Not long after the San Francisco Chronicle revealed the “open secret” that Prop 8 trial Judge Vaughn Walker is gay, the National Organization of Marriage freaked out.

In response to the news, they basically called Judge Walker biased and incompetent.

This is nonsense.

If sexual orientation automatically creates a bias within a judge that cannot be overcome, then we literally can’t have any rulings on gay marriage – because either the judge will be gay or bisexual and thus biased, or the judge will be straight, and thus – biased.

Gayness simply doesn’t make someone less able to reason. It doesn’t make someone less objective. It doesn’t make someone more emotional or less logical. Just as no one expects a judge to be automatically recused from an affirmative action case because he’s black or white, so in this case sexual orientation has no bearing on Walker’s judging.

NOM doesn’t understand that someone’s sexual orientation has no bearing on their ability to do their job. But that doesn’t mean the judge is biased. It means NOM is.

Here’s NOM’s letter (thanks to 365gay reader BrigidsBlest!!)

Got Bias? San Francisco Chronicle Reports Prop 8 Judge Vaughn Walker is Gay
Monday, February 8, 2010 5:56 PM
From:
“Brian Brown”

Dear Friend of Marriage,

In a story this Sunday (Feb. 7), the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Prop 8 Judge Vaughn Walker is gay and called his orientation, “The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage.”

We have no idea whether the report is true or not. But we do know one really big important fact about Judge Walker: He’s been an amazingly biased and one-sided force throughout this trial, far more akin to an activist than a neutral referee. That’s no secret at all.

Protect Marriage, the defendants in this case are effectively being held hostage by Judge Walker and cannot really comment.

But Judge Walker’s bias from the bench includes:

A series of rulings permitting deep and deeply irrelevant “fishing expeditions” into the private and personal motivations and secret campaign strategy of campaign proponents. It wasn’t six guys at Protect Marriage that passed Prop 8 it was 7 million Californians. But Judge Walker went so far as to order the Prop 8 campaign to disclose private internal communications about messages that were considered for public use but never actually used. He even ordered the campaign to turn over copies of all internal records and e-mail messages relating to campaign strategy.

Even though the Prop 8 supporters were forced to turn over private, internal documents and emails, Walker has refused to demand the same from opponents of the measure. In fact, Walker has refused to even rule on a motion to compel the discovery of this information, even though he has already closed testimony in the case. That alone is an unbelievable tilting of the playing field.

Walker has presided over a show trial designed to generate sympathetic headlines and news coverage for gay marriage supporters. Witness after witness was allowed to testify about their “expert” opinion that homosexuals have been discriminated against, that they feel badly when society does not validate their relationships, and that the passage of Prop 8 was simply an echo of historic prejudice and bigotry foisted on society by religious zealots.

To show the lengths that Walker has gone to create a “record” favoring the plaintiffs, he even allowed one “expert” witness — a gay man from Colorado who has never lived in California and was never exposed to any Prop 8 campaign messages — to testify that his parents’ efforts to change his sexual orientation failed.

But the most egregious, and damaging, of all of Judge Walker’s rulings was his determination to violate federal rules to broadcast his show trial worldwide. The US Supreme Court eventually blocked Walker’s efforts (and rapped his biased knuckles sharply!) finding that he improperly changed the rules “at the eleventh hour” in violation of federal law. (Unfortunately, however, but by the time the Supreme Court issued a permanent stay two days into trial, the supporters of Prop 8 had already lost two-thirds of their expert witnesses who feared retaliation from the publicity).

Judge Walker’s bias has been so extreme, he’s earned a rare judicial “twofer.” Key elements of his “fishing expedition” rulings were already reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (notably one of the most liberal in the nation) and the Supreme Court had to step in to block his illegal attempt to broadcast the trial.

It is highly unusual for a higher court to have to intercede in a trial judge’s handling of a trial while it is going on — yet Walker has had that “distinction” twice in the same case — and we’re not yet even at closing arguments.

There’s only one saving grace to Judge Walker’s bias. It’s so big, and so obvious, not only the American public but the Supreme Court itself is already aware we have bias in the trial judge presiding.
Brian Brown

Faithfully,

Brian S. Brown
Executive Director
National Organization for Marriage
20 Nassau Street, Suite 242
Princeton, NJ 08542
bbrown@nationformarriage.org

The Judiciary Committee also voted Tuesday to recommend that the House kill a proposed constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. The vote was 12-8 on both measures, led by Democratic opposition.

