R
Roger
Guest
Religious Groups Reap Share of U.S. Aid for Pet Projects
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES and ANDREW W. LEHREN
May 13, 2007
St. Vincent College, a small Benedictine college southeast of Pittsburgh,
wanted to realign a two-lane state road serving the campus. But the state
transportation department did not have the money.
So St. Vincent tried Washington instead. The college hired a professional
lobbyist in 2004 and, later that year, two paragraphs were tucked into
federal appropriation bills with the help of Representative John P. Murtha,
Democrat of Pennsylvania, awarding $4 million solely for that project.
College officials said the work would improve the safety and appearance of
the road into the campus, which President Bush visited two days ago to give
the college's commencement address.
Religious organizations have long competed for federal contracts to provide
social services, and they have tried to influence Congress on matters of
moral and social policy - indeed, most major denominations have a presence
in Washington to monitor such legislation. But an analysis of federal
records shows that some religious organizations are also hiring professional
lobbyists to pursue the narrowly tailored individual appropriations known as
earmarks.
A New York Times analysis shows that the number of earmarks for religious
organizations, while small compared with the overall number, have increased
sharply in recent years. From 1989 to January 2007, Congress approved almost
900 earmarks for religious groups, totaling more than $318 million, with
more than half of them granted in the Congressional session that included
the 2004 presidential election. By contrast, the same analysis showed fewer
than 60 earmarks for faith-based groups in the Congressional session that
covered 1997 and 1998.
Earmarks are individual federal grants that bypass the normal appropriations
and competitive-bidding procedures. They have been blamed for feeding the
budget deficit and have figured in several Capitol Hill bribery scandals,
prompting recent calls for reform from White House and Congressional
leaders.
They are distinct from the competitive, peer-reviewed grants that have
traditionally been used by religious institutions and charities to obtain
money for social services.
As the number of faith-based earmarks grew, the period from 1998 to 2005 saw
a tripling in the number of religious organizations listed as clients of
Washington lobbying firms and a doubling in the amount they paid for
services, according to an analysis by The Times.
Sometimes the earmarks benefited programs aimed at helping others. There
have been numerous earmarks totaling $5.4 million for World Vision, the
global humanitarian ministry, to conduct job training, youth mentoring and
gang prevention programs. Another earmark provided $150,000 to help St.
Jerome's Church in the Bronx build a community center, and Fuller
Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical seminary in Pasadena, Calif.,
received $2 million to study gambling and juvenile violence.
But many of the earmarks address the prosaic institutional needs of some
specific religious group, like the ones giving the Mormon Church control
over two parcels of federal land of historic significance to the church,
transferring 10 acres of federal forest land to a small church in Florida,
allowing a historic church surrounded by a federal park in Ohio to use
public land to expand its parking space, and handing several acres of
government land over to a Catholic college in New Hampshire. (An interactive
database of almost 900 faith-based earmarks can be found at nytimes.com.)
Earmarks have also helped finance new buildings on religious college
campuses, including a fitness center at Malone College, a small evangelical
Christian liberal arts college in Canton, Ohio.
The $1 million that helped build the center came from an earmark by
Representative Ralph S. Regula, whose district includes the college,
according to Suzanne Thomas, director of communications for the college.
Another earmark helped pay for a new school of nursing, she said.
In seeking the earmarks, the college hired a Washington lobbyist "to help us
with a 'boots on the ground' program of meeting with various Congressional
and Senate leaders," Ms. Thomas said, noting that many private colleges are
enlisting similar lobbying help.
Several scholars who wrote books about religious advocacy work in Washington
in the 1980s and early 1990s say the push for earmarks identified in The
Times analysis represents a sharp departure from the lobbying strategies
traditionally associated with religious groups. One of them, Allen D.
Hertzke, a professor at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, said, "I never
heard religious lobbyists talk about earmarks." That view was echoed by
Daniel J.<133>B. Hofrenning, a professor at St. Olaf College in Northfield,
Minn.: "Getting heavily into the pork-barrel politics of earmarks - that is
a distinctive change."
