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H.R. 1054, AUTHORIZING PRESIDENTIAL VISION:

MAKING PERMANENT THE EFFORTS OF THE

FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

H.R. 1054

TO ESTABLISH THE OFFICE OF FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY

INITIATIVES

JUNE 21, 2005

Serial No. 109–74

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(III)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

DIANE E. WATSON, California

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. MARC WHEAT, Staff Director

BRANDON LERCH, Professional Staff Member

MALIA HOLST, Clerk

TONY HAYWOOD, Minority Counsel

(V)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 21, 2005 ............................................................................... 1

Text of H.R. 1054 ..................................................................................................... 6

Statement of:

Carlson-Thies, Stanley, director of social policy studies, Center for Public

Justice; David Kuo, former deputy director, White House Faith-Based

and Community Initiative; and Bobby Polito, former director, Center

for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Department of Health and

Human Services ............................................................................................ 62

Carlson-Thies, Stanley .............................................................................. 62

Kuo, David ................................................................................................. 79

Polito, Bobby .............................................................................................. 82

Green, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin; and Hon. Robert C. Scott, a Representative in Congress from

the State of Virginia ..................................................................................... 33

Green, Hon. Mark ..................................................................................... 33

Scott, Hon. Robert C. ................................................................................ 38

Petersmeyer, Gregg, vice chairman, Board of Trustees, America’s Promise; Bob Woodson, president, National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise; Dennis Griffith, director, Teen Challenge in southern California;

Rabbi David Saperstein, director, Religious Action Center of Reform

Judaism; and Reverend C. Welton Gaddy, president, Interfaith Alliance ................................................................................................................ 336

Gaddy, Reverend C. Welton ..................................................................... 392

Griffith, Dennis ......................................................................................... 363

Petersmeyer, Gregg ................................................................................... 336

Saperstein, Rabbi David ........................................................................... 379

Woodson, Bob ............................................................................................. 349

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Carlson-Thies, Stanley, director of social policy studies, Center for Public

Justice, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 65

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 27

Gaddy, Reverend C. Welton, president, Interfaith Alliance, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 394

Green, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 36

Griffith, Dennis, director, Teen Challenge in southern California, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 366

Owens, Hon. Major R., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, article dated May 3, 2005 ...................................................... 18

Petersmeyer, Gregg, vice chairman, Board of Trustees, America’s Promise:

Information concerning public papers of the President ......................... 422

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 339

Ruppersberger, Hon. C.A. Dutch, a Representative in Congress from the

State of Maryland, prepared statement of .................................................. 429

Saperstein, Rabbi David, director, Religious Action Center of Reform

Judaism, prepared statement of .................................................................. 382

Scott, Hon. Robert C., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia, prepared statement of ................................................................... 41

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Indiana:

Information concerning the Points of Light ............................................ 414

Snapshots of Compassion ......................................................................... 89

Page

VI

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Indiana—Continued

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

Woodson, Bob, president, National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 353

(1)

AUTHORIZING PRESIDENTIAL VISION: MAKING PERMANENT THE EFFORTS OF THE

FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVE

TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Souder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder, Gutknecht, Brown-Waite, Foxx,

Cummings, Watson, Owens, Davis and Ruppersberger.

Staff present: J. Marc Wheat, staff director and chief counsel;

Brandon Lerch and Naomi Seiler, professional staff members;

Michelle Gress, counsel; Malia Holst, clerk; Denise Wilson and

Richard Butcher, minority professional staff members; Cecelia Morton, minority clerk; and Christopher Davis, minority professional

staff member.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will come to order.

Good afternoon and thank you all for coming. In particular, I

welcome two distinguished colleagues on our first panel, Congressman Mark Green of Wisconsin and Congressman Bobby Scott of

Virginia. Sometimes we talk to each other on other issues other

than faith-based but the three of us have been engaging in this debate for some time and welcome you to this hearing today to talk

about this legislation and in general, the subject.

We have two additional panels of eminent witnesses representing

hundreds of years of total experience in service to others. I have

no doubt the collective compassion of our witnesses generates its

own electricity.

We have not held a hearing on the provision of community services since April 2004, but this is the subcommittee’s 11th hearing

on the topic. It is also our first legislative hearing.

Congressman Green’s proposal to make the White House Office

of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives permanent, H.R. 1054,

The Tools for Community Initiative Act, raises an important debate

that policymakers have confronted for decades. Mr. Green’s bill

leads us to ask, how do we organize the executive branch to promote and extend efficient and effective care to Americans in their

time of need.

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As for the White House, itself, it has been at least 15 years since

the West Wing dedicated office space to the cause of grassroots

service. President Bush’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative

has now been in existence for nearly 4 years. While providing for

much political controversy, the Initiative has also fostered significant advances in the way government reaches Americans in their

time of need.

If the aim of the Federal Government is to efficiently execute

Federal programs, then it follows that these programs should make

great efforts to collaborate with and assist those who are already

so engaged. Most fundamentally, this is the goal of the Faith-Based

Community Initiative.

The President’s initiative began in 2001 by documenting discrimination by Federal grant programs against faith-based groups.

Subsequently, President Bush issued Executive orders to ensure

equal treatment of all grant applicants, regardless of their religious

nature. Three additional Executive Orders No.’s 13198, 13280 and

13342, established 11 offices in the White House and 10 executive

branch agencies in order to realize the intent of the equal treatment orders. Their work has focused on cooperation of the Federal

bureaucracy, the grant programs themselves and on communicating these efforts to service organizations throughout the country.

H.R. 1054 seeks to make the White House Office of Faith-Based

and Community Initiative and its 10 agency offices permanent.

Such a proposal, however, compels us to investigate the experience

of previous White House Administrations and more simply, what

other entities currently exist with similar missions. Moreover, the

subcommittee will examine the successes and shortcomings of the

President’s faith-based and community initiatives to understand

what these experiences may tell us about how far we have come

and where we need to go.

The efforts of past Presidents clearly illustrate the Bush administration’s effort to represent a common sense addition to at least

a decade and a half of Presidential vision and leadership. In 1989,

President George H.W. Bush created the White House Points of

Light Office. After 4 years of national leadership in support of

grassroots service organizations, President Bush passed a fourpillared White House office to President Bill Clinton. From 1993 to

2001, Clinton consolidated this office and eventually added

AmeriCorps, and sent forth volunteer citizens to grassroots service

organizations his predecessor had sought to bolster.

At the beginning of President George W. Bush’s administration,

establishing a new White House office appears like a reasonable

next step. The White House Faith-Based and Community Initiative

effort adds to previous efforts by trying to instill fairness in the

Government grant system and ensure the rights of religious services groups.

While this is a logical and necessary step, it has not been entirely successful. For instance, in the areas of food stamps issuance

and providing drug treatment, groups intended to be treated equally have ironically been punished. More troubling perhaps is that

many potential programmatic successes have been blunted because

of little or no cooperation from State and local governments.

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As the subcommittee considers the merits of H.R. 1054, which

has been assigned to this subcommittee, Members may consider additional changes to the law so that Americans in their time of need

receive the greatest possible impact from the compassion of their

neighbors.

Already existing White House offices, the Faith-Based and Community Initiative, and State and local efforts are uncoordinated,

creating confusion and frustration amongst America’s grassroots

services groups. Creating a comprehensive compassion strategy

through executive branch reorganization may be necessary for the

long-term accomplishment of reaching our fellow Americans in

their time of need.

I would ask if any other Members have opening statements? Congressman Owens, Congresswoman Watson.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder and the text

of H.R. 1054 follow:]

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Mr. OWENS. I want to commend the chairman for holding this

hearing and I appreciate the effort that is moving forward to codify

a program that has been in existence now for more than 4 years

which has attracted my attention because of the fact that I was formerly commissioner of a community development agency in New

York which was responsible for the Community Action Program

under the Economic Opportunity Act. The Economic Opportunity

Act had at its center the community action programs which were

designed to reach down into the communities and allow local community organizations to run programs for the benefit of the poor

constituents.

Large numbers of churches participated in that program. Large

numbers of churches sponsored programs and did them very well.

During the time I was commissioner, we had a program which had

26 community corporations which had big contracts with subcontracts under them to other agencies. The total number of agencies under the umbrella of my agency was about 500 agencies providing programs all the way from recreation and after school care

programs to economic development programs, programs related to

housing development, a whole range of programs under the Economic Opportunity Act. That knowledge and whole set-up is part

of history but I assure you it is not lost. It is there in the archives

for everyone to see.

I applaud the effort by the Bush administration to reach down

to community groups; they have been starved for a long, long time.

That program was discredited because it didn’t have a proper

power base, in my opinion, to keep it going, but it was a good program nevertheless. For small amounts of money, we got a return

on programs run by local community groups, including church

groups.

Now we have the same thing which has returned in another

form. My great fear here is whereas the Economic Opportunity Act

and all the parts under it were codified, were authorized by Congress, had a clear set of criteria, clear procedures as to how you applied, and a fair doctrine in terms of the distribution of the funds.

The distribution started with identification of the areas in the

country that had the highest poverty rate.

So a poverty area was clearly defined, the indices of poverty were

clearly laid out and within that poverty area, choices were made

by local advisory groups in connection with a designated community action agency. As I said, my agency was an agency for New

York City. Each one of the 26 areas had a separate advisory body,

a community corporation board that made the decisions for that

local area.

I am saying all this because I think if you are passing out taxpayers’ money, there ought to be a clear criteria, ought to be a

clear set of priorities and my great concern about the present initiative, and I know there are many other concerns about the fact

that you are using religious groups and giving them the privilege

of selecting their personnel and a number of other issues which I

don’t belittle, they are important issues.

I am in favor of the program going forward and letting the Supreme Court decide the nature of those other issues because I

think it is long over due that we had some kind of program that

17

returned to offering some kind of resources to local communities.

Those resources ought to be distributed in a fair and open manner.

There ought not be the present situation where it is generally felt

in my community and large numbers of churches want to know

what can they do to become a part of it and want to know, do you

have to be a Republican, do you have to be one of the favored few,

do you have to be smiled upon by certain political operatives. It is

not clear what the answers are because the way the money has

been distributed up to now, there has been no criteria.

The information about the program was rather scant for the first

3 years, I think. Lots of written information is available now, you

can get information on the Web site now, but 2 or 3 years ago, I

couldn’t get the same information. It was all passed around in sort

of closed circles. Large amounts of money were distributed, $2 billion to $3 billion was distributed without codification of the kind

this bill proposes. It raises many issues.

There was an article in the New York Times that I think brings

it home and with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to

enter this article in the record for all who would like to understand

my concerns. This is an article that appeared in the New York

Times on May 3, 2005 and talked about ‘‘Hispanic Group Thrives

on Faith and Federal Aid’’ and focused on one particular group but

described how the whole program works.

At one point, this paragraph stuck out in my mind and I will

close with this paragraph. It said, ‘‘A few months before last November’s election, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao took Mr. Cortes’

advice, flying to Florida to give his organization $2.8 million for a

youth employment program. In 2003, when the group began a

housing initiative, a kick-off event attracted Mel Martinez, who at

that time was the Federal Housing Secretary, who is running for

Senator in Florida, and a $300,000 contract followed to counsel

homebuyers.

‘‘The current issue of Nueva Esperanza’s newsletter shows Senator Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and the Majority Leader,

handing over a $500,000 check from his charitable foundation for

the group’s work on preventing AIDS.’’ That last sentence relates

to a charitable contribution, it was not taxpayers’ money.

The other sums that were mentioned were taxpayers’ money.

What criteria was used? How do you qualify? Do you compete with

other people and why did it all come just before the election? These

are the kinds of questions I think we ought to ask and answer.

As we go forward to provide a program which I think is very

much needed, let us clean it up and make certain it is a program

where the taxpayers’ funds are made available on equal footing for

everyone and that they are targeted to priority areas where you

have the greatest need.

I ask unanimous consent to put this article into the record, New

York Times, May 3, 2005.

Mr. SOUDER. I have unanimous consent that we will include that.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding

this hearing. I want to say from the very outset, that I am the son

of two preachers, my mother and father, so these comments are

made with a full appreciation for church. I am also one who, as a

lawyer and before coming to the Congress, represented a lot of

churches.

Today we begin the second hearing on faith-based program activity, specifically on H.R. 1054, legislation introduced by Representative Green to establish the Office of Faith-Based and Community

Initiatives in the Executive Office of the President. The first hearing on H.R. 1054 was held last Tuesday, June 14 before the Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census.

H.R. 1054 would make permanent the Faith-Based Office within

the White House and 10 agency offices. It would also express a

sense of the Congress regarding the rules which should guide participation of faith-based organizations in Federal social service programs.

Let me be very clear. I do not object to the Federal Government

finding ways to strengthen ties to faith-based organizations. I get

very upset when this discussion comes up and some folk try to

make it appear that there are Members of Congress that actually

have something against faith-based organizations doing public type

work. Nothing could be further from the truth. I would imagine if

you polled the Congress, probably 99 percent of us now support the

work that faith-based organizations have done and support them as

long as the taxpayer dollar is being spent effectively and efficiently,

and that those dollars are not used to discriminate against folks.

Faith-based, non-profit and community-based organizations have

long been involved in addressing the needs of families, individuals

and communities. Churches and other faith-based organizations in

my congressional district continue to answer the call of those in

distress, in need of a place to rest and a refuge away from drugs,

addictions and other ills.

To support such efforts, we should encourage the good works of

good people to help those who cannot help themselves. While encouraging good works, we need to carefully scrutinize and review

services provided by faith-based organizations. We need to know

the extent of services provided; we need to know who is and who

is not being served; and we need to know if the services work,

again, going back to effectiveness and efficiency.