Opponents of gay marriage know their chance of success on such measures is slim, but they want to keep the issue before voters in hopes that Republicans will regain control of the Statehouse in November and then ban gay marriage.

The House could act on the recommendations next week.

New Hampshire became the fifth state to legalize gay marriage Jan. 1. It is also legal in Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut and Vermont.

The Vatican No. 2 issued a statement saying reports that Vatican officials leaked the documents were false and that Pope Benedict XVI himself “deplored these unjust and insulting attacks” that were “defaming the Holy See.”

The statement – unusual in its line-by-line denial of unsourced rumors – was confirmation that what had been a strictly Italian church scandal had reached the highest echelons of power in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace and that the pope clearly wanted to put an end to it.

The intrigue began last summer, when Il Giornale newspaper published reports based on what it said were court documents saying the editor of Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, had been involved in a harassment case several years ago with homosexual overtones.

The revelations were initially seen as tit-for-tat retribution by Il Giornale, owned by Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s brother, against Avvenire. The Catholic paper had harshly criticized the premier for his purported sex scandals with younger women.

Avvenire’s editor, Dino Boffo, admitted he had been fined in a plea bargain agreement – details of which have never been publicly released – but he denied making harassing phone calls. Amid the fallout though, he resigned, saying he wanted to spare his family and the church further humiliation.

Three months later, Il Giornale’s editor Vittorio Feltri – who had penned the initial articles – admitted the documents implying a gay angle to the case were false and apologized to Boffo in a front-page letter.

The scandal resurfaced last week when Feltri said the document in question had been given to him by an “institutional” church official whom he trusted.

That revelation fueled speculation in the Italian media that a high-ranking Vatican official had provided the document to embarrass his high-ranking counterparts at Avvenire’s owners, the Italian Bishops’ Conference.

There have been long-running reports of territorial and other battles between the Vatican’s secretary of state, Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and the leadership of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.

In his statement Tuesday, Bertone said reports that the editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano had provided the documents to Feltri were “unfounded.”

“It seems clear from the proliferation of the most incredible assertions and hypotheses … that everything rests on unfounded convictions, with the intention of gratuitously and calumniously attributing to the editor of ‘Osservatore Romano’ an unmotivated, unreasonable and malicious action,” he wrote.

“The Holy Father Benedict XVI, who has been kept constantly informed, deplores these unjust and injurious attacks, renews his complete faith in his collaborators, and prays that those who truly have the good of the Church to heart may work with all means to ensure that truth and justice triumph.”

Italian newspapers routinely publish unsourced stories about the latest Italian political intrigue. They also publish unsourced reports about machinations in the Vatican. Rarely, though, do such reports elicit such a thorough and high-ranking denial as the one issued by Bertone.

With the annual day of love and cheesiness next week, the folks at Archies, India’s biggest greeting card maker, rolled out a new line of gay greeting cards. The company is taking the opportunity to capitalize on last year’s ruling that decriminalized gay sex.

“We have been toying with this idea for a while and then came the court judgment in which it was clearly said that it’s legal to be gay,” Archies company spokesman Yohan Arya told AFP. “So we felt this was the right time to add these cards to those we already have for the occasion,” he said.

The greeting cars – two aimed at gay men, two aimed at lesbians and one gender-neutral – were distributed to 500 stores across India.

Although I admit I’m not a fan of their misspellings on the cards (“totully gay” – come on!), it does seem like it’s easier to get a gay card in India than it is in the United States.

***

When Lt. Dan Choi didn’t make it to a scheduled appearance at the NGLTF Creating Change conference, he had a pretty good reason. It appears he was called back to duty. And boy does he have the big guns. The Bilerico Project posted exclusive photos Choi sent of his training this past weekend.

***

The New York Daily News reported Monday that Anne Hathaway is losing her religion, or more accurately, ditching it altogether. After her brother came out of the closet her whole family left the Catholic Church in protest.

“The whole family converted to Episcopalianism after my elder brother came out,” Hathaway told the Daily News. “Why should I support an organization that has a limited view of my beloved brother?” Amen.

***

The International Gay Polo League announced their first tournament is set for April 3. The tournament, made up of four GPL teams will play in Wellington, Fla., north of Fort Lauderdale. The players, mostly gay and lesbian, will come from across the world to take part in the tournament. Admission to the event starts at $20, but bring your own lawn chair.