It is a shift that some religious advocates find worrisome.
"Earmarks are bad public policy," said Maureen Shea, director of the
Episcopal Office of Government Relations in Washington. "If earmarks are not
in the public interest, I would wonder why the faith community would be
involved in them. It would hurt our credibility."
James E. Winkler, who has represented the United Methodist General Board of
Church and Society since 2000, says he fears that the pursuit of earmarks
could muffle religion's moral voice. "For example, we've opposed the war
since day one," he said. "But what if an earmark benefiting us - money for a
Methodist seminary, perhaps - is attached to the supplemental appropriation
for the war? You can see how very serious moral conflicts could arise."
The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the
National Association of Evangelicals, said that while religious
organizations should be able to compete for federal money, such groups
"shouldn't do that through earmarks." He explained, "As good stewards of the
public trust, we have to be transparent and above board - and earmarks are
not transparent or above board."
And, constitutional lawyers point out, because the First Amendment prohibits
direct government financing of religious activities, earmarks that steer
money to religious groups pose constitutional risks. Indeed, several
faith-based earmarks were successfully challenged as unconstitutional long
after Congress approved them.
Paul Marcone, a lobbyist and former Capitol Hill staff member who
specializes in getting earmarks for nonprofit clients, disputes the notion
that religious groups should not pursue them.
"Despite what the critics say, there is far more transparency in earmarks
than in the discretionary grant process," Mr. Marcone said. "It's the
difference between unelected bureaucrats using a peer-review process and an
elected member of Congress."
Applying for competitive government grants "is a very frustrating process,"
Mr. Marcone added. "You might score very high and have an innovative
program, and still not get funded." By contrast, he said, all his nonprofit
clients who sought earmarks received grants within two years of signing on
with him.
The lobbying firm to which Malone College and dozens of other religious
organizations have turned is Mr. Marcone's former employer, the Russ Reid
Company, based in Pasadena, Calif. Since 1964, Russ Reid has provided
direct-mail and other fund-raising services to some of the nation's largest
charities, like World Vision and Habitat for Humanity.
But it also maintains a government relations office in Washington, directed
by Mark D. McIntyre, a former Congressional press secretary and a vice
presidential speechwriter in the Reagan administration. "If your focus is on
how faith-based organizations are getting earmarks, I'm your guy," Mr.
McIntyre said in a brief telephone conversation last month. But the company
subsequently canceled an interview with Mr. McIntyre and declined to comment
further about his work.
Among the dozens of institutions for which Russ Reid has helped obtain
earmarks are several faith-based rescue missions, including the Detroit
Rescue Mission Ministries, the Light of Life Mission in Pittsburgh and the
Gospel Rescue Ministries of Washington; a host of religious colleges and
seminaries, including Fuller seminary and Vanguard University in Costa Mesa,
Calif., which got a $750,000 earmark for its new science center; and various
Catholic ministries, including the specialized children's educational
programs of the Holy Family Institute in Pittsburgh.
Russ Reid has also lobbied for earmarks for World Vision, the humanitarian
service ministry. Seeking earmarks is a departure for World Vision. "On the
international side, we do not do earmark advocacy," said Joseph Mettimano,
director of public policy and advocacy. Instead of competing for an
earmarked slice of money, the charity joins with other aid organizations to
lobby for a bigger pie of foreign aid, he explained, adding that similar
solidarity on the domestic front could "absolutely" be beneficial.
World Vision is evaluating whether to continue to seek earmarks, according
to Romanita Hairston, its vice president for domestic programs. A main
concern is the cost-effectiveness of such financing, but the controversy
over earmarking is also being weighed, she said.
