time to deliver apportionment counts by the statutory deadline of December 31, 2010,” Locke wrote.

Former Census directors from both Republican and Democratic administrations (pdf) also urged the amendment’s defeat, reports CQ, saying the cost would be “almost incalculable.” Taxpayers have already spent about $7 billion preparing for the count. It begins April 1, 2010.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau Website, “Census data are used to distribute Congressional seats to states, to make decisions about what community services to provide, and to distribute $400 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year.”

After the jump, Slaughter’s full remarks made this morning on the House floor about why FOIA should not be amended and the photos should not be concealed. 

There are few things that say more about our country and our trust in the public’s right to know than the Freedom of Information Act.

It’s one of the most powerful statements of openness and transparency we have. It affords ordinary people the ability to peer behind the curtains of power and see inside the many bureaucracies that define the federal, state and local governments in this country.

It’s a symbol for all that despite anything else that our government does in the name of the people, there should be no secrets.

Over the years, FOIA laws have been used for a wide range of purposes. FOIA helped us discover the ugly truth about the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the 1960’s. And FOIA was also used to uncover data showing that Ford Pintos were built with serious fuel

system defects that made them more prone to fire and explosions.

In some ways, FOIA is simply a reminder to the public that there is an avenue to pursue if they believe the government is keeping secrets. At the heart of FOIA is the concept that the people’s right to know is more important than the government’s desire to keep things secret.

The FOIA laws in this country have enabled reporters and citizens from all spectrums access to information that otherwise might never see the light of day.

Signed into law by President Johnson in 1966, FOIA laws allow for the full or partial disclosure of information and documents with only a narrow list of exemptions.

So it was with some dismay when we learned recently that the House and Senate conferees on the Homeland Security appropriations bill had slipped in a provision that gives the government the option of making old photos of detainee abuse exempt from FOIA laws.

This case has already followed a lengthy path, beginning with a lawsuit filed by the ACLU against the Pentagon. Last spring, when it appeared that the lawsuit might go against the government, this Administration responded by asking some members of the House and Senate to insert language into legislation to make sure the photos stay secret.

Joining the ACLU against the Pentagon was the American Society of News Editors, The Associated Press, Cable News Network, Inc., the E.W. Scripps Company, Gannett Co., Inc., the Hearst Corporation, Military Reporters and Editors, the National Press Club, NBC Universal, Inc., the New York Times Company, the Newspaper Association of America, the Newspaper Guild-CWA, the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the Society of Professional Journalists and The Washington Post.

Never mind that the photos in question likely have very little value, given that a similar set of photos showing abuse were released under the Bush Administration. Despite some complaints that releasing the photos would put servicemen and women in danger, the fact is there was absolutely no increase in violence or attacks after the previous detainee photos were released. My guess is that if we were to release new photos the result would be the same.

And many observers argue that releasing the photos was actually a clear break from the abuses of the past – and a signal to our allies and everyone else that the days of this type of detainee mistreatment were over and that the United States is willing to come to terms with its past practices.

In June, I and other House leaders prevailed and the FOIA exemption was dropped from legislation.

However, the conferees – apparently under direct orders from the Administration – quietly put it back into the bill this month.

It’s hard for me to express how disappointed I am with that decision. I am sorry because I believe that we had turned a page from the cloud of suspicion and secrecy that marked the previous Administration. It runs so counter to our principals and stated desire to reject the abuses of the past. The FOIA laws in this country form a pillar of our First Amendment principals.

It’s unfortunate given that this Administration promised that openness and transparency would be the norm. We should never do anything to circumvent FOIA and I believe that our country would gain more by coming to terms with the past than we would by covering it up. I hope that the President will follow judicial rulings and consider voluntarily releasing these photos so we can put this chapter in history behind us.

Update: C-SPAN has video of Slaughter’s remarks, which begin shortly after the 50-minute mark here.

2nd Update: Here’s the video.