***

In light of the Westboro Baptist Church protest in San Francisco outside the Twitter offices, I found a nifty little site that allows snarky folks to make their own signs mocking the “God hates …” slogans WBC members tote across the country. Now, go make your own WBC mockery.

***

‘Gays Too Precious To Risk In Combat,’ Says General

And because I love me some faux news, here’s this week’s Onion broadcast saying “gays are too precious to risk in combat.” We wouldn’t want their delicate psyches to exposed to the horrors of war, would we?

Cowell, Randy Jackson, Kara DioGuardi and various guest judges kicked off the ninth season of the Fox singing competition last month. DeGeneres begins her stint Tuesday night.

In a video posted on the show’s Web site, DeGeneres says Cowell is “actually meaner than I thought. It’s hard to listen to him tell people things and for me not to go, `You poor thing!’”

Cowell has announced that he’s leaving “Idol” after this season. Paula Abdul left over a salary dispute.

DeGeneres says no one has given her advice on judging – “they’re just letting me do what I want to do.”

Garden State Equality has decided to play hardball. New Jersey’s largest gay rights organizations  has suspended donating cash to political parties.

“No political party has a record good enough on LGBT civil rights that it can rightfully claim to be entitled to our money on a party-wide basis,” said Steven Goldstein, the group’s chairman. “No longer will we let any political party take our money and volunteers with one hand, and slap us in the face with the other when we seek full equality.”

Last year the Garden State was supposed to be the next state to get behind gay marriage, but the election of Republican Chris Christie, as the state’s governor, put the scared in the state house. In early January when a marriage bill was voted on in the Democratic controlled house, it was defeated with only 14 out of 40 senators saying yes.

The organization is also asking for its members to give their cash to more deserving groups. This stoppage does not apply to individual elected officials, which is a sensible loophole. Why not give directly to a pol who is good on our issues?

Hard to complain about this move. Pols are very good at asking for our cash, and we are decent at making our demands known. If they can’t deliver why give? Hopefully Garden State Equality will stick to its guns through the mid term election. A threat likes this has no bite if it ends next week.

ACLU staff attorney Elizabeth Gill said at least two students at Fresno City College have complained that instructor Bradley Lopez quoted the Bible as proof that human life begins at conception, characterized homosexuality as a mental illness, and discussed apocalyptic Christian prophesies during a lesson on climate change.

If the students’ descriptions are correct, Lopez’s teaching methods would violate California laws protecting gays from discrimination and prohibiting religious indoctrination at public schools, Gill said. She sent a letter to college president Cynthia Azaria on Monday asking the school “to act immediately to ensure that all its health classes provide only accurate and unbiased information.”

An e-mail to Lopez and a telephone message left at his office were not returned. The college president issued a statement in response to media inquiries.

“The College takes its non-discrimination and prohibition of harassment policies seriously, investigates alleged violations and takes appropriate actions to enforce compliance,” Azaria said. “Beyond that, we don’t comment on personnel matters for confidentiality reasons.”

Lopez is one of several Fresno City College instructors who teach the Health Science I course, which the college catalog describes as a survey of “contemporary science concepts and medical information designed to promote health.” Topics covered in the course include sexuality, nutrition, substance abuse, physical fitness and heredity.

“Someone should realize you can’t have a class like this presenting deeply held, and I’m sure honestly held, religious views as science,” Gill said. “This is not a situation where people are taking a seminar on religion. Folks taking this class think they are getting Health Basics 101.”

Jacqueline Mahaffey, 24, who had Lopez as a teacher last semester, said his personal beliefs became apparent on the first day of class when he made a point of contradicting their textbook, which listed cancer as the leading cause of death. Lopez told the class that abortions killed more people than cancer.

During the second week, Lopez allegedly gave the students a genetics assignment that involved studying the Bible to research Jesus Christ’s biological makeup. He also told students that “evolution is a dead theory” and invited them to visit him in his office “if you want to know about your Creator.”

Mahaffey said she and another student filed complaints with Lopez’s dean about halfway through the semester following a lecture in which he said that sexual behavior involving less than 5 percent of the population should be classified as a mental disorder and that homosexuality “degrades” society.

“He (Lopez) sent a letter back to me denying he had ever said any of those things,” Mahaffey said. “He said he never posted information about his religious status or position on homosexuals or anything like that, which struck me as a flagrant lie.”