Are they successful? The success of these programs remains an

important issue to be determined. In September 2002, the Government Accountability Office released a report that I requested on

charitable choice. The report found there is no data to support the

opinion that faith-based organizations service providers perform as

well as or better than others. It is 2005 and we still have no way

to measure success of a faith-based program.

I also have serious concerns regarding the administration’s approach to faith-based initiatives. In no uncertain terms, I object to

the use of Federal funds to support religious discrimination. Religious discrimination in hiring for programs funded by the Federal

Government is simply wrong.

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It is equally objectionable for religious organizations to take Federal money, my money, my constituents’ tax dollars, and turn away

people because they do not subscribe to a particular religion or

faith. I object to the entities receiving Federal funds if they cannot

separate their religious activities from their secular activities or

services. I object to the use of Federal funds to proselytize. I object

to relaxing State licensing and certification standards for substance

abuse counselors.

The poorest and least served deserve to receive the best treatment available in their time of need. They must not be used as

guinea pigs by unlicensed professionals or subject to unproven

methods. That is not to say that faith-based programs do not work.

It is just that they should be to standards and we must be able to

measure them.

Finally, I would object to diverting scarce funding from established public and non-profit organizations. Just recently, there was

a conference of ministers where as we debated and were concerned,

Mr. Chairman, about No Child Left Behind not having enough

money, there comes a minister who was in charge of an organization telling preachers how they can get No Child Left Behind

money. He has a business apparently doing that. I have said it before and I will say it again, this diversion will only serve to undermine current programs and create a smokescreen by seeming to do

more with less.

I am also concerned that as we take dollars and give them to

faith-based organizations, are we then taking $10 or more away for

things that are done the way they have been done in the past, in

other words, by traditional organizations.

Taking away scarce Federal resources from current providers is

a very real problem that can be devastating. This was recently

highlighted in an article which appeared in the May 17, 2005 edition of the Washington Post entitled, ‘‘Two Fronts in the War on

Poverty: Bush seeks more aid for church groups; others face uncertainty.’’ The paper read as follows: ‘‘Here in Baltimore,’’ and by the

way, in my district around the corner from my house, a city noted

for its unpretentious charm but also its deep social problems, ‘‘the

Federal shift away from traditional community development programs has generated widespread uncertainty. While the anti-poverty groups are confronted with an uncertain future, church-based

organizations that often provide similar services but often have less

experience are flourishing.’’

Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank you again for holding this hearing. We need continued examination of the President’s approach to

faith-based initiatives and more specifically, whether we really

need to establish a permanent Faith-Based Office within the Executive Office of the President.

With that said, we need to determine what works and find ways

to better assess the participation of faith-based organizations in

Federal social service programs. The American people have entrusted us in good faith to be responsible stewards with their hardearned tax dollars. This demands that federally supported social

programs, whether faith-based or secular in their orientation, be effective and efficient in carrying out their mission.

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In the midst of that examination, let us also not forget our obligation to the principles of religious tolerance and non-discrimination. The struggle against discrimination and religious intolerance

unfortunately remains with us. Even in this new century so rich

with opportunity to right the wrongs of our past, we must ensure

that H.R. 1054 is not a step in the wrong direction.

I want to take a moment to thank Mr. Scott for addressing this

issue so many times all over the country and just trying to make

sure that all are clear as to what these faith-based initiatives really

mean.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Any other Member wishing to make an opening

statement? Congresswoman Watson.

Ms. WATSON. I want to add my thanks to those of the others for

the Chair bringing this most timely issue up for a committee hearing.

I, like my colleagues, think that services in the community ought

to be provided through those who provide them best and who show

results. Believe me, in a district like mine, I have thousands of

churches that do have programs, Head Start programs, after school

programs, rehab programs, etc. I think they are entitled to Federal

funds as well.

Here is where I draw the line. I feel that unless we very clearly

state in the provisions and the regulations state that any group receiving Federal funds through a faith-based and community initiative cannot discriminate as far as color, creed, religion or sexuality.

I believe if we are using public dollars, those are dollars from taxpayers, that we have to make it very clear because why should not

someone who does not believe in religion but has a tremendous

need be restricted from going in to a program if it is funded by Federal dollars. These are issues we have to think about, reflect on

and come up with a fair policy.

I have another concern too. That is, I know that there is going

to be proselytizing on the side. You walk into a facility and it is

a Southern Baptist, so on and so forth, why would they not want

to encourage the young people to take a serious look at their

preachings? I am a Catholic. I am the granddaughter of someone

who was in the convent for 13 years. Obviously, she came out.

[Laughter.]

They do an excellent job of educating children. My grandmother

did that in the home. There is never a time there is not a relationship to their religious principles, dogmas and beliefs.

So we have to analyze, we have to take an in-depth look at what

we put into law, what policies we make when it comes to faithbased funding for those programs out there that are so direly needed.

I am very appreciative, Mr. Chair, that we have this opportunity

to hear from our presenters, to raise the questions and to discuss

this program.

Thank you, so much.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Gutknecht.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I apologize, I was not going to say anything but I want to attach

myself to remarks that were just made at least in part because the

point was made that really needs to be reminded here and that is,

this is not so much a debate about how much is going to be spent;

it is a debate about who gets to do the spending and who can do

it the most efficiently.

I think we can have this discussion about discrimination, what

level of discrimination is acceptable but I think we also have to understand there is going to be a certain level of discrimination. We

discriminate every day and I don’t think we should force organizations, let me say in my case, I don’t think we should force Catholic

schools to hire people who are anti-Catholic. At some point there

30

is some level of common sense that we have to use and that could

be true of any organization.

I also want to share a quick story that I heard from John Fund

who is an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal. He used this

analogy in front of an audience once and I have stolen this, and

I try to give him credit for it.

He asked people to visualize that you go home from this meeting

today and you open your mail and there is a letter there from an

attorney’s office from a long way away. You open up that letter and

realize you have been named an heir to an enormous fortune, that

you didn’t even know existed.

All of a sudden you are wealthy beyond your wildest dreams and

you think about that and think, I would like to do something to

help people less well off than I, I would like to do something to

help my fellow human beings. You think about that because this

is a windfall and you would like to donate a significant portion of

this. You think about that for a while and then he asked the audience, how many of you, the first thing you thought was, I know,

I will give the money to a Federal program and you can almost

hear snickers in the audience because we all know that if you really want to help people who are down and out, probably the least

efficient thing you can do is run it through a Federal bureaucracy.

So the idea here, is there a way that we can use some of those

institutions that are in the neighborhoods, that are in the communities, that are doing good things every day and they are doing it

with very little overhead. They are doing it not because it is a job,

but because it is a mission.

I don’t know whether this can succeed. To be really blunt, I am

not sure you can co-mingle Federal programs and the charitable instincts that most Americans have, but I think it is worth a try. I

hope we don’t all find our own little petty reasons to make certain

that it doesn’t succeed. Whether we know it or not, there are literally millions of Americans out there in all kinds of cities, towns

and communities all around who are counting on these kinds of

programs, and counting on religious leaders to help change their

lives and change their futures.

This is a great experiment. We are going to find out if it can

work.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I will be brief and associate myself with some of the remarks already made by other members of the subcommittee.

Let me commend and congratulate both you and Mr. Cummings

for the tremendous work that this subcommittee does. I know you

have been all over the country holding hearings. I don’t know any

other subcommittee that has as much work activity as I have seen

generated in this one. I simply want to appreciate the leadership

that both of you have displayed as we wrestle with some of the

toughest issues, questions and problems facing our country.

I come from a strong faith tradition like many other Members of

the Congress. As a matter of fact, the church in my community is

the primary provider of services, Catholic Charities, Catholic hospitals, Lutheran Family Services, Baptist College, Methodists for

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Church Renewal. You could go on and on and on. That has been

tradition in many communities throughout the country.

It is somewhat difficult to see what it is we are talking about

changing. Most of those institutions apply for a not-for-profit chart,

get themselves a 501(c)(3) tax exemption and they go ahead and

run programs. There are some who argue about the provision of

services and whether or not certain activities ought to be licensed

or codified and even though I am a psychologist, I can attest to the

fact that I have seen faith activities that I thought were more successful in helping people rid themselves of substance abuse or alcoholism, so I have no problem whatsoever with the methodology,

with the concept or the structure.

I do believe that we are walking on shaky ground when we create opportunities and encourage institutions that are supposed to

be the best in our land to discriminate against other people because

they may not be the same in terms of their affirmation of faith. As

a matter of fact, I recall one of the hearings suggesting if there was

an institution that had some services to provide, that I could not

work at because I did not profess that same kind of religious faith,

then I don’t want the service either.

I would rather that it go somewhere else. In the street, we call

that help the bear. If I can’t work there and I have all the credential, I meet all the requirements other than the fact that I don’t

express the same faith, to be denied that opportunity, then I would

just as soon be denied the service.

I hope as we move this discussion and as we codify our institutionalize the concept of faith-based realities, that we not create a

structure that encourages what should be the best institutions

amongst us to become the worst institutions amongst us.

I thank the witnesses for coming to testify and certainly for the

work they have done on this initiative. I applaud Representative

Scott who has been passionate relative to the position that I hold.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and yield back the balance of my

time.

Mr. SOUDER. Congresswoman Brown-Waite.

Ms. BROWN-WAITE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to express my appreciation for your holding this hearing

to bring our attention to the current state of and some of the obstacles before the President’s Faith-Based Initiative.

As you know, our country has a long tradition of assisting individuals, families and communities that have not fully shared in

America’s prosperity. I am very proud of this heritage as are so

many Members of Congress and feel the burden of carrying on the

noble tradition.

However, the Federal Government has the ability to better utilize its country’s resources through hundreds of faith-based and

community organizations to deliver effective care and assistance to

those in dire need. In the past, the Federal Government has too

often ignored or impeded the efforts of faith-based and community

organizations through bureaucratic red tape and superficial obstacles, the Federal Government has hindered the delivery of services

very often to communities in need. I applaud the efforts of the

White House Office and the Centers for Faith-Based Initiatives

that are working to support these essential organizations.

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Let me tell you about a faith-based organization back home in

my district. It is known as Jericho Road Ministries. I have been

there, I have talked with the individuals who are served by this

wonderful organization. It is a rescue mission designed to provide

up to 3 nights monthly, emergency shelter to homeless men and

women in central Florida. Jericho Ministries also provides a 36-

week rehabilitation program designed to help men reclaim their

lives from the despair of homelessness and/or drug or alcohol addiction. This single organization has succeeded where government previously has failed by reforming drug addicts and transforming

them into productive citizens.

Let me tell you a brief story about a young man I met there. His

name is Keith. Keith came to Jericho Road Ministries as a drug

abuser without a job or a home, and certainly without hope. Today,

after completing their rehabilitation program, he has worked his

way up in just 3 short years to be the area manager of a major retail store. Guess what? On his days off, he comes back to Jericho

Road Ministries and actually helps to counsel and inspire men

seeking to reclaim their lives.

I represent this wonderful organization and could tell you about

so many others in the community that the community supports. I

agree with Mr. Gutknecht, when you think about helping an organization that is worthwhile in your area, you don’t say, I am going

to strike a check to the Federal or State Government but rather to

one of those organizations out there that you know and trust, and

that has proven itself in the community.

I certainly look forward to hearing the testimony of the distinguished panelists today so that we can join in our efforts in helping

to continue the process of the faith-based and community organizations.

I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank everybody for their statements. It is good

to know we all agree.

First, I want to ask unanimous consent that all Members have

5 legislative days to submit written statements and questions for

the hearing record and that any answers to written questions provided by the witnesses will also be included in the record. Without

objection, so ordered.

I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents and

other materials referred to by Members such as Mr. Owens did earlier may be included in the hearing record and that all Members

be permitted to revise and extend their remarks. Without objection,

so ordered.

Before we hear the first panel, I would like to ask unanimous

consent that we also have some additional materials to insert that

staff has prepared.

Our first panel consists of the Honorable Mark Green, a Member

of the Congress from Wisconsin and the Honorable Robert Scott, a

Member of Congress from Virginia.

It is our standard practice to ask witnesses to testify under oath.

However, because Members of Congress have already taken an

oath upon entering the House of Representatives, it is not necessary to repeat that here.

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First, we would like to welcome Congressman Green. Thank you

for joining us. You are recognized for 5 minutes to talk about the

general subject of faith-based and also your particular bill that you

have introduced.

STATEMENTS OF HON. MARK GREEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN; AND HON.

ROBERT C. SCOTT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM

THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

STATEMENT OF HON. MARK GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today.

The opening statements have all been very eloquent and I think

in many ways laid out the issues that all of us must explore.

I would like to talk briefly about the implementation of the

Faith-Based Initiative and our plans to make its principles permanent. When President Bush issued his Executive orders to establish

the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, he said

‘‘Faith-based and other community organizations are indispensable

in meeting the needs of poor Americans and distressed neighborhoods. Government cannot be replaced by such organizations, but

it can and should welcome them as partners.’’ I agree and I believe

most Americans do as well.

This community-governmental-organizational partnership is a

critical part of helping our communities find tools to deal with the

problems that society faces. While in some ways this partnership

has not developed as quickly as it could or should, great progress

has been made on a number of fronts. In order to build on this success, we need to continue reaching out to community groups trying

to help our citizens who need it the most.

Throughout history, faith-based organizations have shown that

they understand the problems their communities are facing. After

all, of course, they have relationships with the people they serve.