Among the beneficiaries of Mr. Marcone's lobbying was the Silver Ring Thing,
a faith-based abstinence program for teenagers. The program's earmarked
grant was suspended after being challenged as unconstitutional in May 2005,
but other earmarks have been granted to Silver Ring Thing programs in
Pennsylvania, Alabama and South Carolina.
Federal law and regulations require that all faith-based recipients of
earmarks use the money only for non-religious purposes. But a federal
appeals court decision late last year has raised fresh constitutional
questions about earmarks awarded specifically to religious rescue missions.
The ruling came in a pending case that involves a homeless shelter owned by
the city of Boise, Idaho, but operated, under city contract, by the Boise
Rescue Mission. In a preliminary ruling, a trial judge refused to ban
voluntary worship services at the city-owned shelter.
In November, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San
Francisco reversed that decision, citing "serious questions" about whether
the city's support for the faith-based rescue mission has the
unconstitutional effect of advancing religion.
Constitutional questions aside, the political controversy over earmarks has
already begun to affect their availability for all petitioners, including
faith-based groups. But some lobbyists are optimistic that earmarks for
faith-based groups and other nonprofits will be spared.
Indeed, Mr. Marcone said that increasing the transparency of the earmark
process could actually work to the advantage of faith-based groups and other
deserving nonprofit groups. If members of Congress are required to put their
names on their earmarks, he explained, "they are going to want to award
money to programs that are going to make them look good, and those are going
to be groups that are doing good work."
But for those who believe religious organizations should not pursue
private-purpose earmarks, that is not necessarily good news.
Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University professor who has written extensively
on religion and politics, said religious groups would naturally justify
earmarks. But their moral authority in Washington - "the extra prophetic
power of the religious voice," as he put it - largely arises from the fact
that they are not seen as self-interested, he said. "The loss of that
prophetic voice would be profound."
Kenneth Wald, a professor at the University of Florida who also studies
religion in the political arena, foresees a more pragmatic danger for
religious organizations that lobby for earmarks. "If they start to act like
any other special interest, they'll start to be treated like any other
special interest," he said. "I think it's nuts to take that risk."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/business/13lobby.html
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES and ANDREW W. LEHREN
May 13, 2007
St. Vincent College, a small Benedictine college southeast of Pittsburgh,
wanted to realign a two-lane state road serving the campus. But the state
transportation department did not have the money.
So St. Vincent tried Washington instead. The college hired a professional
lobbyist in 2004 and, later that year, two paragraphs were tucked into
federal appropriation bills with the help of Representative John P. Murtha,
Democrat of Pennsylvania, awarding $4 million solely for that project.
College officials said the work would improve the safety and appearance of
the road into the campus, which President Bush visited two days ago to give
the college's commencement address.
Religious organizations have long competed for federal contracts to provide
social services, and they have tried to influence Congress on matters of
moral and social policy - indeed, most major denominations have a presence
in Washington to monitor such legislation. But an analysis of federal
records shows that some religious organizations are also hiring professional
lobbyists to pursue the narrowly tailored individual appropriations known as
earmarks.
A New York Times analysis shows that the number of earmarks for religious
organizations, while small compared with the overall number, have increased
sharply in recent years. From 1989 to January 2007, Congress approved almost
900 earmarks for religious groups, totaling more than $318 million, with
more than half of them granted in the Congressional session that included
the 2004 presidential election. By contrast, the same analysis showed fewer
than 60 earmarks for faith-based groups in the Congressional session that
covered 1997 and 1998.
Earmarks are individual federal grants that bypass the normal appropriations
and competitive-bidding procedures. They have been blamed for feeding the
budget deficit and have figured in several Capitol Hill bribery scandals,
prompting recent calls for reform from White House and Congressional
leaders.
They are distinct from the competitive, peer-reviewed grants that have
traditionally been used by religious institutions and charities to obtain
money for social services.
As the number of faith-based earmarks grew, the period from 1998 to 2005 saw
a tripling in the number of religious organizations listed as clients of
Washington lobbying firms and a doubling in the amount they paid for
services, according to an analysis by The Times.