As I’ve noted before, the vast majority of legal experts, including leading defense lawyers and many former prosecutors, appear to believe that suspected terrorists can be tried more successfully in regular civilian federal courts — which have prosecuted hundreds such cases since the 9/11 terror attacks, as opposed to just three convictions in eight years of military commissions. Still, the Obama administration and Congress have refused to let the commissions go. And while yesterday’s bill appears to make some improvements to their rules — such as ensuring that the military commissions actually have defense lawyers qualified to handle death-penalty cases, which they didn’t before — the commissions would still allow the admission of hearsay and coerced testimony so long as the judge thinks it’s reliable. It also allows for military trials of children.

Human rights advocates maintain that the whole process of trying people outside the normal justice system is illegitimate and counterproductive. As Human Rights Watch Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director Joanne Mariner said yesterday: “Tinkering with the discredited military commissions system is not enough. Although the pending military commissions legislation makes important improvements on the Bush administration’s system, the commissions remain a substandard system of justice.”

Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel for the ACLU, put it this way:

While the bill takes positive steps by restricting coerced and hearsay evidence and providing greater defense counsel resources, it still falls short of providing the due process required by the Constitution. The military commissions were created to circumvent the Constitution and result in quick convictions, not to achieve real justice.

Part of the problem is that even if the military commissions were fair to defendants, critics say that because of their tainted history — which includes the resignation of several prosecutors in protest — they won’t be perceived as fair to the rest of the world. What’s more, defense lawyers representing the detainees will likely challenge the courts’ constitutionality, delaying the resolution of these cases for many more years to come.

Last Thursday, the House of Representatives voted 258-163 to refuse to allow detainees now held at the Guantanamo Bay prison to enter the United States. Even a supermax prison facility isn’t safe enough to contain them, they decided, in a nonbinding resolution.

But Peter Finn at the Washington Post noted on Sunday that conditions at the United States’ most secure federal prisons are actually far more draconian than they are at Guantanamo Bay.

“For up to four hours a day, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, can sit outside in the Caribbean sun and chat through a chain-link fence with the detainee in the neighboring exercise yard at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” writes Finn. By contrast, terror suspects in U.S. prisons are usually kept in complete isolation, allowed only one hour a day outside, and never get to speak to anyone.

The federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado is home to such notorious convicted terrorists as 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef; Teodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber; and Terry Nichols, convicted of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

The conditions at Florence are supposedly so bad that terror suspects in Britain appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to prevent their extradition to the United States, arguing that the prison conditions constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In fact, studies have found that such extreme isolation can cause or exacerbate mental illness.

At Gitmo, meanwhile, KSM gets to work out on the gym’s elliptical machines and stationery bikes, choose his own movies to watch in the media room, read newspapers and books, and play handheld electronic games, reports Finn.

The Obama administration hasn’t yet revealed how it intends to close the Guantanamo prison, and what it plans to do with the 220 or so detainees that remain there.

Conyers promised to question Holder about all the hot-button topics that have dominated the news and prompted questioning from Democrats lately, including the department’s controversial use of the “state secrets” privilege to conceal executive action; the administration’s plans for closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay; the possible prosecution of former government officials who may have authorized the use of torture and whether the department would support appointing an independent prosecutor; the release of additional Office of Legal Counsel memos relating to the “war on terror” and the pending internal Justice Department investigation of the lawyers who wrote the memos; the Obama administration’s flip-flop on releasing detainee abuse photos; and the House proposal to create an independent blue ribbon commission “to investigate and tell the American people about the real reason that we entered into a war on terror,” as Conyers put it.

Not to be outdone, ranking minority member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) laid out his list of concerns, which read like recent Republican talking points. They included a warning that President Obama’s pledge to close down Guantanamo Bay and release terrorists and bomb-makers into the United States “could in fact endanger American lives”; why Holder would consider releasing some of the 17 Uighur detainees who “are all associated with terrorist organizations” when in fact “there is nothing wrong with the Guantanamo facility” — claiming the Justice Department is “worrying about image more than substance”; and why the government is tolerating local policies that prevent police from checking immigration status, when “time and again we have seen Americans killed by illegal immigrants protected by sanctuary policies.”