They view those in need not as clients, but as neighbors. There are

programs like Rawhide Boys Ranch in Waupaca County, WI, an organization that helps troubled boys straighten out their lives or

Holy Redeemer in Milwaukee, WI, a church that helps feed the

hungry and find shelter for the homeless. These are organizations

that reach out to those in need, not in order to further a religious

ideology but because their mission, quite simply, is to help their

neighbors.

Unfortunately, faith-based groups have been unnecessarily restricted from serving the public as well as they could because of the

beliefs that they hold. I say unnecessarily because as long as these

organizations open their doors to everyone and do not require participation in their religious operations, they can and should be allowed to participate in Federal grant programs. Instead of closing

doors to these groups, we should open them wider so that more

people have additional opportunities to receive services and improve their lives.

We must honor and follow the first amendment to the Constitution when it says, ‘‘Government shall not establish a religion,’’ but

that same amendment also requires us to honor ‘‘religious liberty’’

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and that means allowing these groups to both practice their faith

and serve their fellow Americans.

The Bush administration has tried to accomplish this through its

Executive orders creating the White House Office of Faith-Based

and Community Initiatives. The office and its liaisons and various

agencies have the tools and relationships to break down barriers

that hold these groups back unnecessarily. While more needs to be

done, this Initiative has already helped people fight addiction, stop

youth violence, find a home, stay out of prison and manage diseases like AIDS.

Another way the administration has helped is by creating the

Compassionate Capital Fund. Since its launch 3 years ago, it has

provided $99.5 million in grants to 197 organizations and subgrants to over 1,700 grassroots organizations; provided nearly $100

million for the Access to Recovery Program; provided new grant

money to increase mentors for children of prisoners by 33,000 people. Overall, the office has increased grants to faith-based organizations by 20 percent.

This is excellent work that we must continue to buildupon. Most

importantly, we need to ensure stability within the program from

one administration to the next. Furthermore, we must make sure

that our offices are coordinating with their State liaisons to ensure

that every State understands the opportunities that are available

to them.

Incidentally, many States are beginning to recognize the value of

State faith-based offices. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, a

Democrat, created a State Office of Community and Faith-Based

Initiatives recently that will enlist religious organizations to recruit

mentors for foster children, provide lower cost prescription drugs

and fight substance abuse.

Unfortunately, many States haven’t followed Michigan’s example.

Just over 25 States have created offices or established State liaisons to work with the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. With increasing needs and budget concerns, States need

these partnerships to help them maximize our communities to meet

community needs.

There is little doubt that some groups will continue to attack

faith-based partnerships and fight any Government partnership

with any group that has religious connections. Governor Granholm

responded to such criticism when she said, ‘‘This is not about a

particular faith; this is about serving the citizens in the most effective way.’’ Well said. This initiative is about serving people in the

most effective way.

We must embrace the work these organizations can do and work

with them and the States to help meet our community and social

challenges. With this initiative, we are finding mentors of kids in

need, homes for the homeless, help for those with AIDS and alternatives to gains. No one should stand in the way of organizations

that are responsibly trying to help these kids just because they

happen to be faith-based.

I am currently developing legislation that guarantees the FaithBased Initiative will continue in the years ahead and that every organization that wants to help is able to. I believe we must show

that government is committed to helping our citizens by making

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the Faith-Based Initiative a statutory feature to ensure equal

treatment for all. This long term commitment provides critical stability to community groups and lets them know this is not just a

passing government enterprise that will abruptly end with a new

President.

It also shows in statute what they can do consistent with the law

and what they cannot do. There is more that the leaders of the

Faith-Based Initiative have to do to better help those in need but

they have done some great work to date. It is my hope this legislation will begin a larger debate about what new steps should be

taken to help facilitate and foster the efforts of the Government

and our Nation’s benevolent service organizations.

Again, I appreciate your holding this hearing and for your time

and consideration.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark Green follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Scott.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT C. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you for allowing me to testify today.

I believe strongly that religious organizations can, they do and

they should play an important and positive role in meeting our Nation’s social welfare needs. It has already been pointed out that

many faith-based organizations participate in Government contracts. The Catholic Charities gets about $1 billion a year and has

way before any faith-based initiative, so we are not talking about

allowing faith-based organizations to participate; they already do.

There is a right and wrong way for Government to partner with

religious organizations. So before we pass any legislation making

permanent a faith-based and community initiative, we must ask

and receive clear answers to the question of how does this initiative

change present law.

It is one thing to just recite the good parts of the present law,

but we should not camouflage what the changes are. And we are

not fighting faith-based participation; we are talking about the

changes that are being proposed.

To begin with, there are four issues we have to directly address

and we need some straight answers to. First, does this initiative

allow Government to directly fund a house of worship? Two, does

the initiative permit a program using Federal funds to proselytize

during the Government-funded program? Three, does the initiative

change the law to permit discrimination in employment with Federal funds? Four, does the initiative change present law to permit

the Government to award funds in a manner that displays favoritism to one particular religion over another religion or secular organization objectively more qualified to do the job? Until we get answers to those questions, we shouldn’t be making anything permanent.

Let me go into those in more detail. First, the direct funding of

a house of worship. Directly funding religious organizations is a

Constitutional quagmire. My full remarks go into that in detail.

But also, not only from a Constitutional point of view but a policy

perspective, it has problems because direct funding indicates we

might be regulating the churches, we might be subjecting the

churches to Government scrutiny and audits, and we may undermine the vitality of churches and the community members who

may be less inclined to dig a little deeper to pay for the services.

Finally, it threatens interfaith peace by pitting one group against

another. What happens when one faith beats out another on a 4–

3 vote? Just how ugly is the next political campaign going to look?

Second, on proselytization, I think there is a clear consensus that

you should not proselytize during the Government-funded program

whether that proselytization is paid for or not with Government

funds. We ought to make it clear that you can get the full benefit

of the Government program without being proselytized and we

should make that clear.

On employment discrimination, we have to be clear as to how the

faith-based initiative changes present law. Since 1941, we have had

a policy of no discrimination with Federal money. That was made

clear 40 years ago in the 1960’s, no discrimination with Federal

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money. We have to also be clear that when you talk about religious

discrimination, if you get a pass on religious discrimination, racial

discrimination is essentially unenforceable.

Finally, we are suggesting a profound change in civil rights law.

For the last 40 years, when an employer has a problem hiring the

best person because of race or religion, the employer had a problem

because the weight of the Federal Government is on the side of the

victim of discrimination trying to get a job. Here we have a change

in Government posture where they are now protecting not the victim of discrimination but trying to protect some right to discriminate.

We prohibit discrimination in employment because we have

found that it is morally reprehensible to have someone apply for a

job and be turned down just because of race or religion. If we allow

discrimination in Federal contracts, we certainly lose our moral authority to impose racial and religious discrimination laws on individuals.

I take this personally because anybody my age who has been discriminated against, not being able to eat at the lunch counter, not

being able to go to certain movies, getting stuck in the back of the

bus, so when somebody suggests what is the problem with Catholics hiring Catholics or Whites hiring Whites or anything like that,

I take it personally.

If someone is going to change the law and allow this discrimination, I just want to let them know that we are not going to be silent

as they try to change those laws.

On the issue of favoritism and objective merit, right now faithbased organizations have the right to apply and compete. Does this

or does it not allow favoritism for one religion over another? If you

have another religious group and a secular group with objectively

more qualified proposals, can you give favoritism to another organization or not?

Finally, let me say a quick word about vouchers. Many of the

Constitutional issues that apply to direct funding do not apply to

vouchers but you do have governance problems, one of which is it

is virtually impossible to guarantee the availability of services

where people with vouchers are coming and going and quality control is virtually impossible to apply.

Whatever the problems churches may have in getting Federal

grants, all small organizations have so there may be some common

ground on providing technical assistance, community action agencies or other ways to provide assistance to small groups trying to

get Federal contracts, but they should not be able to discriminate

as they do it.

We are not talking about expanding the number of people that

can get contracts. Any organization that can sponsor a program

under this faith-based initiative could do it anyway if it agreed not

to discriminate in employment.

Again, I want to focus the attention on the four questions I

asked: can you directly fund a church; can you proselytize during

a program; what is the deal on discrimination; and favoritism. And

how does this change present law because right now, faith-based

organizations can and do apply for Federal grants and sponsor Federal programs and they do it like everyone else—they use the

40

money for which it was appropriated and don’t discriminate in employment.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Robert C. Scott follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you for your testimony.

If we can agree to disagree on some of fundamental characterizations, I believe that your statement proposes to discriminate

against those who would practice a consistent faith and whether

they should be eligible for Government grants may be another

question. We will debate that. I believe for you to say a church

must hire somebody who disagrees with that church in effect says

a church that applies a consistent philosophy through their organization is not eligible, is not welcome to participate in antipoverty

programs.

I understand that position; we have argued that many times on

the House floor, many times in the Education Committee, you guys

argue in the Judiciary Committee, but I wanted to focus very particularly on the legislation today and first ask Mr. Green a technical question.

It looks to me like in the Sense of Congress Section, Section 7,

you would address some of the questions that Mr. Scott raised, but

fundamentally your bill tries to put this in as a directorate. It

would have to be debated as we went through the legislative process. Is that correct?

Mr. GREEN. You are correct. In the opening remarks of my esteemed colleague and some of the opening statement, references

were made to profound changes in current law. That is not what

we are doing here. We have the advantage of having had the Executive orders in place now for several years as the gentleman mentioned, and we have a history or track record. My goal with this

legislation is largely to make sure it does not expire.

A lot of these organizations that are hoping to be able to utilize

Federal funds to help lift lives and heal communities are now looking at the possibility that it may all go away in 3 to 31⁄2 years’

time. I hope to provide some stability and predictability.

Second, the other important reason for putting this into statute

and codifying it is to create clear guidelines on what they cannot

do, which I think is as important as anything. A number of Members have rightly raised concerns. I think the best way to address

those concerns is to spell them out, as has been done in the Executive order but now give it the force of statute so it is there for everyone to see what an organization can do and more importantly,

what it cannot and should not do.

Mr. SOUDER. In your opinion, in the Sense of Congress Section

of this bill, Section 7, does this freeze the Executive orders or

would a new President be able to issue other Executive orders

within this framework?

Mr. GREEN. I don’t know the answer to that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Because in many of these, we deal with it bill by

bill. For example, it may come up in the Head Start bill, it is part

of welfare reform and the question is whether that will be continued. I think one of the fundamental questions we need to work

through in your bill, because I see the arguments for both from our

perspective codifying in the law more generally and on the other

hand, would this apply to programs we have never legislated on?

How do we work through the actual implementation?

I wanted to ask this of Mr. Scott. Ironically, one of the problems

we have right now is it is fine to say we can’t move this bill until

49

we get some answers from the administration. The administration

refuses to testify. The reason they refuse to testify is because they

say right now the office is under the White House directly, therefore, it is pre-decisional information. They are not subject to the

Congress, that we can bring people forward from the different

agencies but the different agencies with pressures from OMB and

from the White House directly in many cases don’t actually control

the programs.

I find myself in a very ironic position. Personal friends with people who are administering the program, supportive of a particular

program, but basically I have a Constitutional question right now.

If programs are going to be directed directly out of the White

House and by OMB, should there not be congressional oversight

even if I happen to agree with them? Certainly I believe there

should be congressional oversight should the White House change

parties and then we are doing oversight but I am trying to be consistent enough to say I believe it ought to happen regardless of who

is in charge, even if I like what is going on.

Do you have a fundamental opposition to what Mr. Green is trying to do by codifying this so we can actually get oversight?

Mr. SCOTT. You have asked a lot of different questions. One is

how you get the prohibition against discrimination, where that

came from, particularly in light of the exemption under Title 7. The

prohibition against discrimination has been kind of a compilation

of things but the most direct prohibition against discrimination has

been in President Johnson’s 1965 Executive order which expanded

Executive orders going back since 1941.

Mr. SOUDER. Can I clarify what my comment was? In Congressman Green’s bill in Title 7 under ‘‘Sense of Congress,’’ things related to discrimination. The question is, this bill could theoretically be

done two different ways. It could have the first six sections which

look to me like they are mostly making the office permanent and

then Section 7 which may or may not since it is the sense of Congress, have the effect of codifying the Executive orders. If we did

that, you would have a problem with the bill?

Mr. SCOTT. Yes, I would have a real problem because it depends

on which Executive order you codify. If you codify Johnson’s Executive order, then that would be fine. President Bush, as you indicated, signed another Executive order which allowed discrimination. Some bills have specific prohibitions against discrimination.

You mentioned Head Start and some others which have specific

prohibitions against discrimination. You can’t change statute with

an Executive order. So if you allow discrimination in all programs,

by statute, then you are right. You could not change that by Executive order.

It is interesting you mentioned it was under the White House

and not under anybody’s authority. It asks the question: why are

these programs in the White House and not in the various agencies

if you are funding certain programs? The agencies fund programs

the old-fashioned way. You fund the best program by objective

standards. If that is not what you are doing, what are you doing?

Is it religious discrimination, is it favoritism, is it politics or what?

Why is this thing run out of the White House? If it is a health proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:44 Oct 28, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23829.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gram, why isn’t it run out of Health? If it is a housing program,

why isn’t it run out of Housing? Those are the real questions.

In response to another question you asked, why should someone

of one religion have to work with somebody of another religion,

whatever you think about it, I thought we had decided that in the

1960’s where whether you like to or not, whether you are devoutly

religious or not, even with your own private money, we have decided that religious discrimination was so odious that we decided

it ought to be illegal. In the 1960’s, we had the votes.

There is obviously a reconsideration of whether or not people

ought to have to work with people of different religions and we are

revisiting the question.

