Washington Blade - November 22, 2002
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

AIDS activists said they were not surprised that the Bush administration has chosen to name its own people for the panel, known as PACHA, but they expressed concern that the administration might replace the Clinton appointees with conservative ideologues who favor "abstinence only" HIV prevention programs.

Nearly all of the Clinton holdovers on the panel are gay and have pushed for a variety of HIV prevention strategies that include condom use and other "safer sex" techniques as well as sexual abstinence.

Some activists said they were pleased to learn this week that one of the Clinton replacements would be gay Republican activist David Greer. Greer is the former president of the Log Cabin Republican group in Philadelphia and is a current member of the board of governors of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay political group.

"No one should take offense or be surprised about this," said Bill Pierce, spokesperson for U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services Tommy Thompson. "It's standard practice for any new administration to bring in its own people for positions like this."

At press time, Pierce said he did not know whether the administration was ready to name all or some of the replacements, but he did not provide any names by press time. Thompson is expected to play a key role in selecting new PACHA members.

New PACHA takes shape

In January, Bush named 26 new members to PACHA, including conservative Republican Tom Colburn, a former congressman from Oklahoma, as its co-chair. The president named Louis Sullivan, the HHS secretary under the previous Bush administration, as the other co-chair.

Bush also named four gay Republicans to the panel: Charles Francis, Abner Mason, James Driscoll, and Joe Hastings.

Francis, a longtime friend of the Bush family, has since resigned from the panel after his public relations firm took on a foreign government as a client. Federal conflict of interest rules prevent individuals working for foreign governments from serving on U.S. government panels such as PACHA.

One knowledgeable source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said D.C. gay and AIDS activist Brent Minor was expected to be the only Clinton appointee to be re-appointed by Bush to a second PACHA term this month. Earlier this year, Colburn named Minor as chair of one of three PACHA committees. Minor, who has HIV, has served as an informal PACHA representative to the HIV/AIDS community.

The Clinton appointees who were expected to be notified that they would not be re-appointed were Stuart Burden of San Francisco, Phil Burgess of D.C., Joseph Cristina of Los Angeles, Ingrid Duran of D.C., Cynthia Gomez of San Francisco, Caya Lewis of D.C., and John Perez of Los Angeles. Former U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums (D-Calif.), who served as chair of PACHA during the last year of the Clinton administration, resigned from the panel earlier this year.

Another source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said several PACHA members were unsure when their terms would expire and that PACHA's executive director, Patricia Ware, was unable to find documents specifying when the terms were scheduled to end.

"There's a lot of confusion over this," said the source. "No one seems to know."

Ware, a conservative activist with ties to conservative religious groups, has become a controversial figure because she has emerged as an outspoken advocate for abstinence-only programs and other conservative causes.

During the Clinton administration, PACHA Executive Director Daniel Montoya limited his activities to internal administrative duties, such as record keeping and coordination of meetings.

Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.

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