In a statement accompanying the release of the letters, the two Democratic leaders said they were concerned about insurance companies canceling coverage, or raising the rates so high that coverage had to be canceled, on small businesses if an employee at that company got sick enough to require significant payouts by the company:

“I began looking into the practices of the health insurance industry in the last Congress and was deeply disturbed by what we uncovered,” said Chairman Waxman. “As part of our ongoing investigation, we are now looking into the practice of health insurance companies terminating the coverage of small businesses when their employees become ill and their health insurance claims increase. We need to better understand how widespread this harmful and destructive practice has become, and how it is impacting small businesses and their employees across the country.”

“As we continue our investigation into business practices in the health insurance industry, the treatment of small businesses remains a concern,” said Chairman Stupak. “We have documented examples of insurance companies raising small business premiums by an unsustainable amount or canceling a policy once it is discovered a covered employee is sick. Much like rescissions in the individual market, this practice is alarming. To better understand how prevalent this practice is and precisely how many small businesses are impacted, we are asking some of the largest insurers to provide information on their small business policies.”

Waxman is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Stupak is chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. The insurance companies have until Sep. 8 to inform the committees whether they will comply with this voluntary request for information.

The original lease between the Coast Guard and the school, signed in July 1986, has now been located. In that document, the Christian school was required to purchase a piece of property in St. Ignace of equal value and then swap the two properties, the Coast Guard getting ownership of the St. Ignace parcel to build housing units there and school getting ownership of the Cheboygan property. The 1986 agreement says:

The licensee will, upon approval of the Coast Guard Housing Planning Proposal, actively pursue purchasing land suitable for multi-family housing in the St. Ignace, Michigan area (north of the Mackinac Bridge). The land purchased shall be of equal appraised value as the Coast Guard land licensed to the Cornerstone Christian School. The property purchased by the licensee in St. Ignace will then be conveyed to the Coast Guard in exchange for the Coast Guard property in Cheboygan, Michigan.

That original agreement ended on July 1, 1991. On April 20, 1992, the then-chairman of the CCS board, David Sova, wrote to the Coast Guard’s 9th district command requesting a new lease for the property “with the longest term possible.” In that letter, Sova wrote: “We must regretfully inform you that at this time we have been unable to accomplish our goal of acquiring the land in St. Ignace that the Coast Guard has desired. We truly have diligently pursued the purchase of the land described, but have not been able to finalize anything.”

The Coast Guard command then granted a new five-year lease on the property for the sum of $1 per year, the same as the first five-year lease. At that time, the school was informed by the Coast Guard that they were listing the Cheboygan property on which the school sits as surplus property and beginning the process of disposing of the parcel. Seventeen years later, the surplus property still has not been put up for bid as required by federal law.

As reported previously, CCS approached Stupak, a Democrat from Menominee, a couple years ago asking him to see if he could do something to “leapfrog over that lengthy process and try to get the property transferred directly to the school.” That prompted Stupak to submit HR 1291, which would give the seven acres of land in Cheboygan to the school free of charge, in apparent violation of the Establishment Clause and federal law.

Peter Irons, a retired law professor from University of California at San Diego who specializes in the First Amendment, has written a letter to U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on the Coast Guard and maritime transportation, saying that the school had “breached its license with the Coast Guard by non-performance of a license provision.”

“Considering that the Coast Guard had designated in 1992 the Cheboygan property as ‘surplus’ and not suitable for construction of personnel housing, Irons wrote, “the disposition of this property is governed by the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, which provides that such ‘surplus’ property ‘may be sold to the private sector for fair market value through the competitive bid process.’”

Citing CCS board chairman Jim Granger’s statement that he asked Stupak to find a way to bypass those requirements, Irons writes that the resulting legislation “would thus violate the clear provisions of the Federal Property Act.” The bill, he said, also “would effectively provide a ‘gift’ of federal property to a religious organization, which would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State is also expected to write a similar letter to Stupak and Cummings. Calls seeking comment from Stupak’s office and the Cornerstone Christian School were not returned.

In fact, said Halverson, “they used to call themselves the Christian mafia—and they would laugh. Meaning one family is in strong power and then other families around that family have some power. . . . I would have been considered one of the families that have power.”

One of the mysteries surrounding the “C Street” house was how much the residents there, including Stupak, pay in rent. Other publications have said the rent was $600 a month, but WorldMag cites a figure of $950 a month. The article also cites, as Sharlet did, the Family’s ties to a string of brutal dictators around the world, including Suharto of Indonesia, Siad Barre of Somalia and Somoza of Nicaragua.

All of the residents of the “C Street” house, refused comment for the article. When questioned by the Michigan Messenger a couple weeks ago, Stupak vehemently denied any knowledge of the organization at all despite living at a home owned by them and having a long history of participating in their events.

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak on Capitol Hill (Congressional photo)

If passed, HR 1291 would require the Coast Guard to “expeditiously convey to the Cornerstone Christian Academy, located in Cheboygan, Michigan, without consideration, all right, title, and interest of the United States in and to all real property under the administrative jurisdiction located at 900 S. Western Avenue in Cheboygan, Michigan, subject to all easements and other interests in the property held by such other person.”