Mr. SOUDER. I was trying to avoid the argument but as you know

full well, we have a difference of opinion on the interpretation of

the 1964 Civil Rights Act as it relates to religious discrimination,

the courts have not been consistent in how they have interpreted

this and that is why we have had to do all sorts of things.

Mr. SCOTT. The courts have been consistent.

Mr. SOUDER. Oh, no. They have said that Catholic schools can

get money for buses; they said Catholic schools can get money for

computers even if they hire only Catholics. As you correctly pointed

out in the vouchers, in the vouchers it is even more confusing.

There it is more of a management question, they allow the vouchers but even in some direct funding, they allow discrimination to

occur.

Mr. SCOTT. You mentioned discrimination. Title 7 gives them the

right to discriminate. The Free Exercise Clause gives them the

right to discriminate. When you are dealing with Federal money

and the right to discriminate, President Johnson’s Executive order

has been the law of the land since 1965. If you are selling rifles

to the Defense Department, if you discriminate in your manufacturing process, whether or not they are the best and cheapest rifles, the Defense Department won’t buy them from you.

Mr. SOUDER. I am sure we will hear more and we will continue

to argue that question.

Let me clarify because I don’t agree with your interpretation. We

have argued this on the floor and will continue to argue but the

way I understood what you said was in effect, even if it wasn’t codified in this bill, even if our view was not put in, you would have

a philosophical problem with a codified White House, Office of

Faith-Based Initiative because you think it ought to be run inside

each agency as a health program and so on?

Mr. SCOTT. I think you ought to answer some questions so everybody knows what is going on. I have asked four questions and you

can’t get an answer to those questions.

Mr. SOUDER. Because it isn’t codified?

Mr. SCOTT. I don’t know why you can’t get an answer. We have

been struggling and it took us about 3 years to get an answer to

the question, can you discriminate and you got all kinds of confusing, contradictory, evasive kinds of answers and finally after we

had some rifle shot amendments that said no, you can’t discriminate, then people had to kind of acknowledge I guess that is what

is going on. You finally got an answer to that question but are

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there favorites? Can you practice favoritism of one religion over another? If not, what are we talking about?

Mr. SOUDER. Whether this committee moves ahead with the bill

or not and this is a challenge because we are having this with

ONDCP too because in our ONDCP reauthorization, we had some

similar debates because technically the Drug Czar is under the Office of the White House but it has been a codified office, so they

have to respond. Can this bill be drafted where we could either put

in certain things or can the bill be drafted such that there is an

office that as a practical matter, yes, the Health, Education, Housing, all the different departments have an office of Faith-Based and

the funding runs through that.

Everybody knows under every modern President, it doesn’t matter whether it is a Democrat or Republican, that OMB is making

a lot of the day-to-day decision type of input or you can lose your

position, which is hard enough to oversee but we also know that

in every White House, you have advisors to the President. The

question is how much do those advisors to the President work as

advisors to the President versus management, kind of line function? Is it a dotted line or a direct line that goes over to the different agencies?

To the degree that this office works as a more filled in direct line

as opposed to a dotted line, it ought to have more congressional

oversight. The question is, should we be moving a bill that tries to

move it in that direction regardless of how the wording is?

Mr. Green and then I will yield.

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, with this legislation, we simply took

what we thought was the path of least resistance in terms of drafting it. We are open to changes. There is nothing magic about the

terminology, the actual language. The goal here is to ensure the

Faith-Based Initiative, forget the office, I view it as something separate, the Faith-Based Initiative continues on.

I recognize that Presidents are going to always want to implement and put things into practice in their own way in terms of

where they put the offices and such. What we wish to codify are

the principles of the Faith-Based Initiative. That, to me, is more

important than the office and where that office is located, whether

it is in the White House or in individual agencies. It is principles

we hope to codify and certainly we are open to changes in this legislation and modifications.

Mr. SCOTT. Let me say briefly that is what we are trying to figure out, what principles we are trying to codify, the four questions,

and we ought to talk about how this changes present law. Reciting

the good parts of present law, that is nice but how will this bill

change present law by instituting some policy, and then can you directly fund a church, can you proselytize during the program, can

you discriminate and are we talking about favoritism? Get a

straight answer to those questions, then we will know what we are

talking about.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to start with the last question Mr. Scott

asked, the question of favoritism. Mr. Green, do you think faithbased organizations have been discriminated against in the past?

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Mr. Scott says these organizations like Catholic Charities and some

others have gotten all kinds of money. I am trying to figure out

whether it is your belief that the system that has been used, however Catholic Charities and others get their moneys, is there something wrong with that system?

Mr. GREEN. First off, I guess I would disagree with the characterization that these organizations are getting money. Under the

Faith-Based Initiative, there are pretty strict standards and accountability for how that money is spent. This is money that

doesn’t belong to an organization, nor does it belong to a Federal

agency. This is money obviously that belongs to those in need,

those who are being served.

Second, I think the problem has been not so much with the

Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services of the world, those

are large organizations, they have substantial staff to help them

wade through the myriad of regulations and paperwork, bureaucracy and red tape that any organization has to go through.

The real target for the Faith-Based Initiative has been those

smaller organizations that don’t have those kinds of resources or

the same ability to wade through the regulations and barriers.

That is what we are hoping the Faith-Based Initiative will help,

that we will cause small community and faith-based organizations

around the country to take a look at what is being done, what

Catholic Charities may be doing, a Rawhide or an Urban Help and

say to themselves, that need exists in my community and we can

do that. We don’t know how to, where can we turn to for help and

guidance? Who can assist us through this process? Who can help

us out?

That is the idea to me behind the Faith-Based Initiative, creating

a resource that these organizations can go to. Just as importantly

as helping them affirmatively be able to serve those in need, it is

absolutely as important to let them know what it is they cannot do,

what those rules and restrictions are so they don’t cross the lines

that many have raised and should be raised. That is part of what

the Faith-Based Initiative will do as well, show them what they

cannot do.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So one aspect of it would be more or less counseling, is that what you are saying?

Mr. GREEN. Counseling, predictability, something that is there

for them to be able to take a look so they understand.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I didn’t mean to imply in any way they were getting money for themselves. I know the money is being used to carry

out wonderful purposes. On one hand, there are those who really

want to see these organizations do their thing and do these wonderful things but at the same time, can you understand the sensitivity with regard to discrimination.

I forget how Mr. Scott said it but there are many people, and our

country is becoming more and more diverse every second, who have

been discriminated against and who have been held back big time.

Not only were they held back but their mothers, grandmothers,

grandfathers, great grandfathers were held back because of discrimination. Can you understand that whenever discrimination

raises its head, there are a lot of people who will get upset about

it because they know what it feels like. I am just curious.

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Mr. GREEN. Absolutely. First, let me say that I think part of

reaching out to the community of faith, many of these organizations in neighborhoods that have specific needs and very special

needs reaching out to them I think will ensure the services we deliver to these neighborhoods will be as effective as possible. I think

we will do a better job in reaching out to heal neighborhoods and

to work with those in need.

Second, again I come back to it, that is why I think it is so very

important for us to spell out the rules for what cannot be done, so

there isn’t discrimination. I think that is very important indeed.

Third, I think an important point, there is also the concept of religious freedom and freedom of expression, and I am Catholic. To

say that my church, the Catholic church, and I am not suggesting

you are saying this, but is not able to participate in the wonderful

work that Catholic Charities does because it is a male-only priesthood, none of us are suggesting that obviously. We recognize that

there are concepts of religious freedom here, that the Constitution

provides we must not discriminate on religious grounds. It also provides freedom of religious expression.

It is a sensitive area and an area where we have to tread carefully and it is an area where I think we have an obligation to all

Americans to make sure we are very specific in those guidelines so

that we don’t creep into what you have rightly pointed out is a fear

in this country, a well founded fear in too many places.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Scott.

Mr. SCOTT. Very briefly. When you suggest there is no suggestion

that any of this discussion has anything to do with what religious

organizations do with their own money, the Catholic Church can do

what it wants to, hire who it wants for a priest. That is not on the

table for discussion. The question is whether or not they can participate in a federally funded program and take the Federal money

and only hire men or only hire Catholics and deny employment opportunities with the Federal money, not with the church money,

continue doing what they want with the church money, can they

deny employment opportunities to people because of religion? As I

indicated, if you have to pass on religion, you cannot enforce racial

discrimination laws.

When you talk about the small organizations, the small churches, those problems in dealing with Federal contracts apply to small

churches, apply to small organizations, the crime watch organization, all these other unincorporated associations, they are going to

have problems dealing with the paperwork of a Federal grant.

Maybe we need some technical assistance or maybe we need to use

the CAP agencies, community action agencies, to help administer

the money so they can perform their good work but not have to do

all of the paperwork.

Again, I go back to the point on favoritism. How does this change

present law? Are we going to allow organizations to be favored over

more qualified organizations because we favor that religion or not?

How does it change present law and the question of favoritism? Remember, any program that can get funded under the Faith-Based

Initiative could be funded anyway if you agree not to discriminate

in employment.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Scott, on the culture, President Bush in his

State of the Union, I can’t remember his exact words but basically

he implied that if you are not allowed to discriminate, and I have

heard it somewhat here today, if you are not allowed to discriminate, a religious organization, then it may affect the culture of the

religious organization and what they are trying to do? I can’t remember the exact words but I remember the impression.

Mr. SCOTT. We went through that in the 1960’s in past legislation that no matter how religious or devout you may be, in your

own business, you cannot discriminate against people because of

their race or religion. That was controversial but we decided it was

so invidious we were going to make it illegal. If you were devout,

whatever your devotion is, you are hiring people with your own

money, you cannot discriminate in employment.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Gutknecht.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I don’t want to wear this thing out but I think

this is the crux of the problem. It seems to me we all have to come

up with a way to define this because so far, we have been fortunate. It strikes me that we haven’t had more lawsuits than we

have.

I think we all share the notion that nobody in America should

discriminate. I think we all agree on that but where it becomes

problematic is when you start to define this in the statute, what

is discrimination, what is not discrimination. Then it becomes incredibly complicated. We can all come up with examples whether

it is this particular religion being forced to hire people to be part

of this program who are very much opposed to the basic tenets of

that religion. It is a very sticky wicket.

Maybe we can’t do that. Maybe it can’t be done but I think you

are imposing something on an organization if you force a black

Baptist church to hire people who are clearly opposed and have

real strong feelings about whatever that the tenets of that church

are or in any of these circumstances, I am not sure how we define

this.

I think as has been indicated for the most part and there are

some churches who have just said we are not going to play because

if we go down this path, sooner or later we are going to be drawn

into this web and we are going to be forced to play by a set of rules

that begin to compromise the basic tenets of this faith. Maybe you

can elaborate on that. Are you saying that a church should be

forced to hire people who strongly disagree with certain teachings

of that church?

Mr. SCOTT. Not with the church money, no. With the Federal

money or for the Federal purpose, which I think people have

agreed pretty much it is a secular purpose—yes, you have to play

by the same rules as everyone else. I guess the question of the employer just doesn’t want to hire the person because of their religion,

whose problem is that?

You could be a devout whatever and you just don’t like people

of another religion and you are hiring people. Whose problem is

that? Is that yours or is that the employee’s problem? We decided

in the 1960’s, that is your problem. If you can’t hire people of a different religion, then you are looking down the barrel end of a lawVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:44 Oct 28, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23829.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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suit. That is the way it has been since the 1960’s. If you can’t hire

people, either you don’t do business in the United States, you can’t

hire Title 7, I forget what the threshold number is, but if you hire

more people than that, then you are looking at the barrel end of

a lawsuit.

I don’t care how devout you are, how much you hate somebody’s

religion, you have to hire the best qualified or you are looking at

a lawsuit. That is what we decided in the 1960’s. You are right, it

was a sticky wicket. Some White people don’t like Black people,

why should they have to hire them, why should they have to work

with them? We decided in that in the 1960’s and I am glad they

did. I don’t want to go back to where they can say I don’t want to

work with those people. Maybe we need to revisit it. Maybe it is

a sticky wicket but that is the way it has been and that is the way

I like it. Maybe others want to revisit it but you are right, it is

sticky. That is the way it is, you hire the best qualified regardless

of race or religion in the United States.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. But in terms of qualifications, if somebody

clearly doesn’t agree with the basic tenets of a particular religion,

then you say they still could be the best qualified person for that

job?

Mr. SCOTT. You are doing a Federal job; you are not doing a

church job. You are being hired with Federal money. We are not

even discussing what you do with the church money. We are talking about a Federal contract with the money, like the Head Start

Program. You are providing an educational service, you are not

providing religious education. It is Head Start education and with

the Federal money, so no, you shouldn’t be able to discriminate. If

you can’t work with people of different religions, I believe if the

sponsor of the program can’t work with people of different religions

in the Head Start Program, then yes, I think the employer has a

problem.

If you have problems or you can’t work with the people of different races and religions, maybe you ought not to be able to sponsor federally funded programs. This was debated. I was reading the

Congressional Record and one of the Representatives from New

York said, this is simple, stop the discrimination, get the money.

Continue the discrimination, don’t get the money.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Green.

Mr. GREEN. It is an important discussion we are having but let

me return us to where we are. We have now had an Executive

order on the books for 3 years. It is being implemented and here

aren’t all the allegations that have been suggested by Mr. Scott. I

am not aware of them having taken place. This is something we

need to debate.

On the other hand, it seems to be working quite well. Common

sense is being applied. There are guidelines to what you can and

cannot do, there are guides put out for faith-based organizations,

particularly smaller organizations which might not always have

the same level of sophistication and it is working. So we are not

talking about dramatic changes in law. We are talking about what

is working right now and trying to ensure that it continues to work

into the future.

