I have to admit, I’m a little concerned about projects like this one.
House Democrats are preparing a “Catholic Voting Scorecard” in an effort to show that Catholic Democratic lawmakers have adhered more closely to the position of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy on key issues than their Catholic Republican counterparts.
Democratic sources say Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Nicholas Lampson (D-Texas), both Catholics, are spearheading the project, which will compare the votes of Catholic members of both parties on a number of key issues that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops identified as its legislative priorities. Nearly 27 percent of House members are Catholic.
The votes, some of which go back several Congresses, include partial-birth abortion, human cloning, child tax credit refunds, the Defense of Marriage Act, global AIDS relief and HIV/AIDS funding, assistance to needy families and raising the minimum wage.
“Under the misconception that single issues such as choice or gay rights best represent their interests, Catholics are voting for Republican candidates with increasing frequency,” a document accompanying the scorecard stated. The document concluded that “Democratic House members vote with the Catholic interest much more often than their Republican counterparts.”
A preliminary copy of the scorecard obtained by The Hill, which a Lampson aide emphasized is still unfinished, shows that the 67 Catholic House Democrats received an average score of 76 percent, while the 49 Catholic Republican members averaged 64 percent.
In other words, Dems want to “out-Catholic” their Republican rivals. I can understand the motivation — Catholics are a key voting constituency — but there are a few problems here.
First, there’s something unsettling about a competition for the blessing, so to speak, of a single faith tradition. Members of Congress should be working to convince voters that they are good and loyal public officials, not good and loyal Catholics.
Second, the fact is this “scorecard” is a little silly. Dems are hand-picking specific votes and issues that play in their favor. That’s fine, of course, but the eventual ratings are fairly meaningless.
On the other hand, the House Dems certainly don’t deserve all the blame here. If anything, circumstances have forced their hands.
Far too many Catholic leaders have been insisting that the church penalize Catholic politicians who fail to toe the line on a series of carefully-chosen issues, including abortion, gay rights, and stem cell research, all of which the Dem party generally support. (They generally ignore capital punishment, which Republicans love and the church allegedly opposes.) The inference, obviously, is that Dem candidates who are Catholic aren’t Catholic enough for church officials who want obedience to doctrine.
It’s only natural that the Dems would respond by noting that our party shares Catholic priorities on a host of other issues that the Republicans oppose, including a variety of economic issues that effect low-income families.
In many ways, it’s ironic to consider the political dynamics of this controversy in light of the 1960 campaign. John Kennedy, the nation’s first and only Catholic president, had to fight diligently to convince the public that he would honor his responsibilities as a secular government leader first. He didn’t hide his Catholicism, but he reminded Americans that he would never “take orders” from his church.
Forty four years later, there’s another Catholic JFK who respects the separation of church and state, but this time it’s the church who is demanding submission from politicians.
So long as church leaders are going to insist on such conformity, politicians will craft silly schemes like these scorecards as part of a disconcerting fight for the “Catholic vote.”