THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 31, 1996 TAG: 9607310422
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 158 lines
The federal government sued the Christian Coalition on Tuesday, charging that the religious organization founded by Pat Robertson has illegally promoted Republican candidates for president and Congress.
The suit, if successful, would impose federal regulations on the Chesapeake-based group's $21 million-a-year fund-raising program and force the coalition to disclose how it raises and spends its money.
The suit, filed by the Federal Election Commission in U.S. District Court in Washington, also seeks hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, and seeks to bar the coalition from distributing its controversial voter guides around the country in this fall's presidential and congressional elections.
The coalition vows to fight the suit, dismissing it as baseless and saying it is the latest in a number of actions by the FEC aimed at harassing conservative and evangelical public interest groups.
``The Christian Coalition has abided by both the letter and the spirit of the law,'' said Ralph Reed, the group's executive director. ``We are absolutely and totally confident that we will be fully vindicated and the courts will affirm that people of faith have every right to be involved as citizens and voters.''
The coalition claims a million dues-paying members with an additional 700,000 supporters on its mailing list, but it is not currently required to disclose those names.
The FEC charged that the nonprofit coalition distributed millions of voter guides, held conferences and used direct mail and telemarketing to encourage conservative voters to cast ballots for Republicans during the 1990, 1992 and 1994 elections.
Among the candidates that the FEC alleged got illegal coalition help were former President George Bush, former U.S. Senate candidate Oliver L. North of Virginia, U.S. Sen. Jesse A. Helms of North Carolina and House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia.
The FEC said the coalition coordinated many of its activities with the campaigns it sought to help. As a result, the suit said, its deeds should be considered ``in-kind'' political contributions that should be subject to federal disclosure and campaign finance laws.
The coalition, which bills itself as a nonpartisan voter-education group, has insisted since its 1989 inception that it is not subject to federal campaign finance laws. As a result, its donations from supporters and expenditures on political causes are not subject to limits or disclosure.
Several election law experts said that if courts find that the coalition's activities do constitute partisan political activity, then the group may have little choice but to reconstitute itself as a political action committee.
Under federal law, PACs may not accept corporate donations and are limited to accepting maximum gifts of $5,000 a year from individuals and making a maximum $5,000 donation to a candidate per election.
The suit is the latest in a line of legal woes facing the coalition.
The group has also been under a lengthy review by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has delayed a final ruling on whether the coalition can legitimately claim its tax-exempt status. One issue in the deliberations is whether the organization spends a majority of its funds on partisan activities.
In addition, federal investigators have been looking into charges of financial impropriety by a private firm running the coalition's direct-mail enterprises. The firm has denied any wrongdoing.
``The coalition will go out of business if it loses the FEC suit,'' said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. ``The Christian Coalition is dependent on hiding its business. A lot of people don't like to be publicly associated with Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed.''
Any action on the lawsuit likely will come too late to directly affect this year's elections. But Lynn and other coalition critics said the government's action could discourage churches from distributing the group's voter guides in November. Churches can lose their tax exemption if they engage in partisan activity.
The FEC began looking into the coalition's activities in 1992, after a complaint was filed by the Democratic National Committee. A majority of the six-member commission - comprising three Democratic and three Republican members - voted to file the suit on May 7 after failing to reach an ``acceptable conciliation agreement'' with the coalition.
Jim Bopp, a Terre Haute, Ind., attorney representing the coalition, predicted the suit would drag out well past this fall's election and that his client would eventually prevail.
The FEC has failed to win a number of suits it has filed in recent years questioning the unreported political activities of conservative public interest groups such as GOPAC, the Christian Action Network, the Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee and Massachusetts Citizens for Life.
``You have to wonder why the FEC is filing such a disproportionate amount of suits against right-wing groups,'' he said.
Bopp said the coalition's activities are legal because they are aimed not at supporting individual candidates, but rather at promoting issues that are important to Christian conservatives.
Democrats have long claimed, for example, that the millions of voter guides distributed by the coalition each year constitute endorsements of Republican candidates and are unfairly slanted. The ballots, distributed at churches just prior to elections, list issues and candidates' positions on them.
While it's easy to tally which candidate has the most checks, Bopp said the guides are legally a nonpartisan activity because they never specifically urge voters to support or oppose a candidate. The same precautions of not endorsing are followed in the coalition's phone banking and direct mail. ``We practice issue advocacy, not candidate advocacy,'' he said.
Bopp said the suit could have a chilling effect on public debate. ``How can citizens participate in democracy and discuss issues if they're concerned that the federal government will fine them for discussing issues?'' he said.
The suit says that the coalition spent money to help the 1992 Bush re-election committee identify friendly voters and get them to the polls.
The FEC said the guide was designed to show Bush in a favorable light over Bill Clinton.
The FEC says the coalition coordinated get-out-the-vote efforts in 1994 with Oliver North's unsuccessful Virginia campaign for the U.S. Senate and distributed 1.75 million voter guides favoring the Republican.
Similar coordinated efforts were made on behalf of Helms in 1990 and Gingrich in 1994, the FEC alleges. In Montana in 1992, the FEC said, Reed advocated the defeat of Democratic Rep. Pat Williams during a two-day conference sponsored by the state chapter of the Christian Coalition. Bopp said the charge is false.
Also, the FEC says, the coalition produced and handed out between 5 million and 10 million voter guides in 1990 in seven states ``in coordination with the National Republican Senatorial Committee.'' The states were not identified. MEMO: Related story on page A11.
THE SUIT RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MIXING OF RELIGION AND POLITICS
The Federal Election Commission argues that some coalition
activities amount to ``express advocacy'' for particular candidates and
legally should have been either reported as independent political
expenditures or as in-kind contributions to the candidates.
Because the Christian Coalition claims its activity is educational
and non-partisan, it doesn't have to report where its money comes from
or where it goes, and is not bound by federal spending limits that apply
to political action committees.
THE SUIT ASKS THE COURT TO:
impose fines
prohibit further use of corporate money to promote candidates
force the coalition to disclose the money it spends on politics.
IMPACT:
Any action on the lawsuit likely will come too late to directly
affect this year's elections. But it could discourage churches from
distributing the group's voter guides in November. Churches can lose
their tax exemption if they engage in partisan activity.
BOTH SIDES
Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and
State: ``The evidence shows everyone that this group is a hardball
political operation that has been cloaking itself in religion. Now the
cloak is starting to unravel.''
Ralph Reed, executive director, Christian Coalition: ``The Christian
Coalition has abided by both the letter and the spirit of the law. We
are absolutely and totally confident that we will be fully vindicated
and the courts will affirm that people of faith have every right to be
involved as citizens and voters.''
KEYWORDS: RELIGION AND POLITICS by CNB