56

This debate is an important one but many of these issues are

being addressed quite effectively in the working world, the implementation of the Executive order. So that should give us some comfort here as we go forward.

Mr. SCOTT. May I make a quick comment on that?

Mr. SOUDER. Sure.

Mr. SCOTT. Some of this hasn’t happened because State laws prohibit discrimination. Although it may not be prohibited under Federal law, there may be State laws that prohibit discrimination.

There is a serious question on whether or not a pervasively sectarian organization can get direct funding anyway. When President

Clinton signed some of these bills—and his name is always thrown

around as supporting this—in his signing statement, he made it

clear there was kind of a catch 22. If you are a pervasively sectarian organization, he doesn’t think you can get funding. If you are

not a pervasively sectarian organization, you don’t have an exemption under Title 7. So anyone who ended up with the money

couldn’t discriminate.

I question whether or not people really think they have the right

to discriminate and that is why we haven’t seen the problems.

Mr. SOUDER. The question goes in order of seniority in the subcommittee. Mr. Davis has left, so it is Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you very much.

I am reading the bill and apparently this is an attempt to make

this a permanent program to establish an office and make it a permanent program. For the benefit of the audience, if passed and

signed by the President, this becomes law and whenever you use

the word shall it is a mandate and so I want to address this to

Representative Green.

I am looking at page 3, line 13, subsection 5, ‘‘The Director shall

help to integrate policies affecting faith-based and other community

organizations across the Federal Government; shall coordinate public education activities designed to mobilize public support for faithbased and community initiatives.’’ I really don’t know what that

really means and possibly it could be interpreted in a court of law.

I go on to on that same page, line 24, it says ‘‘Advise the President,’’ this brings the President into the implementation of this

program. It says, ‘‘Advise the President on options and ideas to assist, strengthen and replicate successful faith-based and community initiatives.’’ It goes on to say on page 4, ‘‘to support and encourage faith-based and community initiatives.’’ My interpretation

would be to support the faith-based, faith-based initiatives rather

than other kinds of community service programs.

It goes on to say, ‘‘Work to eliminate unnecessary legislative and

regulatory barriers which impeded the efforts of faith-based.’’ That

means ease up the oversight and the responsibility we as selected

officials have over the use of Federal programs.

I have questions on almost every page and every line but the

ones that popped out at me, it says under Sense of Congress, ‘‘In

the administration or distribution of Federal financial assistance,

no organization shall be discriminated against on the basis of religion or religious belief.’’ I didn’t hear that in the debate. It is in

this bill. So you can challenge if there is discrimination against

someone who then would go into a program and ask to be hired beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:44 Oct 28, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23829.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cause they were real qualified. I didn’t hear that argument brought

out.

Mr. GREEN. If I can respond to that, that is not the discrimination you are referring to. It is referring to discrimination against

organizations which happen to be faith-based, saying those organizations may not participate in Federal grant programs because

they are faith-based.

Ms. WATSON. I am going to go through all these concerns and

then you can respond.

Then on page 9, lines 11 and 12, ‘‘Any organization that receives

Federal financial assistance to provide social services shall be prohibited from discriminating against beneficiaries or potential beneficiaries of the service it provides.’’ You need to know that piece is

in there.

On page 10, line 4, ‘‘Any faith-based organization that receives

Federal financial assistance should be able to retain its independence and to continue to carry out its mission including the definition, development, practice and expression of religious beliefs,’’ that

worries me, ‘‘provided that it does not use Federal financial assistance to support any inherently religious activities such as worship,

religious instruction,’’ and this says you can indoctrinate. We really

have to look at the wording here.

On the same page, line 19, ‘‘Any faith-based organization that receives Federal financial assistance should be able to retain any religious terms in the organization’s name, take religion into account

in selecting board members and include religious references in any

organization mission, statements or other chartering or governing

documents.’’

This is a Federal policy that you want to codify on a permanent

basis. This Federal money is derived from tax moneys, my tax moneys, yours and everyone in this room who pays taxes. I cannot support a faith-based program that would take a look at me, a Catholic

and say you cannot work here regardless of how qualified I am. I

would like to see something in this bill that prohibits discrimination based on a whole series of things.

I think it is unfinished and this is my point. Because you do not

deserve my tax dollars if I am qualified and cannot work in your

institution, I being a recipient and being a victim of discrimination

over the years feel this very deeply, emotionally and passionately

and anything that I have to do or vote on, I want to be sure there

are protections so people like myself will not continue to be victimized only because we did not debate, discuss and think it through.

Thank you for giving us something we can look at and we can

analyze and we can suggest. Maybe we can come up with some

amendments that will address my concerns.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GREEN. I appreciate what the lady said. I think the lady

should take comfort from one of the provisions she read. The provision you read says, ‘‘Any organization that receives Federal financial assistance, provides social services should be prohibited from

discriminating against beneficiaries or potential beneficiaries on

the basis of religion.’’ That is what you have asked for.

58

Ms. WATSON. Exactly. I wanted to point that out. That gave me

comfort but then as I read we are asking for a promotion of these

faith-based programs, so I would like to see a provision in there.

Mr. GREEN. If that provision is in there, it would have the force

of law which should give you comfort. The promotion we are talking about is letting organizations know that they have the opportunity to participate because for years they have been told they

need not apply. These organizations for years have been pushed

away from being involved in delivery of Federal services. They have

not had the ability, at least in their minds, to be able to participate

in Federal grant programs. Particularly those smaller organizations that don’t have the same level of sophistication or assets, resources that some of the well-known organizations have, like Habitat for Humanity.

So that’s the promotion that we’re talking about. Many of the

provisions that you have pointed to, again, are current Federal policy. And again, finally, I could not agree with you more with respect to the need for spelling out the clear policy and law that we

cannot discriminate against beneficiaries on the basis of religion.

That’s why that provision is in there.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, could I say just a word? That is, there

is no prohibition against these organizations participating now. We

want to know what the change in the law will be. Any program

that can get funded under this faith-based initiative could be funded without the faith-based initiative, as long as they agree not to

discriminate in employment.

Second, there is a difference between beneficiary or potential

beneficiaries and employment. Those are two different issues. I

think there is a consensus that you shouldn’t discriminate against

beneficiaries, that is, students of the Head Start program. The

question is whether you could discriminate in hiring teachers in

the Head Start program.

And finally, the Section 7 is a sense of Congress. Switching hats

to my Judiciary Committee, I am not sure a Sense of Congress is

even enforceable. I don’t know what the deal is.

Ms. WATSON. If I might just respond. I think we need to go over

line and verse and then try to clarify, so that we don’t end up having suits and tying up the implementation of such a law in court.

Because I would be the first one in court, if I walked in and someone said to me, well, you’re Catholic. I know what it says there, but

you’re Black.

Mr. GREEN. But it does say that. It does provide the protection

that you’ve asked for. That protection is right—you just read

through it.

Ms. WATSON. But I don’t know what it means when it says, the

Director shall advise the President how to promote a particular

faith-based program, you see. I think we get into trouble with that.

So I think what we need to do is to re-look at the provisions that

are already in the bill, discuss them like we are doing here, and

I appreciate this opportunity to bring out some of my concerns.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Owens. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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Representative Green, you just indicated that the organizations

would be strictly prohibited from discriminating on the basis of religion. What could they discriminate on the basis of?

Mr. GREEN. Well, it’s a legal question, you would have to ask an

attorney. Again, I think the legislation speaks for itself and makes

it very clear that in terms of beneficiaries, that you cannot discriminate. Again, this doesn’t change current law. This is an effort

to codify existing policy and to make sure that what is taking place

out there and is working continues beyond this administration.

That’s what this legislation seeks to do. It is not changing policy.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, perhaps you or Mr. Scott could tell

me, say, the difference between, let’s say that I have the Davis

Temple Baptist Church. And I take myself two or three of my

members, my choir director and my deacon board and the trustee

board, and we decide to incorporate ourselves into the Davis Temple Foundation and go and apply for a grant, apply to the Internal

Revenue Service and get ourselves a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status

and become the recipient.

What is the difference between the Davis Temple Foundation

and the Davis Temple Baptist Church, and they are the very same

people with the same mission, with the same motivation, with the

same purposes? What is the difference?

Mr. SCOTT. If it is a separate organization, it would be looked at

separately. Now, if you have a mission that is strictly religious,

there would be very little difference. But usually, when you set up

the separate 501(c)(3) organization, you set that up as a charitable

organization, not a religious organization. When you receive money

in the 501(c)(3), you are subject to the same law as everybody else

is; when you receive money to perform a Government service, you

have to use the money for which it was appropriated and you can’t

discriminate in employment.

That’s why I said, any program—that Davis Temple whatever,

whether it is under this, under that—any program that could get

funded under this bill, under the faith-based policy, could have

been funded anyway if you would agree not to discriminate in employment. You may have to set up a 501(c)(3) or whatever. But if

you are running a program that could have been funded anyway

if you would agree not to discriminate in employment.

So unless you’re talking favoritism, basically in the faith-based

initiative, all you’re talking about is rolling back the clock on discrimination laws.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. That’s kind of my feeling. There has to

be some underlying reason or some underlying cause. I mean, I

hear that the institutions don’t know that they can apply. I just

don’t know any that don’t know that they can become a charitable

organization and follow the same rules and regulations as other

charitable organizations. I don’t know any institutions that can get

any smaller than what we call the store-front churches in the community where I live and work and have spent all of my adult life.

It is difficult for me to rationalize the need to suggest that the

only way these individuals are going to know that they can develop

programs and apply for Federal resources is that we have a faithbased initiative operating out of the President’s office. So I just

have some serious difficulty understanding that, and think that

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there must be some reason beyond what I am hearing and what

I know for us to feel the need to codify such a program as it is outlined in this bill.

So I thank you gentlemen, but I just can’t see the rationale. I

can’t see the logic. I yield back.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. This is testimony I would have very much liked to

hear. I was ranking member on another committee. I have followed

this issue very closely, because when I chaired the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, we issued religious discrimination

guidelines. And they were very important to spell out broadly the

protection against religious discrimination.

And Title VII of the 1964 Act, which I administered and under

which these guidelines were developed, of course, has very broad

protection for religious organizations, essentially an exemption

from the, in their activities from the discrimination laws. Not only

their religious activities, but their secular activities, in their dealing with the money that is protected under the Constitution by the

first amendment with their own religious-based money.

Of course, whenever we deal in this sensitive area, we are bound

by the first amendment’s establishment of religion clause, which

prohibits Government-financed or Government-sponsored indoctrination of beliefs of a religious faith. So this bill has been held

up for years, because even though the House and Senate are full

of people who agree and who have seen faith-based organization

Constitutionally administer public funds, there seems to be something more desired.

What particularly concerns me in my discussions over the years

with Representative Scott is, of course, that we could see a great

deal of public funds going to religious organizations which by their

very nature are segregated. That is just out of tradition. Jews turn

out to be mostly White. Black people go basically to churches which

are mostly Black. Nobody has any criticism to be made of those.

Social services have been handled across these religious lines. So

the notion of saying, you can handle my funds and hire only people

of your religion, to handle my funds, to handle my taxpayers’

funds, seems to me to be a slam dunk unconstitutional matter.

I would just like to ask this question. If we could get over the

other issues that have been discussed here, would you agree that

any such bill should clarify this matter right up front and say, any

organization, any religious organization which in fact accepts public funds must not discriminate in the employment of people who

are employed to distribute the services with public funds? That is

my straight-out question.

Would you be willing to have any such legislation clarify that if

a religious organization accepts public funds, it agrees not to discriminate on the basis of race and religion in its employment practices only in the distribution, only in administering services using

these public taxpayer funds?

Mr. SOUDER. A brief answer by each one of you. We have 8 minutes left to vote.

Mr. GREEN. I am not sure it is possible to give a brief answer.

The first important point, this legislation has not been held up for

years. I drafted it for the first time last fall.

61

Ms. NORTON. I meant the legislation of this kind. I didn’t mean

to refer to your bill.

Mr. GREEN. This is different. And it is an important part of the

response here. This is not a clean slate. This takes what is working

well right now, and for which I have not heard allegations made,

we have not seen lawsuits made, and would seek to codify them

and to make sure that it exists beyond the expiration of this administration.

So that should give us all some reassurance here. We do have

protections spelled out, we do have laws on the books——

Ms. NORTON. Would you agree that——

Mr. GREEN [continuing]. And so this——

Ms. NORTON [continuing]. To such language in your bill?

Mr. GREEN. I would be happy to work with the lady to look at

what language is most appropriate. But I will not allow or I would

not support language that forces faiths or religions to entirely surrender their religious independence and their religious expression.

It is a fine line, and in my opening remarks we talked about how

it is a sensitive area. We have a tightrope here that we have to

walk. This goes back to the Clinton administration. They tried to

draw a fine line. I think it is something that isn’t easy that we

need to do.

But again, there is not a clean slate here. We have something

now in place that is working. So that should be a reassurance to

yourself and to many of the Members here who have expressed concerns. We can take a look at how the current Executive order is

being implemented and how it is working, and we can take a look

at allegations, if there are indeed allegations of discrimination in

hiring and those are things I think are appropriate to look at.

But again, this is not something new that we are creating here.

Mr. SCOTT. Just very briefly, you don’t have to surrender anything if you sponsor a federally funded program. You can do what

you want with your church funds.