The phrase “without consideration” is important; it means that the land would be given to the Christian school without compensation. The school, which is actually called Cornerstone Christian School rather than “academy,” already operates on the property to be given to them. The story of how the situation came to be and how Stupak, a Democrat from Menominee, introduced the legislation, is complex.

The Coast Guard purchased a 22.5-acre parcel of land in Cheboygan in 1979 to build housing for personnel that serve on a large ice-breaking ship stationed in the town in the northern Lower Peninsula. The Coast Guard did not use all of the land for that purpose and in 1987, according to both Jim Granger, the chairman of the Christian school’s board, and Lt. Dave French, a public affairs officer for the Coast Guard’s 9th District Command, they made an arrangement to allow the school to build on a corner of the property down a hill from the housing units.

Neither the school nor the Coast Guard can find copies of that original agreement, but both sides agree that the original arrangement was for the school to pay for the construction of the their own building and to pay the sum of $1 a year for rent on the property the building sits on. They signed a series of leases to that effect over the next two decades.

In 1992, the Coast Guard determined that the portion of the larger parcel on which the school sits was unnecessary for their needs and they deemed it to be surplus property. Officials began the long, slow process of listing the property as surplus with the General Services Administration and went through the steps necessary to divest the Coast Guard of the property.

The original agreement with the school lasted until 2007, when the Coast Guard did a review of the expiring lease agreement. French told the Michigan Messenger that this review “determined that in its previously existing form, the lease exceeded Coast Guard real property authorities. Because the school is a private organization and not an operation that benefits the general public, the Coast Guard may only issue a license to the school in consideration for full fair rental remuneration.”

The Coast Guard then told school officials that they would have to sign a new license that would require them to pay $81 a month, or just under $1,000 a year, to lease the property.

The school, having little choice, signed the lease. At that point, Granger told Michigan Messenger, the school contacted Stupak and asked if he “could do anything to leapfrog over that lengthy process and try to get the property transferred directly to the school.” Stupak submitted a bill to do so in the last session of Congress and now again in the current session.

The process for getting rid of surplus or excess government property requires a series of steps under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act. Under that law, surplus government property can only be transferred for fair market value and may be disposed of “only after public advertising for bids.” Stupak’s bill seeks to bypass the requirements of federal law and have Congress vote to transfer the property as a gift to the school.

Pete Irons, a professor emeritus of law at the University of California at San Diego and one of the nation’s foremost experts on the religion clauses of the First Amendment, told Michigan Messenger that Stupak’s legislation is clearly unconstitutional.

In an email, Irons said:

Rep. Stupak’s proposed bill, directing the U.S. Coast Guard to convey property in Cheboygan, Michigan, to the Cornerstone Christian School “without consideration” (that is, for no compensation and no opportunity for other potential bidders to purchase it) would violate both federal law and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In effect, Rep. Stupak’s bill would allow the government to provide a “gift” to a religious group of property that is owned by all taxpayers, including those with no religious faith. This is precisely the kind of religious preference the Constitution forbids and the Supreme Court has ruled against in numerous cases.

Dan Mach, director of litigation for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, agreed, saying the bill “appears to be a clear Establishment Clause violation.”

The Establishment Clause has long been interpreted by the courts as preventing the government from taking actions that provide a benefit specifically to a religious group — such as giving such groups public property — as opposed to a general benefit that also helps that religious group, such as police and emergency services, which benefit the public, including religious groups.

Stupak’s bill has not yet come up for a vote or even for consideration in the committee process, but it’s the sort of bill that is unlikely to get voted on by itself. More likely it would get slipped in as an amendment to a much larger bill and pass largely unnoticed.

As the Michigan Messenger reported recently, Stupak is a member of a shadowy Christian group in that calls itself variously “The Family” or “The Fellowship.” Though he has flatly denied any knowledge of the group, which others members have said they are required to swear an oath of secrecy, Stupak lives at The Family’s now-infamous C Street house on Capitol Hill.

According to Jeff Sharlet, who lived with this group and wrote a book about the organization, Stupak has long been an active member of the group, helping to mentor other members and being part of one of the innumerable “prayer cells” through which the organization operates.

Stupak’s office did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

The Obama administration is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison.

Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

Such a plan has been endorsed in the past by Rep. Bart Stupak, in whose congressional district the prison is located, Sen. Carl Levin and former Gov. John Engler; it’s been opposed by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Republican candidate for governor in 2010. The Standish prison is slated to close soon due to budget cuts.

The plan, according to AP, is to have a single prison overseen by the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the military. The inmates would then be segregated and overseen by one of those departments depending on how they are going to be tried:

The Justice Department has identified between 60 and 80 who could be prosecuted, either in military or federal criminal courts. The Pentagon would oversee the detainees who would face trial in military tribunals. The Bureau of Prisons, an arm of the Justice Department, would manage defendants in federal courts.

