THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 11, 1996 TAG: 9607110383
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
LENGTH: 165 lines
The Christian Coalition avoids federal taxes by claiming it promotes religious issues and steers clear of politics. But when coalition director Ralph Reed spoke privately to a meeting of lobbyists, he was every bit the political pro.
``In Virginia, there was a state senator we did not care for,'' Reed told the session at a Florida resort. ``He was positioning himself to run for attorney general. None of us could take a chance on him being elected.''
Reed then detailed how the coalition helped defeat Democratic state Sen. Moody E. ``Sonny'' Stallings Jr. of Virginia Beach in 1991 by mobilizing its phone banks and developing lists of conservative voters and the issues that most interested them.
The lists, he said, were sold to Republican challenger Kenneth W. Stolle to be used for a last-minute direct-mail appeal to voters. Stolle won in an upset, but Stolle's campaign report to the state shows no such payment.
The 1994 speech, a recording of which was obtained by The Associated Press, provides a rare and detailed admission of just how far the coalition is willing to go to get Republican candidates elected.
Such activities leave critics and tax experts questioning whether the group, which says it has 1.7 million members, has crossed the line from tax-exempt education to political machine.
In nearly all cases, the group's blessing falls on conservative Republicans.
``It has seemed to us that from day one, their purpose has been to elect candidates they want to public office,'' said Joseph Conn, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a watchdog group.
He accused the coalition of ``playing fast and loose with the tax rules all along.''
Elliot Mincberg, general counsel and legal director of People for the American Way, another watchdog group, said the coalition's role in the Virginia Beach race ``further calls into question whether they should have a tax exemption, because it suggests that they are engaged in substantial political activity.''
``The premise of the tax rules is, there's nothing wrong with political activity, but it shouldn't be subsidized by a tax exemption,'' Mincberg said.
Reed insists his group is well within the law.
``The Christian Coalition is a grass-roots citizen organization that devotes the vast majority and bulk of its resources to influencing legislation,'' he said. ``We are absolutely and totally confident that we are in full compliance.''
Since it was formed in 1989, the Chesapeake-based organization has paid no federal taxes, claiming an exemption for groups that promote public welfare. Such groups can dabble in politics, but it cannot be their primary purpose.
After more than six years, the Internal Revenue Service still has not ruled on the claim. It is one of the longest delays ever for such an application.
If the IRS grants the application, the coalition will continue to pay no taxes. If the government rejects it, the group could be forced to pay millions in past and future taxes. It also could be forced to organize as a political committee and be required to disclose its donors.
Tax experts say one of the coalition's most potent weapons - the millions of voter guides it distributes to churches each election - may be an important gauge for the final ruling.
The coalition says the guides are not partisan, but rather a normal function of its public education effort. It plans to distribute 64 million of them this year.
But critics claim the group skews the guides by selecting questions that favor a particular candidate.
Last month, the coalition distributed a voter guide in an unsuccessful foray into the Republican U.S. Senate primary in Virginia.
On June 1, Reed flew into Roanoke with conservative Republican Oliver North for the state party convention, where North called on the party to replace Sen. John Warner with former Reagan administration budget director Jim Miller. The coalition's president, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, also was there.
Reed called the primary ``a test of the ideological direction of the party.'' And the coalition issued a voter guide favoring Miller. Warner went from a 100 percent approval rating in the coalition's previous congressional score card to 20 percent in the new guide. He won anyway.
``A showing of selectivity in a voter guide . . . weighs toward it being political as opposed to just educational,'' said Frances Hill, a University of Miami professor who specializes in tax-exempt groups.
A new analysis of the 1994 elections by political scientist Larry Sabato and reporter Glenn Simpson concluded that the coalition's voter guides were ``systematically rigged'' to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free advertising for GOP candidates for Congress.
Reed defends the guides. ``We select issues that show a distinction between the candidates as much as possible,'' he said.
While publicly the coalition insists its purpose is issue advocacy and not politics, its top officials make no bones in private about their political involvement - and impact.
At a 1993 conference, coalition official Max Karrer recounted how the group helped a Republican win a Florida state legislative seat by selling him a ``Christian voter database.''
``We were not allowed to give them away, so we charged him five dollars,'' Karrer said, boasting, ``Every candidate we got behind won.''
His speech was taped by a critic.
The Democratic Party, in a complaint under investigation by the Federal Election Commission, claims the coalition should register as a political action committee and disclose its money sources and aid to candidates.
After the 1991 Virginia election, Robertson and Reed talked of how their phone banks marshaled thousands of votes and helped the GOP score upset victories. The strategy focused on Virginia Beach, where Republicans won seven of nine races, ousting two incumbents - Stallings and Del. Glenn B. McClanan - and taking two open seats.
The coalition used a sophisticated telephone drive to get sympathetic voters to the polls. It also distributed 100,000 voter guides and conducted exit polls.
The voter guides were distributed to Chesapeake and Virginia Beach churches the Sunday before the election. They did not make endorsements but presented candidates' positions on the following issues: ``mandatory sentences for drug dealers,'' ``taxpayer-funded abortions,'' ``raising taxes,'' ``school-based clinics to dispense birth-control devices,'' ``voters to elect school boards'' and ``de-criminalizing sodomy.''
Reed said the coalition also telephoned 15,000 residents and asked them what they considered the important issues. About 5,000 whose responses matched the coalition's agenda were given a second call urging them to vote.
``I had people tell me they got called as many as four times,'' Stallings said in an interview this week. ``And a lot of those were on Election Day. They had a system that if you were one of theirs and you hadn't voted by 1 o'clock that day, you got a phone call. And then if you still hadn't voted by 4, you got a phone call. . . .
``That wasn't Ken Stolle's phone banks, that was the Christian Coalition's phone banks.''
Stallings lost by 1,988 votes.
Was the coalition's role in his defeat educational or political? There is no question what Stallings thinks.
``It's a very formidable political machine,'' he said. ``They will try to turn out their people, and they can deliver.''
Another likely factor in Stallings' defeat was a blitz of negative TV ads run on Stolle's behalf in the final week of the campaign, catching Democrats by surprise.
The ads were unusual because they were bought by the 2nd District Republican Party rather than by the Stolle campaign, which would have been required to report the contributors.
Gordon P. Robertson, Pat Robertson's son, who was 2nd District Republican chairman at the time, refused to reveal the source of the money.
After a state police investigation, Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney William F. Rutherford determined that the party did not have to reveal who paid for the ads.
Stolle, in an interview this week, denied that his campaign bought any voter lists from the Christian Coalition but said the 2nd District GOP may have.
``They did three television ads, and I think they also did mailings,'' Stolle said. ``But the 2nd District would not let me see any of the commercials; they did not let me see any of the mailings that they were doing. They kept that completely separate from our campaign.''
Such party expenditures are examples of the so-called ``soft money'' that critics say flows into the electoral process free of the constraints of the election laws and public accountability.
As for the charge that the coalition is essentially an arm of the Republican Party, Stolle said, ``That's absolutely not true. If they were an arm of the Republican Party, I'd have them do a heck of a lot more than they're doing now for Republican candidates.'' MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by staff writer Bill Sizemore
and The Associated Press. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
GOP candidate Ken Stolle, far left, defeated Democratic state Sen.
Moody E. ``Sonny'' Stallings Jr. in a 1991 election. Christian
Coalition lists of voters reportedly were sold to Stolle for a
last-minute appeal to voters.
KEYWORDS: POLITICS AND RELIGION by CNB