Dave Loebsack

“For me, the bottom line is, no matter where this bill goes, it is very important [to provide transparency] because the American people are so tired of the political gamesmanship and the food fights and all the rest in Congress — the back-room deals,” Loebsack told The Iowa Independent in an exclusive interview following his introduction of the Deficit Committee Transparency Act.

“There’s this feeling that things are getting done without there being enough sunlight being shed on the apparatus. The American people are just tired of the process. And, when they saw the debt negotiations going on behind the scenes with a relative few people actually being involved and not everyone being aware of what was being discussed, I decided it would be good to at least offer this legislation and try to get some other members on board.”

Loebsack introduced the bill alongside U.S. Reps. Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat, and Jim Renacci, an Ohio Republican. It makes six requirements of Super Committee members and staff members that the three Congressmen believe would shed sunlight on their monumental task — struck as a part of earlier federal debt ceiling negotiations — to strip $1.5 trillion from the federal budget.

“With unprecedented power, such as has been given to these 12 Super Committee members, must come a call for unprecedented transparency,” explained Quigley. “With power over the fate of $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, the Committee members will face huge pressure from lobbyists and special interest groups, and the American people deserve to see exactly who is influencing the process.”

Mike Quigley

Committee members have until Nov. 23 to either introduce a bipartisan plan for deficit reduction or do nothing, if they can’t find agreement. If a proposal is completed, it will then be sent to Congress, where it must face an up-or-down vote no later than Dec. 23.

Those dates, however, do not exactly coincide with federal campaign contribution disclosure law. Loebsack noted that under current law, Committee members will file a disclosure report, made public by Oct. 15, that will show contributions of $200 or more that were received between July 1 and Sept. 30.

“After that, however, we potentially won’t know of contributions of $200 or more received from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 until the end of January, or long after this process will be completed,” he said. “I know that’s a little bit in the weeds, but I think it is really important. The public needs to know what is being done, and there doesn’t need to be a lag in knowing where such money came from.”

The Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan group that advocates for greater transparency in government and politics, agrees.

“We applaud the introduction of [this proposal], and hope every member of Congress supports its swift passage to ensure the work of the Super Committee is conducted in an open and transparent manner,” said Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director of the organization. “Since this Committee has been granted enormous power to determine the future of our economy, it’s critical all Americans have the ability to track online in real time the lobbying, activities and every dollar of campaign contributions to the members.”

The proposal would:

• Require disclosure of meetings with lobbyists and special interests between committee members and staff 48 hours after the meeting on the Committee’s website.
• Require the same disclosure on the website before any meetings occur within 48 hours of the Nov. 23 vote and the submission of legislative text on Dec. 2.
• Require disclosure of lobbyist and special interest contributions to committee member campaigns or leadership PACs, and generally any contributions over $500 within 48 hours after the donation occurs on the Committee website.
• Require creation of the aforementioned Committee website to make all disclosure information publicly available, in addition to information on the Committee activities and proceedings.
• Require Committee hearings to be streamed live on the website and televised.
• Require the Committee’s report and proposed legislative language to be published online 72 hours before the vote occurs.

Jim Renacci

“As the deficit reduction committee works to find $1.5 trillion in cuts to federal spending the American people should be able to see exactly how their elected representatives are achieving those savings. Transparency in the process will limit outside influence, allow for more input from a greater number of sources and lead to a better final product for the taxpayer,” said Renacci.

Loebsack acknowledges that even these more stringent transparency rules would not completely eliminate the potential for lobbyist and special interest influence.

“But at least, in the short term, it would shed light on their potential influence and their attempts to influence the process and the individuals on the Super Committee,” he said. “That’s a start.”

Since its introduction last week, the proposal has also drawn the support of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat, and has been placed in the hands of the U.S. House Committee on Rules, which is led by California Republican David Dreier. No members of the Iowa delegation serve on this committee.

On Tuesday, the initial bill sponsors appealed directly to leadership of Super Committee, asking for the proposals contained within their bill to be proactively implemented by the Committee directly or for the leaders to support the bill’s ultimate passage. A copy of that letter is embedded below.

Deficit Committee Letter

Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) last week launched a campaign to prevent gay men from donating blood. Keep the Gay Blood Ban (KGB²) was sparked, LaBarbera says, because of “renewed lobby efforts to open up the U.S. blood supply to homosexuality-practicing men.”

Since 1983*, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned blood donations frommen who have ever had sex with men and women who have ever had sex with men who have had sex with men. In 2010, 40 members of Congress called on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to lift the ban on gay men donating blood. However, LaBarbera only mentioned Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), “who represents the homosexual Boystown neighborhood in Chicago,” in hisKGB² launch article on AFTAH’s website.