With the Federal funds, any program that can get funded with

Federal funds could be funded anyway if the sponsoring organization would agree not to discriminate. So that begs the question of,

if that is all you are talking about. So there is no faith-based initiative without discrimination unless you are talking about favoritism,

that is, that you could favor one religious organization over an objectively more qualified program sponsored by another religion or

a secular organization. So unless you are talking favoritism, all you

are talking about is discrimination.

Furthermore, you know from your work on the EEOC that if you

can’t, if you have a pass on religious discrimination, racial discrimination is essentially unenforceable.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentlelady. I thank both of the gentlemen from Wisconsin and Virginia. We have five votes, it will be approximately 45 minutes and we will reconvene with the second

panel.

The subcommittee stands in recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee is reconvened.

Our second panel is composed of Stanley Carlson-Thies, Director

of Social Policy Studies at the Center for Public Justice; Mr. David

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Kuo, former Deputy Director of the White House Faith-Based and

Community Initiatives; and Bobby Polito, former Director of the

Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Since you are already here, if you will each stand and raise your

right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that each of the witnesses responded in the affirmative.

Thank you for your patience. That was—the last vote did not

even occur, it was a frustrating process over there. The clock was

moving pretty slowly.

But now we don’t plan to have any more votes the rest of this

evening, so we should be able to get through the rest of the next

few panels in an orderly manner. Thank you each for coming, for

being willing to testify at this hearing, and we will start with Dr.

Carlson-Thies.

STATEMENTS OF STANLEY CARLSON-THIES, DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL POLICY STUDIES, CENTER FOR PUBLIC JUSTICE;

DAVID KUO, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE

FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVE; AND BOBBY

POLITO, FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR FAITH-BASED

AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

AND HUMAN SERVICES

STATEMENT OF STANLEY CARLSON-THIES

Mr. CARLSON-THIES. Thank you, Chairman Souder, and the subcommittee, for the opportunity to comment on H.R. 1054.

I was on the original staff at the White House Office of FaithBased and Community Initiatives, serving until May 2002, and I

worked particularly with the Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. I am now with the Center for Public Justice. We

subcontract with the HHS Center for Faith-Based and Community

Initiatives and the Corporation for National Community Service. I

also consult with State governments.

I am glad to support this bill to codify the structure and principles of the faith-based initiative. I will suggest some changes.

I think the faith-based initiative is very important for revitalizing our society’s help for the needy. Its importance cannot be measured by the relatively slow pace of change in the delivery of social

services, a slow pace that we ought to expect, given the institutions

and interests involved.

The faith-based initiative is a lever, decisively bending the Federal system so that faith-based providers have an equal opportunity to partner with the Government without suppressing their

religious character. Of course, Government collaboration with religious organizations is not new, but I think the critics are wrong to

say that the partnership needed no reform. One Constitutional

scholar, reflecting on the restrictive conditions that often accompany Federal funds, called Federal grant programs ‘‘relentless engines of secularization.’’

Of course, the White House Report on unlevel playing fields documented a series of barriers and said that the chief problem was

63

‘‘an overriding perception by Federal officials that close collaboration with religious organizations is legally suspect.’’ In the meantime, of course, the courts have shifted direction. In decisions that

culminated with Mitchell v. Helms in 2002, the U.S. Supreme

Court has shifted from the old ‘‘no aid to religion doctrine’’ to the

concept of equal treatment which requires officials not to be biased

against an applicant merely because of its religious character. The

question is whether the applicant can provide the services while respecting the law.

Congress responded to that legal development by adopting charitable choice four times, and President Clinton signed the bills into

law. But I think his administration did not decisively level the

playing field for explicitly religious organizations. By contrast,

President Bush has made reforms a high priority. Most significant

are three actions. One of them was the creation of the White House

Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and the Centers

for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

The second was a promulgation of charitable choice regulations

to guide State and local officials. The third I think is the President’s December 2002 Executive order on equal protection for faithbased and community organizations which sets out equal treatment

principles to cover Federal funds not governed by charitable choice

and applies to State and local as well as Federal officials.

Some have said that this Executive order improperly sidestepped

Congress. I believe it was the administration’s response to the

Court’s equal treatment requirement. Thus the Federal Government, I think, has been given a very significant reorientation. I

commend Jim Towey and the Center directors for this.

Yet more remains to be done. Let me note a few areas. First, the

Federal Government should do more to inform State and local

agencies about the equal treatment rules and to ensure their implementation. Without such leadership, it is no surprise that faithbased organizations often encounter local resistance. This problem

also hampers the access to recovery program, which uses vouchers

to offer a wider array of drug treatment services from a more diverse set of providers. Without sufficient Federal guidance, the

pace of State innovation has been slow.

Second, more guidance should be offered to faith-based organizations that collaborate with Government. Otherwise, despite their

best intentions, the organizations may violate important rules and

land in trouble.

Third, the Federal Government should clarify whether a State or

local government can restrict religious staffing, even when the Federal program rules have no such restriction. The confusion about

this makes some faith-based organizations leery about collaboration.

Fourth, I think the Government should more vigorously promote

vouchers and social service programs. Indirect funding empowers

beneficiaries and eases church-State concerns.

I think these comments show the need for continued progress

and not a change of direction. So I welcome this bill with its aim

of further embedded institutions and principles of the faith-based

initiative into the workings of the Government. But I would suggest just a few changes.

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First of all, the bill should require not merely departmental liaisons, but actual centers for faith-based and community initiatives.

Centers have authority within their departments to investigate

problems, recommend changes and gain the cooperation of program

officials. A department ought to regard its center as essential to

achieving the department’s mission and not as an outpost to the

White House.

Second, I recommend modifications to the bill’s equal treatment

principles in Section 7. I think these principles should apply whether the Federal funds are administered by Federal, State or local officials. In paragraph 6, I think it ought to be modified so that participants in voucher-funded cannot sit out part of a social service,

even if that is a religious part, because their religious liberty is

protected by the choices of a voucher system itself. And the bill

ought to authorize officials to use vouchers as appropriate.

Finally, I think the bill should state that when a Federal program honors a faith-based organization’s Title VII exemption, its

freedom to staff on a religious basis, then a State and local government cannot restrict that freedom. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carlson-Thies follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Kuo.

STATEMENT OF DAVID KUO

Mr. KUO. Chairman Souder, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify this afternoon, and

thank you for your perseverance in wading through the not-so-easy

areas of religion and politics.

My perspective on the topics we discuss today is informed by various vantage points on faith, politics and social service I have had

during the past 15 years. I was John Ashcroft’s policy director in

the Senate when we wrote Charitable Choice. I founded and for 3

years built a charitable organization to objectively determine the

efficacy and efficiency of social service organizations. And for 21⁄2

years, I served as special assistant to the President as Deputy Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

under President George W. Bush.

But more than anything, my views are informed by a certain

philosophical perspective. I believe in Government’s inviolable duty

to help the poor. This is not just a political philosophy for me, it

is also theology. I believe that Jesus’ commands to care for the

least among us means that we have to bring to social problems

every available resource and every best effort. No country can do

that better than America, and no country needs to do it better than

America.

What seems like a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a

Texas Governor gave one of the great political speeches of this generation in Indianapolis, IN. In it, Governor George W. Bush talked

about how the promise of America was a distant dream for too

many who were addicted to drugs, dependent on alcohol and

trapped in despair. He said that the answer didn’t lie in trillions

of new Washington dollars spent on big bureaucracy to end poverty

as we know it. He also said the answer didn’t lie in shrugging our

collective shoulders and simply letting the private sector handle it,

devoid of new resources.

What America needed to do, he said was to embrace and generously fund social service organizations, faith-based and secular, to

help hurting Americans. His prescriptions were straightforward.

Certain laws, rules and regulations amounted to Government-sanctioned discrimination against faith-based groups. They needed to be

changed.

Social service groups needed to know that they were welcome to

apply for funds. At the same time, he added passionately, it is not

enough for conservatives like me to praise charitable efforts. Without more support and resources, both public and private, we are

asking charities to make bricks without straw. On that day, he proposed $8 billion per year in new spending

and charitable tax incentives and sent the unmistakable message

that charity, compassion and care for the poor were to be cornerstones of his domestic policy. A great deal of what he has envisioned has come to pass. There is a White House Office of FaithBased and Community Initiatives and there are coordinating centers in most major Federal agencies.

Tens of thousands of people have been educated about how to

apply for Government grants and what they can and cannot do

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with those funds if they receive them. Grants have been given out

to scores of different organizations and small pilot projects to assist

children of prisoners, mentoring programs and drug addicts.

Most importantly, an irreversible message has been sent across

the country. Faith-based groups are fully welcome, fully legal and

absolutely necessary to America’s fight against poverty. Were it not

for President Bush’s vision, we would not be meeting here today.

At the same time, the core funding commitment he made in Indi- anapolis has not been fulfilled. Four years later, rather than $32

billion in new spending and tax incentives for the poor, we have

seen at best a few hundred million. There is a chasm between what

was promised and what has been delivered, and it cannot be

glossed over by any new White House reports, initiatives, policies,

conferences, speeches, pronouncements or purportedly objective

data collection intended to make that failure look better. It can

only be bridged by the fulfillment of the original promise. That

promise must still be fulfilled.

The failure to deliver the promised financial support for the poor

lies equally on the executive and the legislative branches of Government. The White House could certainly have done more and

hopefully will do more to push through needed funding increases

to address record American poverty. But at least the White House

has tried.

From where I sit, I cannot say the same thing about most of Congress. I have been saddened by widespread congressional apathy

and the desire for political gamesmanship rather than substantive

aid. Why hasn’t Congress been the compassionate advocate on behalf of charities and the poor in the midst of an economic crisis,

a downturn in charitable giving and a dramatic upturn in social

service needs?

When the President announced the creation of the Faith-Based

office in 2001, he was attacked by some Democratic Members of

Congress as trying to destroy the wall of separation between

church and State. Still others said he was simply trying to create

a Bob Jones University America. Other said he was trying to simply discriminate against racial minorities, women or members of

the GLBT community.

Even when distinguished Members stood up against this bombast and sided with President Bush, they were threatened by members of their own caucus that their personal campaign funds would

be cut, someone else would be supported in a primary against them

and that they would have to publicly retract their support. It

seemed like the President’s bold support of this initiative was seen

by many as simply a chance to hurt him and label him as a religious zealot, and the poor were used as pawns in a greater political

game of power.

At the same time, many members of the President’s own party

expressed equal parts apathy and antipathy toward this agenda.

Money for the poor? Why, it will just get wasted, they said. We just

need to cut the funds and let the private sector take over. We don’t

need more funds, all we really need to do is make sure that we

have a huge political fight over religious charities’ right to hire and

fire based on their own faith. That way, as I have heard time and

time again, Republicans will be seen as fighting for religions and

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Democrats will be seen as fighting against it. It is a good fight to

have, I heard time and again, from both Democrats and Republicans.

A good fight for partisanship, perhaps, but less good for the poor.

Some people have said that this is just the way of modern Washington. We haven’t seen the promises fulfilled, because for the

White House, for Democrats, for Republicans, for liberal and conservative special interest groups, there is more to be gained by

fighting than by solving. I don’t believe that this is true. Everything that hasn’t yet been accomplished can still be accomplished.

Funding for things like CBDG can be returned to their needed levels. The Compassion Capital Fund can receive the $200 million per

year that it was promised, rather than the $99.5 million over 4

years that it has received.

Tax incentives to aid the poor can be put in place. There is no

such thing as too late, because there are always lives that can be

helped. Impossible? Hardly. The mere fact that we are meeting together today demonstrates this subcommittee’s passion for the poor

and willingness to stand up to opposition from those who do not

want hearings like this to occur.

I would like to make three specific suggestions for moving forward before I close. First, the subcommittee should seek to expand

its oversight on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. There are important questions that need to be

answered about how decisions are made there regarding funding,

what relationship that office has in directly controlling the activities of other Federal agencies, as well as examining the veracity of

reports claiming that a certain amount of money is going to faithbased groups. These are important matters that need to be examined.

Second, I encourage the subcommittee to begin looking at information in different ways. To date, charities have been judged primarily by how well their accountants make it look like all the

money is going to serve targeted populations. Why? Because that

is how efficient charities are judged and ranked by media like U.S.

News and World Report. Unfortunately, this mindset has prevented us from asking a more important question: how well? Efficacy is far more important and relative to gauge than efficiency.

We need to begin asking charities and our Government to tangibly

measure how well they are doing their jobs, not just how efficiently.

Third, do not be distracted by the so-called discrimination issue.

The facts are fairly simple. No one can be discriminated against

when it comes to receiving services. Faith-based groups have been

receiving Federal funds for years and have long ago learned how

to deal with the issue on the ground.

As one woman told us as we scoured the country looking for examples of groups dogged by religious discrimination issues, ‘‘Honey,

if you can’t hire someone without asking them their faith, you’re

a fool.’’

Ultimately, I think that codifying the faith-based initiative is a

good idea, especially if it allows for easier oversight. But any faithbased initiative success will ultimately be determined by a White

House’s commitment.

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I want to close again by thanking you, Chairman Souder, and

Representative Cummings, and the subcommittee for continuing to

examine the complex issues surrounding the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The debates are vigorous, and that is the way

it should be.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Polito.

STATEMENT OF BOBBY POLITO

Mr. POLITO. Thank you, Chairman Souder and Congressman

Cummings, for inviting me here today.

I would like to try to sum up my comments real quickly, as I look

at the clock. As an Italian, the dinner bell is a loud one in my family. So I would like us all to get back at a reasonable hour.

For the last 3 years, I have been the director of the Faith-Based

Office at HHS. And I would like to comment quickly on process,

how does it work at a Federal agency, how does it work specifically

in a very large Federal agency. I want to come and agree that H.R.

