‘I’m not sure if extortion is the right word, but…’

July 25, 2006

I’ve heard of churches throwing their weight around in a campaign context, but the New York Times reported today on a new twist to the old model, this time in Missouri.

Supporters of Health Research and Treatments is an organization that promotes stem-cell research, which is part of Missouri’s burgeoning bio-tech industry. It’s also a contentious ballot issue this November. The Missouri Catholic Conference has told more than 50 candidates, many of whom are Catholic and have conservative voting records on issues of concern to the church, that if they accept contributions from the SHRT group, there will be political consequences.

“The Missouri Catholic Conference is committed to informing Missouri voters about campaign contributions promoting human cloning and embryonic stem cell research,” [Lawrence A. Weber, executive director and general counsel of the Missouri conference] wrote [in a letter to several dozen state legislators who were reported to have received campaign contributions from Supporters of Health Research], “and will report to Missouri voters regarding candidates who choose to associate themselves with this and similar organizations that promote such unethical practices.”

He added that if candidates returned contributions from Supporters of Health Research, the conference would report that to diocesan newspapers so long as documentation was provided.

One Republican state representative, Jim Guest, told the NYT, I’m not sure if extortion is the right word, but they basically threatened me if I didn’t return the money.” This from a conservative lawmaker with a 100% pro-life voting record.

In addition to this being an oddly heavy-handed move from a religious ministry, it also may be illegal.

The move has inspired a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service, arguing that the request violates prohibitions on political activity by nonprofit organizations.

“It constitutes illegal political interference,” said Marcus S. Owens, a tax lawyer, who filed the complaint on behalf of a client he declined to identify.

Federal tax law says that tax-exempt non-profits, including churches, can’t intervene in partisan political campaigns. (Ministries can work on ballot initiatives as much as they want, but getting involved in a candidate’s race is prohibited.)

Given the Times’ description, this certainly sounds like intervention. The Missouri Catholic Conference is telling candidates not to accept legal campaign contributions, with the penalty for disobedience being dissatisfaction from the state’s largest religious denomination. In its strongly-worded correspondence with candidates, the church more or less says, “It’s a nice campaign you have here; it’d be a shame if something happened to it…”

In a nutshell, churches can’t legally threaten candidates as part of a political campaign. I’m pretty surprised the Missouri Catholic Conference would even try.

I don’t think this is illegal. Churches certainly have a right to promote political positions that they support. I the 60’s I picked my church because of its activism against the war.

Furthermore the MCC is only saying that they will inform the voters that a politician has received money from SHRT. While we, and the voters, can read between the lines, I think that this is a perfectly legitimate action.

And finally, just because the MCC seems to promote one candidate over another doesn’t mean the the voters will listen and follow. They may actually resent the intrusion, and in any case, in my experience the Catholic church has a pretty bad record on getting people to follow their guidelines.

  • The Roman Catholic Church has gone insane (or insaner if it always was insane). It’s religous palaces all over the Europe are no longer anything but tourist sites. Way back when the German sociologist said “the magic has gone out of them”. Very few go to Mass. One country after another is legalizing abortion, gays in the military, and gay marriage. At a considerably slower pace, the same seems to be happening in this country. Now that they’ve once again turned their primary attention to the third world (what do we call that now?) they seem to be more bigoted, boisterous, blind to science, and just plain rude than they’ve ever been in this country and like they haven’t been in Europe since before the Reformation. I think, increasingly, the laity are telling the RCC-USA to get a litfe and go screw itself (which many an altar boy can testify to).

  • I agree with Neil – as distasteful as it is (I personally think ALL tax-exempt entities should be completely excluded from the political process – if they don’t pay they shouldn’t get to play), it is quite normal and legal under current practices (which I would change if I could) for churches to print “voters guides” stating candidates’ stands on issues. As long as this was factually and truthfully presented in such a guide as “so-and-so supports stem cell research and has taken money from SHRT” in a compare and contrast with another candidate (without endorsing either one – wink wink nudge nudge) it should not be prima facie illegal.

    The solution as I see it is to either ban all tax-exempts from any politcal activity whatsover (which would be the sensible thing – if they need their resources to fund their either “mission” such as feeding the homeless, then they shouldn’t be spending that money to influence the political process) – or reform campaign financing so that it is limited to public funding and politicians won’t have to accept money from interest groups.

  • NeilS,
    1) They do not have the right to support political positions. They can support a position, but they can not support, or in this case, deny a specific politician(s). It is not the church’s responsibility to inform their congregation on where politicians stand or who they receive money from.
    2) The reason churches are exempt is to promote religion, not politics. If they want to get into politics, they can go for it, but them they will have to start paying taxes.
    3) It doesn’t matter if the leverage is effective or not. It’s illegal. “Give back the money or we steer the sheep to a different pasture
    4) Religious organization stick to the bible and lay off the constitution.

  • There is a great difference between supporting/protesting a government policy/issue, and a direct threat aimed at specific candidates. The MCC is overtly interfering in the political process by (a) delivering the “veiled threat” and (b) demanding “proofs” that the donations from SHRT were returned. What’s next—requiring parishoners to show their voting-stub from the elctronic machine, as a prerequisite for communion?