In short, today’s hearing promises to be, at the very least, an uncomfortable few hours for Attorney General Eric Holder.

In the various reports floating around in the wake of the win, Quigley is described as “reform-minded,” “waste-fighting” and “a rabble-rouser.” And while all those portraits are apt, he told me in a December 2004 interview that he joined politics for a singular reason: to fight for the environment.

It wasn’t easy at first. Elected to the 17-member Cook County board in 1998, the decidedly un-Machine force of Quigley scrapped endlessly with the more entrenched Democrats on the panel — often in vain. The toe-the-party-line philosophy never sat well with him, he said, and he endured countless 16 to 1 votes in his early years on the board. “How many [board members] never vote no?” he said in the interview. “How many never introduce an ordinance?” He was incredulous.

Yet his knack for dissent didn’t interfere with his effectiveness as a legislator. Despite his black-sheep status in his first term, Quigley somehow managed to get every single one of his proposals passed, he told me in 2004. Quigley’s recipe for success is informative as he now heads to Washington.

“I never wanted to be the individualist who goes down in a flaming ball of martyrdom,” he said. “Fuck the good fight. Get something done.”

Quigley is scheduled to be sworn in April 21.

The House today is poised to pass legislation creating a special 11-member commission to honor the 100-year anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, which occurred on Feb. 6, 1911.

The commission, according to the bill text, would “provide advice and assistance to Federal, State, and local governmental agencies, as well as civic groups to carry out activities to honor Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth.” Commission members will be unpaid, but will be reimbursed for travel expenses. Also, the commission can hire staff, including a director, who could be paid as much as the highest-earning federal officials.

Total price tag? A cool $1 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

That’s nothing, of course, relative to the trillion dollar figures we’re hearing out of Washington these days. Still, in the middle of a deepening recession, when deficit spending is flirting with $2 trillion in 2009 alone, is this really the best way to be spending taxpayer dollars?

That’s what happened at a House Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing this morning on “The Role of Offsets in Climate Legislation.” Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) attempted to engage six expert witnesses in a nuanced discussion of the merits of carbon offsets. But he was essentially preempted by denials and occasional hostility from several Republicans on the subcommittee.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, opened his response to Markey by saying, “I’m not sure we need climate change legislation, as you well know, Mr. Chairman, but if we do need it, offsets might be something we could do theoretically, if they work, which I don’t think they do.”

Fair enough, although it raises questions about the purpose of the debate (and Barton didn’t help his case when he said later, “I’m probably below average in my ability to understand these things”). But Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) really took it to another level when he started berating the witnesses, who despite their different perspectives agreed on the general need to address climate change.

First, Shimkus asked all of the witnesses whether cap-and-trade legislation with offsets would raise energy prices, and insisted on a yes-or-no answer. Every witness attempted an “it depends” response but was quickly and rudely cut off by Shimkus — everyone, that is, but the last witness, whom Shimkus told not to bother to answer.

He then had the following exchange with one of the witnesses, Graeme Martin of Shell Energy:

Shimkus: What’s the advantage of cap-and-trade over a carbon tax?
Martin: A cap-and-trade program gives you environmental certainty. …
Shimkus: So you don’t trust the government to use the tax revenue?
Martin: No, that’s not it, it’s –
Shimkus: No, I think it is.

[End of conversation.]*

At least Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) had a sense of humor about his disagreement with the hearing’s premise when he told Markey, “I’ll listen to your outrageous proposal with an open mind.”

The hearing was a window into what will certainly be a very strange debate, as Congress weighs the details of legislation whose underlying principles are vehemently denied by a large percentage of the lawmakers on the right side of the aisle. It’s akin to discussing the organization of an evolution textbook with someone who doesn’t even believe in evolution, let alone that it should be taught in schools.