1054 should be enacted for the purposes of the organizations that

we are talking about.

My key role as the director, my staff’s key role under me was to

be a beacon of hope in a bureaucracy where groups can go for questions and get real answers. I remember when I was a rescue mission director, and I called HUD, I called HHS, I called everybody

to find out what was available for the people that I served, either

direct funds from my organization or individual subsidies for the

people that I served. And I never got my phone calls answered, I

never got an agreement for a meeting down here in this wonderful

city.

So I think just for that purpose alone, if it was just a place where

organizations can make phone calls to, can visit with, somebody in

Washington is going to meet with them and help them understand

hey, there is funding available for what you do, hey, the things

that your drug addicts are struggling through, there are programs

in your city that you can apply for for them, and help them get

over their dependencies.

At our center, we had a game plan. I was a former athlete in a

different life, and we talked about it as an inside game and an outside game. Our inside game was to try to change the way the bureaucracy ran, that favored the people that were already there.

Funding questions being answered by, well, let’s just fund the folks

that we have always funded, because we haven’t gotten into any

trouble lately. And things are going OK. Sort of status quo stuff.

So we had our inside game. We had internal barriers report that

we showed, some anecdotal information on why groups couldn’t get

in, what happened when they did get in, were they stripped of

their religious character, couldn’t they hire, couldn’t they do the

things that they needed to do. And their understanding of the problem, as we used to say, on the street. So that was our inside game,

to work with the 65,000 Federal officers at our department to get

them squared away on where we wanted to go with this program.

Our outside game was in my opinion more important. Because it

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ers could come into an office, sit down, have a cup of coffee and understand what this initiative was all about, understand what the

different program areas we had at HHS, we had 11 program areas

and 300 grants programs.

So if you were doing it, you probably could get funded out of our

department. The problem was that they didn’t know, they didn’t

know where to go, they didn’t know when the RFP was coming out,

they don’t read Federal Registers to get information. So we acted

as a beacon.

And if we don’t have that moving forward, the people, in my

opinion, who serve the poor the best, the community folks and the

religious folks on the street, I call them street saints, those folks

who walk the street at 3 a.m., and pick up people and throw them

over their shoulder and have a place for them to go, those folks

don’t read Federal Registers. And those folks don’t have Government offices in Washington to lobby for them. So somebody’s got to

look out for them.

I am afraid that if we don’t have this as a practice in our Government that it would be a flash in the pan. Thank you for allowing

me to share my thoughts with you today. I would love to answer

any questions.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I have a series of questions. I first want

to thank each of you for your long-time work in this area. I will

try not to call you by your first names, because I have known most

of you for so long.

Let me start with Mr. Kuo. I take issue with a couple of things

in your statement, and I feel compelled to point out in the record

that I believe Congress and the White House both share blame,

and I believe the White House has some things that are commendable. It is also true that the White House opposed the Compassion

Capital Fund, that the House leadership had to jam it down their

throats. And I don’t know what in the world the White House was

doing abandoning something internally when publicly they were

speaking the other way.

And the historical staff record of the people in the conference

from the leadership will show that, and whether the President was

being reflected correctly by his people who are doing the negotiating is another question. I am not arguing that the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives took that position. I am not even arguing that the President himself took that position. And as you and

I both know, and all of you here know, I have multiple former staffers who are in key positions, and this is a very awkward hearing

for me, because they are in key positions related to all this kind

of stuff. I have tried to kind of not talk about business sometimes

in a private way, because my job is oversight.

But I have been very disappointed, as have some people inside

the White House, including you, with some of what’s happened. I

think a second thing I want to say on this same part is, were you

aware, because I want to establish whether you were aware of this,

it is a fact, that the White House specifically asked me to hold back

on my bill on the $500 tax credit and additional funding for support of the type Mr. Polito was just talking about, institutional

building, that I had Bobby Scott on, Chet Edwards on, Jerry Nadler on and Barney Franks’ support, that also had the support of

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Tom Daschle, and they asked me to hold back my bill because they

wanted to go after the public funding part, because it was in effect

what would be called Santorum Light, it would have been the tax

credit part in the institutional building, but would have not had

the direct funding? Were you aware that the White House asked

me that?

Mr. KUO. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I was aware.

Mr. SOUDER. And that doesn’t mean that they wanted to try to

win the public funding part, which is a battle that they have carried on valiantly and fought over. But we lost our moment on the

tax part. And the truth is, we wouldn’t have had this big debate

up here on this panel today and wouldn’t have the continuing debates on the public funding part if we would have taken that tax

credit part, which I don’t know if we will ever get again. Because

it was time and tax relief.

The reason I raise both of those, it has been very disappointing

to me, because we were able to broker two-thirds of the bill. And

we also heard today, Mr. Scott said he raised a different question

on the vouchers, he didn’t raise the legal question on the vouchers,

he raised the technical follow-through question on the vouchers. So

we have three prongs here they theoretically we could move forth.

The question is, I think you were accurate in stating, as we

heard some of the opposition to this, the criticisms which I believe

are wrong, but let’s not spare the administration in some of this,

too. I know you said you criticized the administration, but you criticized the Congress more aggressively. I agree benign neglect on the

part of the majority Congress is correct. But in fact, we had brokered a compromise that would have moved us substantially, then

we could have continued to fight the public funding. But we lost

the moment.

Mr. KUO. Mr. Chairman, if I cut back on my commentary on the

White House, it is only because I believe that over the past several

months I have made my position on the White House’s not so benign neglect of this issue, of its political use of this issue. I thought

I had made that clear, and I just meant in the interest of time to

keep that short.

But I agree, Mr. Chairman, with what you said. I was in part

of the conversations in which the discussions came forward about

how to politically handle the bill. Because what happened ultimately was, this was a political question. There was a political benefit to not having a bill like yours pass, because there was great

political benefit to be gained by having issues, by having the religious issues, the hiring issues, the discrimination issues out there

so that we could be on the right side of these issues for key constituents.

Mr. SOUDER. And I believe strongly those issues, it is a great debate to have, and I believe it is an important debate. I am on the

side of the administration on the debate.

But we lost what I felt were the stronger, more winnable parts

in the continuing fight that I don’t even know if we can sustain

after President Bush. That is part of the problem here. We have

to have a longer vision than just this Presidency.

Now, you also stated in your testimony, and I actually have a

couple of questions I want to do, but I wanted to get a couple

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things on the record here as we are starting. Because I believe part

of our problem, and I believe you said it eloquently in your testimony, is that we played a zero sum game with this process. And

the zero sum game is a legitimate debate, who can best effectively

deliver public services, and can the private sector partly do that.

But we argued that we were going to increase the pool of money

for the poor. And in fact, all we have done is fight over a relatively

frozen pool.

Mr. KUO. A shrinking sum.

Mr. SOUDER. Particularly in inflation adjusted dollars, in that

has put those of us in an awkward position who argued this for

many years, because we didn’t mean it to be a zero sum game, in

that we are now into that. And there, Congress deserves at least

50 percent of the blame. I am not saying we don’t. Because it is

very hard, quite frankly, for some Republicans to argue putting

more dollars into what are Democratic districts, and then the

Democratic Members opposing the money that was supposed to go

to their districts.

But if it is no new money, they have no incentive to come on

board. And our guys didn’t want to give them additional money,

and we got into this political logjam that now we are trying to take

apart here in this hearing that in fact has put the long term range

of this program at risk.

Yet a third part of this is, and Mr. Kuo was with this from early

on, from Senator Ashcroft’s side as I was doing the work on the

House side, and has worked on this for years, and the other witnesses here have worked with this for a long time, both at the

grassroots level. But was it not your understanding when we started this that a lot of the goal here was to reach the people like Mr.

Polito was directly talking about, in that those were predominantly

small Black and Hispanic organizations in the neighborhood, as my

friend Bob Woodson has said for years, in the zip code, who lived

in the zip code.

And how in the world did this program turn into a program that

was a mix of multiple?

Mr. KUO. A mix of what, sir?

Mr. SOUDER. Of suburban churches going after it, I mean, the

faith-based initiative is seen so broadly any more, it is like it is

money for faith-based organizations rather than targeted. It was

supposed to be specifically targeted as an alternative way to delivering goods to the highest risk population and to getting more dollars there.

I first want to confirm that is what you thought the initiative

was, and that I know this has been an internal debate in the administration. But those of us who worked for it for years, in fact,

when Steve Goldsmith first sat down with Senator Santorum and

Joe Pitts and I, way back when he was first committed to thenGovernor Bush running for the Presidency, and said, why is this

so hard, we predicted what the problem was going to be, and that

is that the base we were trying to reach with a program of compassion was not historically Republican, which meant that in the approach we were using was not historically Democrat. Therefore, it

was going to be a very difficult sell.

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I first wanted to establish on the record that you believe that is

how the Office started. You were there from the beginning, as was

John DeIulio. That was our goal, it was Mike Gerson’s original description when he was with Senator Coates, in that how, I first

want to establish that is what the thrust of the program was conceived.

Mr. KUO. My understanding of the President’s compassion conservative vision as first laid out in the Duty of Hope speech, was

that his fundamental approach to poverty was to embrace social

service organizations, including faith-based organizations. As a fundamental part of his approach to dealing with the poor, with the

addicts, with those needing welfare, needing job training and so

forth and so on was to include faith-based groups. Within that was a $200 million per year commitment for the

Compassion Capital Fund. The Compassion Capital Fund was to be

aimed specifically at small organizations that Bobby talked about,

that you just referred to, the ones on the ground, the ones like Bob

Woodson has dealt with for decades. That was what it was intended for. It was never intended or designed to go to large institutions that would hold conferences and talk about this some more

and fly people across the country and bring them together for

roundtable discussions. This was never the idea behind the Compassion Capital Fund.

Mr. SOUDER. I have a concern. I have worked with several Black

pastors’ groups in my home town who have organized around the

way that we originally said, they pulled together multiple churches,

they have gone to the Chicago conference, they have gone to other

conferences. I have sent multiple members of my staff to the different conferences, and what Mr. Polito described of being a way

like we do for small contractors to figure out Federal contracting,

quite frankly, neither my staff nor the individuals who went for the

conferences can figure it out. Nor can they figure out how to do it.

The question is, why?

And the questions we heard today about, were there inside deals,

is on the street on almost every city in the country. We have done

hearings across the country. There is a tremendous frustration

among grassroots groups about who gets invited to what, about

how decisions are made.

I want to ask a couple of technical questions for the record, and

I am going to ask one other thing, just so we aren’t here all night,

that because you all are a fount of information and we aren’t allowed to have any White House witnesses. Mr. Towey was willing

to come but was told he couldn’t come, and others, that we may do

a written form of some question and answer to try to draw out a

more historic thing here than we have hours to do tonight, both on

the legal questions that we heard earlier today, how the offices

were structured. Because this will be a good hearing record of the

process.

But I raise the importance of oversight. You all addressed it. To

what degree were the centers in the agency managed directly by

the White House, for example, did the White House control the

Compassion Capital Fund or did the agencies?

Mr. KUO. I do not think that it is possible to give a blanket answer to that. But I think that if you are going to apply a legal test,

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preponderance of the evidence would suggest that the bulk of the

Compassion Capital Fund was either controlled by the White

House Faith-Based Office or was attempted to be controlled by the

White House Faith-Based Office. I think Mr. Polito would

probably——

Mr. SOUDER. I am going to ask him the same question.

Mr. KUO. That would be my answer, that the fundamental desire

from the moment—there is a history of the office that is important

to bring into context here. One is, there is the office that existed

from January or February 2001 basically through September 11th.

That was when John DeJulio was there, Stanley was there, I was

there for part of that time.

Then in early 2002, when Jim Towey came on, it was a fundamentally different office. It was run differently, and it was run

differently because there were different things at stake. The first

stage had been a research phase, to come up with the Unlevel

Playing Field report that Stanley wrote.

But then when it came to implementation and there were some

dollars on the table, it became a different operation. It also became

a different operation because the office itself had been essentially

demoted. John DeJulio had come on as an intimate of the President. He was an assistant to the President, the proximity of the

Faith-Based Office, it was nicely positioned in the Old Executive

Office Building. It was sent outside the White House gates to Jackson Place. So when Jim Towey came on, there was a different dynamic that I think is important to understand here.

So the desire was, our desire internally was to prove the viability

of the office. And one of the best ways to prove the viability of the

office is to control, frankly, the only thing that existed out of the

President’s faith-based initiative promises, which were $10 million,

$20 million, $30 million, $40 million in the Compassion Capital

Fund.

So in 2002, as Mr. Polito will talk about, it was run largely

through the Faith-Based Office. There were grantees who were

eliminated from the list, for specific reasons. So the answer is yes

on that. But there was a huge back and forth fight between HHS

and the White House. It was a fairly ugly thing.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Polito, would you agree it was a fairly ugly

thing, and this is on top of the OMB management?

Mr. POLITO. Well, David is right, the Compassion Fund was the

first thing out of the gate. We were able to establish three new programs in 3 years. The Compassion Fund was first at about $30 million. The Mentoring Children of Prisoners was second at $10 million, I believe, and now brought up to about $50 million. Last, the

Access to Recovery program.

Everybody was real open to including everybody’s view on how

new programs should run, how they should look, who should be

getting the money, how it should be structured. The Compassion

Fund, for example, because of the nature of the largeness of the

Federal bureaucracy, even grants go out in large sizes. So we wanted to really get to your question about how do we get to the small,

and requiring these big organizations to give a sub-grant out. I believe the testimony earlier by Congressman Green was 1,700, I

don’t know the exact number off the top of my head. But 1,700

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small, little community-based, faith-based, non-faith-based groups

got 1,700 small little grants.