Last year, the Advisory Committee on Blood Safety & Availability for HHS recommended the ban not be lifted, due to lack of sufficient data to support revising the policy. The committee did, however, recommend further research into a possible ban lift, at least for “low-risk” gay and bisexual men. And just last month HHS announced that following the studies’ completion, a comprehensive evidence-based policy evaluation will begin.

In Kerry’s original letter to the committee, he was joined by medical experts at the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers and the American Medical Association in the position that the current blood donor policy (PDF) is discriminatory and “medically and scientifically unwarranted,” pointing out that heterosexual individuals who engage in risky sexual behavior are not subjected to a lifetime ban as gay men are. For example, heterosexual individuals who have had sex with HIV-positive individuals are only banned for a one-year period, as are heterosexual individuals who have had sex for money.

“Sadly, Sen. Kerry and others crusading against the homosexual blood ban do so on the basis that the ban is mainly about ‘anti-gay discrimination’ rather than preserving public health,” LaBarbera wrote in the article.

The thrust of LaBarbera’s call to continue banning gay men from donating blood is apubic health flier about anal sex between men (PDF) produced by Asian Health Services and funded by the California AIDS Clearinghouse.

The flier -– which graphically describes various sex practices and positions, accompanied by images of LEGO-style men demonstrating such positions — discusses health risks of oral, anal and oral-anal sex between men and speaks to the importance of using a condom to prevent the spread of disease.

LaBarbera implies that the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases is common for all gay men, quoting from the flier: “Anal sex is the riskiest sexual activity for getting/spreading HIV.” He does not, however, quote the rest of that paragraph: “That risk goes up if you have more sex partners, if you f*** without a condom or if you have sex with someone who has HIV.”

LaBarbera writes:

[F]ew seem interested in investigating – much less restricting – the actual high-risk homosexual practices and deviant behaviors depicted and described in this (pro-‘gay’) flier, which crassly helps explain the immense heath [sic] risks of male homosexuality We excerpt this flier – vulgar slang references and all – to help educate the public as to how this lifestyle is so dangerous that men who practice it must be kept from the nation’s blood supply.

LaBarbera asks readers to contact their U.S. senators and representatives and ask them “to put the safety of Americans – and a pristine blood supply – ahead of the demands of the selfish Homosexuality Lobby.” He also wants congressional leaders to launch an investigation “into the health hazards of homosexual behaviors (just as the government studied the dangers of smoking).”

AFTAH defines itself as “a group dedicated to exposing the homosexual activist agenda.” Its nonprofit status was recently revoked by the Internal Revenue Service for failure to comply with IRS nonprofit filing requirements.

The Southern Poverty Law Center still defines AFTAH as a hate group (among 29 others in the Illinois, where the organization is based).

*Correction: TAI previously reported that the FDA banned gay men from donating blood, for a lifetime, in 1977. In fact, this policy on “men who have sex with other men” began in 1983; 1977 — deemed the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. — is the cutoff year for “men who have sex with other men.” In other words, men who stopped having sex with other men before 1977 can donate blood. We regret the error.

“We’re going to have to make some hard decisions to tackle our national debt, but this isn’t one of them,” Walz said in a statement Tuesday. “Closing this tax loophole restores the Mortgage Interest Deduction to its original purpose: helping middle-class families realize the American Dream through home ownership.” #

Walz introduced the bill along with fellow Democratic Reps. Mike Quigley of Illinois and Gary Peters of Michigan. #

“We need to get the deficit under control, and that means simplifying the tax code and eliminating special interest tax giveaways like the Yacht Loophole,” Peters said. “Home ownership is part of the American Dream and we should encourage it, but yacht owners don’t need any special handouts, especially in the middle of a budget crisis.” #

Loopholes for yacht owners also exist in state law and, in general, Republicans have resisted efforts to close those loopholes. In California, Republicans rejected a similar effort in 2008. In 2010, in Missouri, a bipartisan bill was offered to repeal tax breaks for yacht owners, but the Republican-controlled legislature adjourned without taking up the bill. Republicans in Texas this year have proposed a tax break for yacht owners and it’s already passed key committees. #

Closing the federal loophole has been tried before: Republican Sen. John Danforth of Missouri offered a bill in 1987 to close it, but was not successful. #

A 2004 estimate of the cost of the tax breaks was more than $1 billion. #

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.

Mike Quigley won the Democratic primary, while Rosanna Pulido won the GOP primary.

Who’s Rosanna Pulido? She was a founder of the Illinois Minutemen, a wing of the immigration restriction group that patrolled the U.S.-Mexico border in 2006 and 2007. In this CNN interview, she called then-GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain “just another politician that acts as if he was elected to represent the Mexican government.”

Pulido will likely lose in this district that gave President Obama a 73-26 win over McCain.