Mahaffey said she nonetheless stayed in the class and earned an A.

Gill said that as a college instructor, Lopez is free to express his opinions but that because Fresno City College is publicly funded, his teaching cannot become “religious inculcation.”

Fresno City College is a two-year school with an enrollment of about 25,000.

Rachel started us off with a more in-depth look at why Tom Tancredo’s call for a return to voter literacy tests was so vile. Sure, his remarks are shiver-inducing the first time you hear them, but Rachel took the time to really drive the creepy home.

As Rachel noted, the round of applause for voting restrictions was even more disturbing. A gut-level wave of approval for the sentiment “people who aren’t like me shouldn’t get to vote” was not what I wanted to see on television in 2010.

But then I didn’t want to see waves of people getting on television for super-fertility in 2009, so I guess that’s one area in which I’m definitely not getting a vote. Maybe the Tea Party Nation will be happy with that?

And of course one of the most charming aspects of the whole thing has been the immediate, deep umbrage some Tea Partiers have taken at the suggestion that Tancredo’s racist statement was racist. All he said was that immigrants and, you know, “people who voted for Obama” shouldn’t be allowed to vote. And those mean libruls had to make it about race.

I used to be massively annoyed by those people who say any horrible thing they want and then append “I’m just being honest,” as though the perfect expression of their unexamined feelings is society’s highest ideal. But the people who are defending Tancredo’s applause have shown me that racism plus weaseling is worse.

My God, the Tea Partiers can make one crotchety lately.

Rachel was pretty fired up herself. She claimed she doesn’t do her best work when she’s angry. You may not agree.

Fortunately Harvard University’s Charles Ogletree dropped by to add a dose of perspective.

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Hostilitea

Oh, Congressman Ron Paul (R – Texas). It’s going to be hard to get that angry, loopy genie back in the bottle.

Rachel noted that the current Tea Party movement can trace its lineage back to Ron Paul and the shouty, blimp-buying supporters of his Presidential run. Representative Paul is perhaps wishing the lineage couldn’t be traced quite so easily, as three current Tea Partiers have found his district and are challenging him in the primary.

David Weigel of The Washington Independent stopped in to explain the difference between Dr. Paul and his challengers – and the similarities between his challengers and the current Republicans.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Flaw and Order

Rachel reported that Senator Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) hates America.

He’s been publicly criticizing the FBI and their handling of the Panties Bomber, and those are the old Bush rules, right? If you criticize the government’s handling of a crisis – especially during a time of war – you must either submit to televised castigation and remain under suspicion forever or just give up and head to Canada in your old VW van, hippie.

Only it turns out we missed a memo somewhere in there and now explaining that you were following Bush Administration procedures just makes people like Mitch McConnell shout louder.

Which works well, since shouting makes it easier to get all the lies out at once.

Do we get to call it lying instead of “making factually incorrect statements” yet? Because either the members of the Republican Shrieking Machine are deliberately lying to make political hay out of an act of terrorism or they are so ignorant about basic procedure that they think interrogations work like they do in the movies.

And if it’s the latter, why aren’t they worried that our FBI agents will run out of snappy one-liners to say before they immediately start beating up suspects? Sure, it’s easy when it’s Christmas and the explosives are in the guy’s underpants, but what if it’s Arbor Day and the bomb is in a nonfunny location? Shouldn’t these terribly concerned public servants set up a fake fact-finding committee to go with their completely false premise?

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Ms. Information

Rachel decided to frighten everyone off their Jell-o by pointing out what will happen if health care reform doesn’t pass.

Last year health care spending was 17.3% of the GDP, up from 5.2% in 1960. By 2030, you will need to be collecting original Renaissance artworks just so you can trade them for individual tongue depressors.

By way of example, Rachel pointed out that Anthem Blue Cross in CA notified its individual policyholders that their rates would be hiked as much as 39% this year, which I guess they thought was pretty reasonable after last year’s 68% increase.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the California Insurance Commission are looking into the matter. A spokesperson for Anthem Blue Cross made it as far as “We’ll look right into that making-fewer-profits thing,” before dissolving into giggles.

“A Million Dollars is Not a Lot of Money”

Rachel gave us an update on the Republicans’ much-ballyhooed common touch.

RNC chairman Michael Steele, defending the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich, said “Trust me: After taxes, a million dollars is not a lot of money.” And a nation trustingly withdrew their tongue depressor savings accounts to set up a relief fund for overtaxed millionaires.