Ultimately, if this legislation is going to pass, it’s going to have to squeak by with some concessions to moderates, and the climate change deniers will be left largely out of the debate.

*Some of the wording of this exchange is slightly paraphrased, due to the sluggishness of my note-taking. Apologies.

Despite unanimous opposition from House Republicans to the Democrats’ $787 billion economic stimulus plan, members of the GOP are now cheering certain elements of the bill that will benefit their districts, The New York Times reports today.

Just hours after voting against the bill on the House floor last week, Representative John L. Mica of Florida issued news releases lauding the inclusion of $8 billion for high-speed rail projects around the nation. Mr. Mica said the bill would also help pay for a commuter train project in his Central Florida district.

“If we could put a man on the moon, we should be able to move people from city to city quickly instead of wasting time on a congested highway,” said Mr. Mica, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “I applaud President Obama’s recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America’s future.”

This is no surprise. A bill like the stimulus puts Republicans in a pickle, as their political instinct to decry the federal spending runs smack into the reality that the money pays for services their constituents need, particularly in the middle of a disastrous economic environment. Nor can GOP leaders fall back on the tired line that the stimulus represents another case of the Democrats’ “tax-and-spend” tendencies — not with $287 billion in tax rebates included in the package.

Instead, you get “small-government” Republicans like Rep. Don Young (Alaska) cheering the enormous spending bill as “a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners,” The Times reports.

The Republicans defend this inconsistency with the claim that they can support certain elements of the stimulus without having voted for the package as a whole.

A spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Jennifer Crider, characterized the trend more accurately. It is, she told The Times, “the height of hypocrisy.”

CQ is reporting today that 104 House members — nearly a quarter of the lower chamber — secured earmarks in a 2008 defense spending bill for clients of a single lobbying firm with strong ties to powerhouse appropriator Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.).

All told, the House lawmakers (”plus a handful of senators”) funneled nearly $300 million in federal contracts to companies represented by The PMA Group, CQ found.

Murtha, who used to boast that his middle initial stands for “power,” carved out $38.1 million for PMA clients in the fiscal 2008 defense spending law, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Indiana Rep. Peter J. Visclosky , who serves on Murtha’s subcommittee and additionally is chairman of the subcommittee that allocates money for the Pentagon’s nuclear programs, earmarked $23.8 million for PMA clients in the fiscal 2008 defense spending bill.

His former chief of staff, Richard Kaelin, lobbies for PMA, as does Melissa Koloszar, a former top aide to defense appropriator James P. Moran , D-Va.

Moran sponsored $10.8 million for PMA clients, and Rep. Norm Dicks , D-Wash., another member of the subcommittee, sponsored $12.1 million.

And, this being Washington, that type of earmarking doesn’t come without reciprocity. Indeed, CQ calculated that, since 2001, those 104 House members have taken in “a cumulative $1,815,138 in campaign contributions from PMA’s political action committee and employees of the firm.” Of that sum, CQ found, Visclosky took in $219,000, Murtha represents $143,600, Moran pulled in $125,250 and Dicks tallied $91,600.

But wait, it gets better. Because The PMA Group’s founder is Paul Magliocchetti, “a former House Appropriations Committee aide who has a long-running relationship with Murtha, D-Pa., the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee,” CQ writes.

There’s more. The FBI raided PMA earlier this month on suspicion that the group has donated illegally to the campaigns of Murtha and other lawmakers. As CQ pointedly notes:

No matter what the outcome of the federal investigation, PMA’s earmark success illustrates how a well-connected lobbying firm operates on Capitol Hill. And earmark accountability rules imposed by the Democrats in 2007 make it possible to see how extensively PMA worked the Hill for its clients.

Damn you, transparency!

Update: CQ has published a handy chart identifying the House members and showing how much money they received in campaign contributions from PMA, and how much money they secured in earmarks for PMA’s clients. Is your representative on the list?