    IRS has the opportunity to land on these fearmongers with both feet—HARD—and do a happy dance on their tax-exempt status. They also have the responsibility—and the duty—to do so….

  • The IRS has already sent notices to thousands of religious and quasi-religious groups informing them that illegal election activities will have serious consequences this time around, but I guess this bunch didn’t get the memo.

    Either that or they just think they’re untouchable as long as Georgie Boy sits on the throne.

    Somebody should let them know that Copernicus was right, in case they missed that one, too.

  • I don’t know anything about election law, but I’d guess if the MCC simply published a pamphlet listing which candidates had received money from which sources, that would have been fine. But by saying, if you do X, then we’ll do Y, it sure sounds like they’re taking overt political action.

  • I can’t comment on the tax consequences, but I think “extortion” is not a fair label for this kind of practice. It seems perfectly appropriate for the church to want to inform religious voters that a particular candidate has accepted donations, and therefore might be politically beholden to, an organization promoting activities that the church opposes. It might be a violation of the tax law, and I’m not qualified to hold an opinion on that, but I see nothing wrong with it otherwise.

  • Asume that I am the member of a church, let us say the Quakers. And there is a war going on. The Quakers believe that it is wrong to kill.

    Would it be wrong to preach a sermon against this war? In fact, wouldn’t it be an abdication of responsibility on the part of the church not to take a position on the war?

    If I attended this church and it refused to talk about such an important moral issue, I would stop going. What use is it if it can’t address important moral choices that we all must face?

    Not let us further assume that this war is very controversial and that the candidates have taken diametrically opposed postions on the war. One is for it; the other against. If one wins he/she will continue the war. If the other wins he/she will end it.

    Isn’t it part of their religious duty to point this out? Why must they lose tax exempt status just because they point out the clear implications of one’s vote?

  • Asume that I am the member of a church, let us say the Quakers. And there is a war going on. The Quakers believe that it is wrong to kill. Would it be wrong to preach a sermon against this war?

    Absolutely not. Tax law makes a distinction between political issues and political candidates. A sermon against the war is fine; a sermon against Candidate X because of his/her position on the war is not.

    Isn’t it part of their religious duty to point this out? Why must they lose tax exempt status just because they point out the clear implications of one’s vote?

    No church has a religious/moral obligation to threaten candidates who take contributions from a group the church doesn’t like.

  • They threatened legislators with what? Disclosing who they receive money from? Contributions should be disclosed anyway.

    The law states non profits can’t endorse candidates or parties, and political activities cannot be a substantial part of their operations. The art comes in determining what “substantial” means. Given the overall budget and activity I suspect the MCC has, printing a voter guide probably doesn’t meet any threshholds.

    Since most people support stem cell research, I’d think most legislators would view it as a net gain – they’d probably gain two votes for every one they lost over it, even among Catholics.

  • I like NeilS’ post and Carpetbagger’s response. So many secularists see separation of church and state as one in which religion is somehow this private affair separated from the rest of the world. They are wrong of course.

    What is the point of religion if it doesn’t cause one to act from the world frame that it preaches. For example, I am a Christian. I am a liberal because of my faith; I take seriously the “way of Christ”. Particularly when exclusivist, winger Christians start quoting that chapter from John about Jesus being the only way to God – yeah the WAY he lived not Jesus himself (see George Regas sermon at Riverside Church from 2004 or 2005).

    My faith gives me a firm grounding in WHY I stand for certain policies and candidates and this increases my persuasive ability when I talk politics. This is especially true with the right wing fundamentalists, who are left muttering and walking away or apologizing to me for their behavior.

    I do wonder though, where is the fine line between actual advocacy for a candidate and advocacy that merely leads a parishoner to the vote most in line with the church community’s position. We are dealing with that now at All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena (Regas sermon on the war right before the 2004 election). In our example, it’s pretty cut and dry. Both Kerry and Bush got slammed for being pro-war and I’m not sure a vote for either would have made much difference regarding the war in Iraq.

    I think the law is drawing an almost false line between candidate advocacy and issue advocacy. Realistically, a church is going to be pointing their parishoners in the direction of certain candidates based on what it preaches. What’s the difference ultimately?

    Regards,

    Patrick Briggs

  • Since most people support stem cell research, I’d think most legislators would view it as a net gain – they’d probably gain two votes for every one they lost over it, even among Catholics.

    That’s not too far off the mark. St. Louis and Kansas City both have newly appointed, very conservative bishops who rule with a heavy hand. Many urban Catholics are relatively liberal, and vote Democratic despite the hectoring they receive from the clergy.

    The next step is denying communion to supporters of stem cell research. It worked against John Kerry, right?

  • Sorry, Patrick and Neil but while they may have the right to say what they want, they don’t have the right to a tax exempt status while they do so.

  • Carpetbagger et al.

    “Tax law makes a distinction between political issues and political candidates.”

    Certainly that is the law, but is it right. Why should a church not be able to support a candidate that it thinks is more faithful to its precepts? Of course, it is easy to see how the right to a tax exemption could be abused.

    “No church has a religious/moral obligation to threaten candidates who take contributions from a group the church doesn’t like.”

    No obligation of course, but really it is up to each church, not us, to construe its moral obligations.

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