Sometimes the earmarks benefited programs aimed at helping others. There
have been numerous earmarks totaling $5.4 million for World Vision, the
global humanitarian ministry, to conduct job training, youth mentoring and
gang prevention programs. Another earmark provided $150,000 to help St.
Jerome's Church in the Bronx build a community center, and Fuller
Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical seminary in Pasadena, Calif.,
received $2 million to study gambling and juvenile violence.
But many of the earmarks address the prosaic institutional needs of some
specific religious group, like the ones giving the Mormon Church control
over two parcels of federal land of historic significance to the church,
transferring 10 acres of federal forest land to a small church in Florida,
allowing a historic church surrounded by a federal park in Ohio to use
public land to expand its parking space, and handing several acres of
government land over to a Catholic college in New Hampshire. (An interactive
database of almost 900 faith-based earmarks can be found at nytimes.com.)
Earmarks have also helped finance new buildings on religious college
campuses, including a fitness center at Malone College, a small evangelical
Christian liberal arts college in Canton, Ohio.
The $1 million that helped build the center came from an earmark by
Representative Ralph S. Regula, whose district includes the college,
according to Suzanne Thomas, director of communications for the college.
Another earmark helped pay for a new school of nursing, she said.
In seeking the earmarks, the college hired a Washington lobbyist "to help us
with a 'boots on the ground' program of meeting with various Congressional
and Senate leaders," Ms. Thomas said, noting that many private colleges are
enlisting similar lobbying help.
Several scholars who wrote books about religious advocacy work in Washington
in the 1980s and early 1990s say the push for earmarks identified in The
Times analysis represents a sharp departure from the lobbying strategies
traditionally associated with religious groups. One of them, Allen D.
Hertzke, a professor at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, said, "I never
heard religious lobbyists talk about earmarks." That view was echoed by
Daniel J.<133>B. Hofrenning, a professor at St. Olaf College in Northfield,
Minn.: "Getting heavily into the pork-barrel politics of earmarks - that is
a distinctive change."
It is a shift that some religious advocates find worrisome.
"Earmarks are bad public policy," said Maureen Shea, director of the
Episcopal Office of Government Relations in Washington. "If earmarks are not
in the public interest, I would wonder why the faith community would be
involved in them. It would hurt our credibility."
James E. Winkler, who has represented the United Methodist General Board of
Church and Society since 2000, says he fears that the pursuit of earmarks
could muffle religion's moral voice. "For example, we've opposed the war
since day one," he said. "But what if an earmark benefiting us - money for a
Methodist seminary, perhaps - is attached to the supplemental appropriation
for the war? You can see how very serious moral conflicts could arise."
The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the
National Association of Evangelicals, said that while religious
organizations should be able to compete for federal money, such groups
"shouldn't do that through earmarks." He explained, "As good stewards of the
public trust, we have to be transparent and above board - and earmarks are
not transparent or above board."
And, constitutional lawyers point out, because the First Amendment prohibits
direct government financing of religious activities, earmarks that steer
money to religious groups pose constitutional risks. Indeed, several
faith-based earmarks were successfully challenged as unconstitutional long
after Congress approved them.
Paul Marcone, a lobbyist and former Capitol Hill staff member who
specializes in getting earmarks for nonprofit clients, disputes the notion
that religious groups should not pursue them.
"Despite what the critics say, there is far more transparency in earmarks
than in the discretionary grant process," Mr. Marcone said. "It's the
difference between unelected bureaucrats using a peer-review process and an
elected member of Congress."
Applying for competitive government grants "is a very frustrating process,"
Mr. Marcone added. "You might score very high and have an innovative
program, and still not get funded." By contrast, he said, all his nonprofit
clients who sought earmarks received grants within two years of signing on
with him.
