We learned earlier this month that the Bush-Cheney campaign has reached out to churches in Pennsylvania to incorporate tax-exempt houses of worship into a partisan political machine. Today we’re learning that was just the tip of the iceberg.
The Bush-Cheney reelection campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives.
Campaign officials said the instructions are part of an accelerating effort to mobilize President Bush’s base of religious supporters. They said the suggested activities are intended to help churchgoers rally support for Bush without violating tax rules that prohibit churches from engaging in partisan activity.
“We strongly believe that our religious outreach program is well within the framework of the law,” said Terry Holt, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign.
Holt may be the only person familiar with the scheme who thinks so.
Just a few weeks ago, the IRS sent out a reminder to both parties that tax-exempt charitable groups “are prohibited from directly or indirectly participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.” Asking churches to cooperate with the Bush campaign to help generate support for the president before the election certainly sounds like “intervention in a political campaign,” by any reasonable definition of the phrase.
I’m not the only one who thinks so. The Washington Post article about the campaign plan quotes the former head of the tax-exempt division of the IRS as saying the Bush scheme, “if conducted in concert with the church or church leadership, certainly could be construed by the IRS as the church engaging in partisan electioneering.” The Post cited another tax-law expert who came to similar conclusion.
Rosemary E. Fei, a tax specialist at the San Francisco law firm of Silk, Adler & Colvin, said the campaign checklist “feels dangerous to me” not just because of what is in it, but because of what is not. “There’s no mention whatsoever that churches should be careful to remain nonpartisan,” she said.
The Bush campaign’s scheme asks activists to push the legal envelope further than any campaign ever has. According to the instruction sheet circulated by the campaign and obtained by the Post, by July 31, for example, volunteers are to “send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney ’04 Headquarters.”
On an ethical level, am I the only one to find this unseemly to a historic degree? The very idea that the president would be asking for individual church directories is, under normal circumstances, extraordinary and unprecedented.
After all, is nothing holy to this campaign? Most believers see churches as religious sanctuaries and places for worship. Bush-Cheney see churches as easily manipulated institutions that might get them a few more votes on Election Day. As far the campaign is concerned, political gain comes first, legal and moral consequences for the congregation comes second. How classy.
Candidates have been campaigning in churches for a very long time. It’s unseemly to me, but it’s a standard campaign practice. Fine.
But BC04 doesn’t just want Bush to go around and speak to congregations before the election; they literally want the churches to become part of the campaign “team.” They have no shame.
And remember, these are the guys who are supposed to celebrate and respect religion. How ironic.