In another example, Representative Paul Ryan (R – Wisconsin) has decided that a stock market crash could never, ever happen again and privatizing Social Security would be neato. And if the stock market did crash, our devastated seniors would only need to look to Michael Steele’s example to see that one can somehow manage to live well on not a lot of money.

…And in general last summer’s Great Defenders of Medicare are not even pretending to like our cherished social safety nets anymore. If you break your leg in front of Republicans, do not show it. They will shoot you and grind you up into protein shakes for the strong.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(New York) Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic has won asylum for a gay man who feared persecution because of his sexual orientation if forced to return to his native Brazil.

The grant, issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, comes at a time when conditions for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals in Brazil are becoming more dangerous.

“In Brazil, I lived in constant fear for my life,” said  Augusto Pereira de Souza, 27. “I tried to hide that I was gay, but still faced repeated beatings, attacks, and threats on my life because I was gay. At times I was attacked by skinheads and brutally beaten by cops. After the cops attack you and threaten your life for being gay, you learn quickly that there is no one that will protect you. For me, coming to the U.S. was a life or death decision.”

Brazil has one of the highest rates of hate crimes against GLBT people in the world. Grupo Gay da Bahia, the leading GLBT rights organization in Brazil, reports that between 1980 and 2009 there were 2,998 reported murders of homosexuals in Brazil. In 2008 alone, over 190 GLBT people were murdered, and the actual number is likely to be much higher since many of these killings go unreported.

“Mr. Pereira de Souza’s story is unfortunately not unusual for a gay man in Brazil,” said Rena Stern, a student who worked on the case. “The number of attacks and murders based on sexual orientation in Brazil has actually increased in recent years.”

Pereira de Souza, who will live in Newark, N.J., was referred to the Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic by Immigration Equality, a national organization focused on immigration rights for GLBT individuals that provided important assistance in the case.

“In Brazil, police routinely fail to investigate violence committed against GLBT individuals,” said Brian Ward, another clinic student who helped Pereira de Souza prepare his asylum application. “In this environment, skinheads and other groups are free to persecute, torture, and even kill GLBT individuals with impunity.  Asylum will allow Mr. Pereira de Souza to stay in the United States where he will no longer have to fear for his life.”

Since September, three students from the Sexuality and Gender Clinic—Ward, Stern, and Mark Musico —have provided legal assistance in preparing the application for asylum. The students spent many months conducting interviews, drafting affidavits, researching country conditions, filling out the necessary forms, and preparing the client for his interview.

He didn’t co-sponsor a bill repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Murtha’s views were still evolving. He had refused to sponsor ENDA, the hate crimes prevention act – and refused to sign a voluntary statement saying he would not discriminate in hiring – as recently as 2002. And this past year, he came out against tax equity for same-sex domestic partners and the Uniting American Families Act, which would allow US citizens to sponsor their foreign national gay partners for citizenship.

Associated Press obit below.

(Harrisburg, Penn.) Rep. John Murtha, a retired Marine Corps officer who became the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress and later an outspoken and influential critic of the Iraq War, died Monday. He was 77.

The Pennsylvania Democrat had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., spokesman Matthew Mazonkey said.

Murtha was an officer in the Marine Reserves when he was elected in 1974. Ethical questions often shadowed his congressional service, but he was best known for being among Congress’ most hawkish Democrats. He wielded considerable clout for two decades as the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending.

Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, but his growing frustration over the administration’s handling of the war prompted him in November 2005 to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion,” he said.

Murtha’s opposition to the Iraq war rattled Washington, where the tall, gruff-mannered congressman enjoyed bipartisan respect for his work on military issues. On Capitol Hill, Murtha was seen as speaking for those in uniform when it came to military matters.

William Russell, Murtha’s GOP opponent in the 2008 election, who was planning to challenge him again in November, asked in a statement Monday that people pray for the Murtha family and said his campaign would suspend activity for a few days.

“Regardless of your political position, you always knew Jack had an immense love and loyalty to his family and the residents of the 12th Congressional District,” Russell said.

Born June 17, 1932, John Patrick Murtha delivered newspapers and worked at a gas station before graduating from Ramsay High School in Mount Pleasant, Pa.

Military service was in Murtha’s blood. He said his great-grandfather served in the Civil War, his father and three uncles in World War II, and his brothers in the Marine Corps.