A courtroom complex would be built inside the prison for both the civilian and military trials. The most controversial element of the plan, however, would be the plan to build “long-term holding cells for a small but still undetermined number of detainees who will not face trial because intelligence and counterterror officials conclude they are too dangerous to risk being freed.” That’s something that civil liberties groups are adamantly opposed to, arguing that if you cannot convict someone in court you must let them go.

(Creative Commons photo by Matthew Bradley via Flickr)

As Congress debates health care reform proposals promised by President Obama during last year’s campaign, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Menominee, is bucking his party’s majority opinion and demanding that any legislation involving federal funding for health care explicitly exempt funding abortion services.

Stupak, co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, was one of 19 House Democrats who sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month saying: “As the debate on health care reform continues and legislation is produced, it is imperative that the issue of abortion not be overlooked. Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly is unacceptable.”

The letter made explicit that those who signed it would not support the bill unless it contained an explicit ban on abortion funding, saying that the signers “cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.”

Last week, however, talk of compromise was in the air. The Wall Street Journal reported that Stupak was in negotiations with U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, that’s working on the health care reform bill, for a compromise on the issue that would avoid further amendments on the matter.

There was, however, little detail on the nature of the compromise. The Journal reported only that Stupak “indicated that the compromise language would affect the treatment of state abortion laws under the bill.” What that means is anyone’s guess. But so far, no compromise has been announced by Stupak nor Waxman.

On another abortion-related issue, Stupak disappointed his fellow anti-abortion legislators when he did not vote for an amendment that would have banned all funding for Planned Parenthood under the health care reform bill. “I was disappointed that Congressman (Bart) Stupak did not vote for my amendment denying federal funding to Planned Parenthood,” U.S. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) told our sister site, the Iowa Independent, before speaking to a rally in Iowa. “I was disappointed because I think he is to be a sincere pro-life man. I believe the time has come to deny all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America. I was disappointed that we were not able to enlist enough support from our Democrat colleagues to accomplish that.” The amendment was voted down 247-183.

Stupak has also said that he wants a conscience clause in the legislation allowing doctors and nurses to opt out of having to perform abortions. When asked during a reporters’ conference call last week if the inclusion of a conscious clause in the bill was a “make or break” issue for him in terms of supporting the bill, Stupak said:

It’s not make or break. I think if we at least have amendments on right to life issues and I get the chance to express my views on it and that of my district, that would be sufficient. You never know, put the amendment on the floor, it might pass or it might lose, but I think these are such difficult issues that members on both sides of the issue should at least have a right to express their view.

During the conference call, the congressman did say that he does not currently support the bill, saying, “Right now I’m not supportive of H.R. 3200. I expect our markup, where you offer amendments, changes to the health care bill, to go for another three or four days and we’ll see what happens.”

Despite the declaration in the letter to Pelosi that any bill that includes funding for abortion was “unacceptable” and that he cannot support a bill that includes funding for abortion, Stupak said during the conference that he would not vote based on that one issue, pledging instead to “look at the totality of the package.”

The Iowa Independent’s Lynda Waddington contributed to this report from Mount Vernon, Iowa.

The house pulsed with backstage intrigue, in the days and months before the Sanford and Ensign scandals — dubbed “two lightning strikes” by a high-ranking congressional source. First, at least one resident learned of both the Sanford and Ensign affairs and tried to talk each politician into ending his philandering, a source close to the congressman said. Then the house drama escalated. It was then that Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign’s mistress, endured an emotional meeting with Sen. Tom Coburn, who lives there, according to the source. The topic was forgiveness.

“He was trying to be a peacemaker,” the source said of Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma.

Although Sanford visited the house, there is no indication that he was ever a resident; when he was in Congress from 1995 to 2000, the parsimonious lawmaker was famous for forgoing his housing allowance and bunking in his Capitol Hill office. But it is not uncommon for residents to invite fellow congressmen to the home for spiritual bonding. There, Sanford enjoyed a kind of alumnus status. Richard Carver, president of the Fellowship Foundation, said, “I don’t think it’s intended to have someone from South Carolina get counseling there.” But he posited that Sanford turned to C Street “because he built a relationship with people who live in the house.”

According to a Wikipedia entry on the group, most of the members and associates of the group are Republicans, but there are also some Democrats, like Stupak and Hillary Clinton, who are involved with them in various ways. The Post says that members of the group “mostly adhere to a code of silence about the place.”

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak wants to house Guantanamo Bay detainees at an abandoned prison in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, but said Friday he would not pursue the matter without broad support from other officeholders in the state.

Stupak, a Menominee Democrat, sent President Obama a letter in February that suggested transferring the detainees to Camp Manistique in Schoolcraft County. The state prison closed in 2007 because of budget cuts.

This plan would undoubtedly bring a good deal of federal money into the state, but Rep. Pete Hoekstra said during a debate at Mackinac Island this weekend called it a “really bad idea” because it would bring “240 of the most dangerous people in the world to the Upper Peninsula.”

The prison facility can hold up to 216 inmates, which is about the number that would probably be transferred.