The lobbying firm to which Malone College and dozens of other religious
organizations have turned is Mr. Marcone's former employer, the Russ Reid
Company, based in Pasadena, Calif. Since 1964, Russ Reid has provided
direct-mail and other fund-raising services to some of the nation's largest
charities, like World Vision and Habitat for Humanity.
But it also maintains a government relations office in Washington, directed
by Mark D. McIntyre, a former Congressional press secretary and a vice
presidential speechwriter in the Reagan administration. "If your focus is on
how faith-based organizations are getting earmarks, I'm your guy," Mr.
McIntyre said in a brief telephone conversation last month. But the company
subsequently canceled an interview with Mr. McIntyre and declined to comment
further about his work.
Among the dozens of institutions for which Russ Reid has helped obtain
earmarks are several faith-based rescue missions, including the Detroit
Rescue Mission Ministries, the Light of Life Mission in Pittsburgh and the
Gospel Rescue Ministries of Washington; a host of religious colleges and
seminaries, including Fuller seminary and Vanguard University in Costa Mesa,
Calif., which got a $750,000 earmark for its new science center; and various
Catholic ministries, including the specialized children's educational
programs of the Holy Family Institute in Pittsburgh.
Russ Reid has also lobbied for earmarks for World Vision, the humanitarian
service ministry. Seeking earmarks is a departure for World Vision. "On the
international side, we do not do earmark advocacy," said Joseph Mettimano,
director of public policy and advocacy. Instead of competing for an
earmarked slice of money, the charity joins with other aid organizations to
lobby for a bigger pie of foreign aid, he explained, adding that similar
solidarity on the domestic front could "absolutely" be beneficial.
World Vision is evaluating whether to continue to seek earmarks, according
to Romanita Hairston, its vice president for domestic programs. A main
concern is the cost-effectiveness of such financing, but the controversy
over earmarking is also being weighed, she said.
Among the beneficiaries of Mr. Marcone's lobbying was the Silver Ring Thing,
a faith-based abstinence program for teenagers. The program's earmarked
grant was suspended after being challenged as unconstitutional in May 2005,
but other earmarks have been granted to Silver Ring Thing programs in
Pennsylvania, Alabama and South Carolina.
Federal law and regulations require that all faith-based recipients of
earmarks use the money only for non-religious purposes. But a federal
appeals court decision late last year has raised fresh constitutional
questions about earmarks awarded specifically to religious rescue missions.
The ruling came in a pending case that involves a homeless shelter owned by
the city of Boise, Idaho, but operated, under city contract, by the Boise
Rescue Mission. In a preliminary ruling, a trial judge refused to ban
voluntary worship services at the city-owned shelter.
In November, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San
Francisco reversed that decision, citing "serious questions" about whether
the city's support for the faith-based rescue mission has the
unconstitutional effect of advancing religion.
Constitutional questions aside, the political controversy over earmarks has
already begun to affect their availability for all petitioners, including
faith-based groups. But some lobbyists are optimistic that earmarks for
faith-based groups and other nonprofits will be spared.
Indeed, Mr. Marcone said that increasing the transparency of the earmark
process could actually work to the advantage of faith-based groups and other
deserving nonprofit groups. If members of Congress are required to put their
names on their earmarks, he explained, "they are going to want to award
money to programs that are going to make them look good, and those are going
to be groups that are doing good work."
But for those who believe religious organizations should not pursue
private-purpose earmarks, that is not necessarily good news.
Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University professor who has written extensively
on religion and politics, said religious groups would naturally justify
earmarks. But their moral authority in Washington - "the extra prophetic
power of the religious voice," as he put it - largely arises from the fact
that they are not seen as self-interested, he said. "The loss of that
prophetic voice would be profound."
Kenneth Wald, a professor at the University of Florida who also studies
religion in the political arena, foresees a more pragmatic danger for
religious organizations that lobby for earmarks. "If they start to act like
any other special interest, they'll start to be treated like any other
special interest," he said. "I think it's nuts to take that risk."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/business/13lobby.html