He left Washington and Jefferson College in 1952 to join the Marines, where he rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island, S.C., and later served in the 2nd Marine Division.

Murtha moved back to Johnstown and remained with the Marine Reserves until he volunteered to go to Vietnam. He served as an intelligence officer there from 1966 to 1967 and received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

After his discharge from the Marines, Murtha ran a small business in Johnstown. He went to the University of Pittsburgh on the GI Bill of rights, graduating in 1962 with a degree in economics.

He served in the Pennsylvania House in Harrisburg from 1969 until he was elected to Congress in a special election in 1974. In 1990, he retired from the Marine Reserves as a colonel.

“Ever since I was a young boy, I had two goals in life – I wanted to be a colonel in the Marine Corps and a member of Congress,” Murtha wrote in his 2004 book, “From Vietnam to 9/11.”

Murtha’s criticism of the Iraq war intensified in 2006, when he accused Marines of murdering Iraqi civilians “in cold blood” at Haditha, Iraq, after one Marine died and two were wounded by a roadside bomb.

Critics said Murtha unfairly held the Marines responsible before an investigation was concluded and fueled enemy retaliation. He said that the war couldn’t be won militarily and that such incidents dimmed the prospect for a political solution.

“This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people,” Murtha said. “And we’re set back every time something like this happens.”

In 2008, the Republican Party used Murtha’s words against him in TV ads aired less than a month before the election. The ads cited his criticism of the Haditha incident, as well as his comment about “racist” voting tendencies of many western Pennsylvania residents. Still, Murtha handily won his 18th full term.

Murtha was a perennial target of critics of so-called pay-to-play politics. He routinely drew the attention of ethical watchdogs with off-the-floor activities, from his entanglement in the Abscam corruption probe three decades ago to the more recent scrutiny of the connection between special-interest spending known as earmarks and the raising of cash for campaigns.

Murtha defended the practice of earmarking. The money, he said, benefited his constituents.

Murtha became chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in 1989. The same year Paul Magliocchetti, a former subcommittee staffer, left Capitol Hill to found the now-defunct PMA Group. The lobbying firm, which specialized in obtaining earmarks for defense contractors, was one Murtha’s biggest sources of campaign cash.

In 2007 and 2008, Murtha and two fellow Democrats on the subcommittee directed $137 million to defense contractors who were paying PMA to get them government business. Between 1989 and 2009, Murtha collected more than $2.3 million in campaign contributions from PMA’s lobbyists and corporate clients, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political money.

Shortly after the 2008 election, the FBI raided PMA’s offices as part of a criminal investigation. In a separate development in January 2009, FBI agents raided the offices of a defense contractor from Murtha’s district – Windber-based Kuchera Defense Systems Inc. – that had received millions of dollars in earmarks sponsored by Murtha while contributing tens of thousands to his campaigns.

A year later, Kuchera was suspended from bidding on government contracts because of allegations that it paid more than $200,000 in kickbacks to another defense contractor.

Around the same time, the House ethics committee was investigating the link between PMA-related campaign contributions and earmarks, but it had not named a subcommittee to look into possible violations by individual lawmakers.

Murtha’s critics recall the Abscam corruption probe, in which the FBI caught him on videotape in a 1980 sting operation turning down a $50,000 bribe offer while holding out the possibility that he might take money in the future.

“We do business for a while, maybe I’ll be interested and maybe I won’t,” Murtha said on the tape.

Six congressmen and one senator were convicted in that case. Murtha was not charged, but the government named him as an unindicted co-conspirator and he testified against two other congressmen.

Murtha’s district encompasses all or part of nine counties in southwestern Pennsylvania and embodies the region’s stereotypes of coal mines, steel mills and blue-collar values.

Constituents credited Murtha with bringing jobs and health care to the region, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars for local industry, hospitals and tourism. Critics derisively nicknamed Murtha the “king of pork” and said he used his position on the defense subcommittee to win favors.

Murtha often delivered Democratic votes to Republican leaders in exchange for the funding of pet projects. He wasn’t shy about such deals, once saying that “dealmaking is what Congress is all about.”

In 2006, when the Democrats captured control of the House for the first time in 12 years, Rep. Nancy Pelosi endorsed Murtha to become majority leader. Pelosi, D-Calif., went on to be elected as the first female House speaker, but caucus members picked Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., as their leader.