So that was the agreed-upon way of getting to the small guy.

And I think because it wasn’t what everybody asked for, it became

the focus, at times became the only thing the initiative had to talk

about.

But I think over time, including this data collection that we have

now, we can see that the initiative is larger than the Compassion

Fund. More religious groups are getting money out of the Community Health Center grant than the Compassion Fund Grant, for an

example. So to label this the President’s initiative is the Compassion Fund and that’s it and if you didn’t get Compassion Fund

money you didn’t get faith-based money and—we have been trying

to dispel that in my whole tenure.

If you are a faith-based group and you run a community health

center, there is a grant for that, let me help you, show you where

the RFP is, let me introduce you to current grantees who can help

you with the process. Let me tell you about if there are any conferences coming up. Not ‘‘you need to get into this Compassion

Fund.’’

So on the new programs, sure, there was a lot of discussion, too

much focus on the new programs coming online, not enough focus

on the established programs that are there using the faith-based

representatives that are already there, Catholic Charities, the Lutheran Social Services, to teach the smaller guys on how to get into

this process. So sure, there were times where it wasn’t the most

fun.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to introduce into the record the Snapshots

of Compassion, and also ask you two more questions.

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Mr. SOUDER. One, you were asked to collect data on

grantmaking. Can you give us some idea of how much time you

spent, whether that was useful, how we might look at fixing that.

And the second is, do you work to evaluate the planned State and

local government cooperation and did you do a report on that, when

was it complete, and did you get any good information on that?

Mr. POLITO. Sure. The data collection, in my opinion, should

have always been driven by OMB. They do that well on everything

else. And having center directors and interns in our offices looking

down sheets and saying faith-based, not faith-based, was insane.

And I think there could be a better process.

My opinion is it should be a directive from OMB, the way that

they direct TANF on how many case loads there are, or community

health centers, how many people were served. Community health

centers get funded by the amount of people that they serve. So it

is not new to the Federal Government to count this kind of stuff.

It just was a bizarre way of doing that.

The second question?

Mr. SOUDER. State and local, did you have that analysis?

Mr. POLITO. State and local. We did a report on that. Stanley actually helped us on that, did a great job on helping us on that report. I believe since my departure that report has been printed and

can, I’m sure you can obtain a copy of that report through the Secretary or through the mechanisms at the department. The department owns that document, and it was our department’s idea for the

initiative that’s the next new thing that we really need to address,

is how do we really get into State and local funding. We counted

80 percent of our funds go out in block grants.

So to focus on a $50 million Compassion Fund or even 20 percent

discretionary funding, let’s look at the 80 percent of block grant

funding and see what we can do to influence the process of who

gets that money, how that money is disbursed, helping our small,

local folks understand that process and point them in those directions, training State and local administrators, TANF officials, for

example, on how they could encourage smaller players and faithbased players into that process I think is where this initiative really needs to go next.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I will have a couple more followup. I

will yield to Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. This is a very interesting line of questioning. I

am trying to figure out, let me break it down another way. Let’s

say I am an African-American church, have 5,000, 6,000 members,

I am not presently in the drug treatment area, but I hear about

money available and I come to you. What happens there? I mean,

I call there trying to figure out—what would happen?

Mr. POLITO. I would invite you, if you are from Baltimore, I

would either invite you to come down to my office and we could

have it out, talk it through, or I could send somebody to Baltimore

to do a site visit. We have done that at times. Most of the time,

if people are in town, we would meet with them. We pretty much

help the organizations decipher what they do and who do they

serve. If you can answer those two questions, I can tell you about

a grant that’s available. What do you do, who do you serve.

328

Mr. CUMMINGS. What about what will I do? Because don’t forget,

what I have said is, it is a person that they aren’t even in it yet.

They hear about this money and they know that the money is out

there. So they say, well, let me see if I can get some of this flowing

to my church, or——

Mr. POLITO. I understand what you are saying. Most churches in

that capacity, a 5,000 member African-American church does stuff

other than church. And a lot of that stuff is fundable at our level.

You don’t have to create a new program to get funded. That would

be my posture with you, what do you do already and who do you

serve, do you serve TANF-eligible clients, do you serve single

moms, do you serve AIDS victims, who do you serve. Because I

want them to show me their experience in doing that, and then I

will give them, they will leave with an understanding of how to

apply, who to apply to and when to apply.

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right, now, let’s take it, I want to get to the

1,700 folks, and folks that I think Mr. Souder—I don’t know, I am

trying to figure out, he talked about smaller. You talked about

smaller, you are talking about the 1,700 smaller churches. Now, we

have that one church, they are in business, they get a nice grant.

And then three smaller churches, in my district there is a church

on almost every corner. So they hear about the big church, they

want to be like the big church.

So then they get together, the four or five other churches and

they say, look, we know you just gave the big church some money,

how do we get money, because we want to be like the big church.

What I am getting to is this subcontracting concept that you just

talked about. I had never even heard of that. Explain that to me.

Mr. POLITO. OK. In the Compassion Fund, it was decided by lots

of different folks that we would fund large, what we call intermediaries or go-betweens to then sub-grant out to the small guys.

So in a sense, the large church would get the block of the money,

but it was mandated that they give away half of it to smaller

churches. They would run a competition program that we would

approve on how they are going to disburse out that money. Because

we didn’t think quickly, at least in the first year, we didn’t think

that those small storefront churches would be successful in applying for a large Federal grant.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And who was training those small churches?

Mr. POLITO. That big church. That’s what we paid them to do,

to train them, to give them a sub-grant and then eventually help

them go get the grant for themselves.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so who would measure their progress? In

other words, most Government things, there is some kind of measurement. How was their progress measured? One of the things that

I have seen is people who have gotten Federal money go to prison—let me finish—when they didn’t do what they were supposed

to do with the money. Now, where is the accountability in that formula? Is it the big church? Is it still within the Federal Government? Where is the accountability coming in?

Mr. POLITO. The program sits under the administration for Children and Families. It sits in a program office, not the White House,

not the Secretary’s office, so that it could run like all the other programs at ACF. So Wade Horn and his staff have Federal accountVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:44 Oct 28, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00336 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23829.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ability over those programs, and they run those programs the same

way they run all the other programs.

But they hold first the large group accountable and then the

smaller group accountable, because their relationship is with the

big group.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK, now, I guess it was Mr. Kuo, when the decisions go down with regard to whether these—it seems that there

has been some targeting toward Black churches, is that right,

would you agree with that?

Mr. KUO. Explain what you mean.

Mr. CUMMINGS. African-American churches, in other words, trying to appeal to African-American churches, that is with these

faith-based efforts. Come on, Mr. Kuo, now, please.

Mr. KUO. The answer——

Mr. CUMMINGS. Please, sir, I have been an elected official for a

long time. I see what is happening. You know what is happening.

Mr. KUO. Excuse me?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me tell you. I will tell you what’s happening,

just in case you don’t know.

Mr. KUO. Why don’t you let me answer the question first, sir?

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK, you acted like you didn’t know what I was

talking about.

Mr. KUO. No, sir, I know what you are talking about.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Oh, all right.

Mr. KUO. What you asked is, the implicit question you are asking

is, did the White House hand out money to Black churches to buy

votes. That is really what you are asking. The answer is, no.

Mr. CUMMINGS. That is not what I was asking.

Mr. KUO. The White House, what we set out to do in the Office,

sir, was to try and educate, we tried to do whatever we could given

the extraordinarily tight parameters that we had. Because the fact

of the matter was, very few people in the West Wing cared a jot

or tittle about this initiative. The biggest press this got was when

Members of your caucus, Members of the Democratic Party, critics

like Americans United for Separation of Church and State, would

launch these large attacks against it saying how much was being

done, how radical it was, how really crazy it all was.

And we would laugh, because in the Office, we know how little

was being done. We started a set of conferences around the country, because it was one way that we could go and try and fulfill the

President’s vision. And the President’s vision, as Bobby just talked

about, was to try and educate small social service organizations

about how to apply for Government funds.

Now, we were specifically targeting organizations that served

people who were drug addicts, who were alcoholics, who needed job

training, who did day care, who did mentoring for children of prisoners. Fortunately, most of the people who do that are people of

faith. Because they are the ones who are motivated to do it. Most

of the ones who do that well happen to be African-American

churches and Hispanic churches.

That just happens to be the demographic. This was not done intentionally to reach out to African-American or Hispanic churches.

It was done because those are the organizations that serve those

populations.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, did it make, was it a big deal when suddenly an African-American pastor of a large church, just before the

election, comes around who used to be a head Democrat, now decides to, he just so happened to get a substantial grant, by the way,

so now he decides that he is going to be, have a conversion and become the No. 1 person for the President?

Mr. KUO. Of course that has political appeal. We live in Washington, right? Pure motives are really hard to find. Every politician

that I know of does something that they think is right, but they

are happy that there are political benefits that happen because of

it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you are saying that is one of the reasons for

the program?

Mr. KUO. Was it one of the reasons for the program, was it for

political benefit?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. For the record, he already said that some people

used it for political benefit. But that is different than saying why

the program was created.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I understand.

Mr. KUO. I do not believe, to the core of my being, that this program was created for political benefit.

Mr. CUMMINGS. But it turned out to be, to be political benefit?

Mr. KUO. There were political benefits that were derived. Absolutely.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what I was asking you for, what I was asking you is that you said that the White House, it didn’t mean a hill

of beans, whatever you said, a tick or whatever, what did you say?

I had never heard that term.

Mr. KUO. Jot or tittle.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Jot or tittle.

Mr. KUO. It is technically in the Bible.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Oh, OK. All right. A jot or tittle.

Mr. KUO. King James Version. [Laughter.]

Mr. CUMMINGS. King James Version, all right. Amen. [Laughter.]

Mr. KUO. He speaketh correctly.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Anyway, what I am asking you is, then that

must have meant something to somebody in the White House. You

said it turned out that they had political advantage, you get this

pastor, Sunday before election, who has never supported a Republican, he jumps and says, I love the President, support him, I’ve

had this conversion. In other words, did you get any brownie

points, I guess, in your Office?

Mr. KUO. I left the White House in December 2003.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you think you would have gotten some?

Mr. KUO. We left the White House in December 2003. I can tell

you that the West Wing was more pleased with White House conferences that went out and talked to tens of—or brought in tens of

thousands of people than it was with any other single thing that

we did.

Now, if you go and you look at where those conferences were

held, I think you will get some sense of the answer, because a lot

of those conferences were held in States like Ohio, Pennsylvania,

Missouri, and the ones that were not held in those States were

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held in places like Boston, because you could hit both Maine and

New Hampshire at the same time. [Laughter.]

So the answer is, yes, there was a political benefit to be derived.

But here is the other fact, which is, every major urban center was

targeted with these conferences. It would be really easy, I think all

of us want to be able to say, it is all this or it is all that. It is all

good or it is all bad. I wrestled for a year and half with whether

to say anything at all. I want to be able to say yes or no. I can’t.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I understand. Is it Polito?

Mr. POLITO. Correct.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Polito, going back to what you did, what I

am confused about, I am trying to figure out, so in today’s world,

there would be an advantage, you talked about these little organizations, small churches that may not have had the expertise to do

certain things, right? You talked about that. And that is one of the

reasons why you felt that you all were significant to them.

Mr. POLITO. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, I have a whole lot of organizations in my

district that are not faith-based that would love to have an opportunity to get involved in some of these things. Do we have comparable programs for them? In other words, if I called you and I

said, look, I am not a faith-based guy, I am an atheist, say somebody called and said, I am an atheist. But I want to do some drug

counseling. What would you do then?

Mr. POLITO. I would honestly, sir, ask the same two questions

that I ask the pastor: who do you serve and what do you do. And

if you can answer those two questions, I can direct you to the Federal grant at HHS that does that. I could tell you the day and time

it comes out that you have to apply to it, I could tell you the three

conferences around the country that those bureaucratic career staff

run those conferences to get people to come so they can learn.

The problem with the atheist or the church, if they are not a

player in Washington, if they do not have a Government relations

office here, or if they do not read the Federal Register every day,

they do not know that stuff. And the Federal Government has not

been very good about announcing that stuff. So that was the value

that I saw in my office, was to be a place where somebody, anybody

could walk in and say, this is who I serve, this is what I do, is

there any assistance for a group like that in this bureaucracy, and

I would be able to answer that question for them.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so would that person, the person who was

a faith-based organization, with the faith-based organization, they

would have to some degree, some advantage I guess, because there

is supposedly some money set aside, is that supposed to be?

Mr. POLITO. No. That is the big mystery, that there has never

been any money set aside——

Mr. CUMMINGS. And that is the interesting thing, because that

is what people think.

Mr. POLITO. Right.

Mr. CUMMINGS. That is what people think. The question becomes, who put that out there?

Mr. POLITO. I don’t know.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Because let me tell you something. Let me tell

you. Everywhere I go, people say, gee, that was really nice of the

332

President to put all that extra money out there for faith-based. I

am assuming that is not just falling from the sky.

Mr. KUO. May I respond, sir?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.

Mr. KUO. The answer is, the White House has put that out there.

Now, earlier, I believe it was Representative Owens who said,

there’s $2 billion or $3 billion now going to faith-based groups. Earlier, Representative Green said that’s a 20 percent increase from

year over year. The problem is, the data on which that is based

would not stand up to any scrutiny. The reason that we tasked

Bobby Polito and the other centers to come up with data was to

cover ourselves, because the President’s promise of $8 billion a year

in new spending and tax incentives had not come through and because we wanted to have a figure that was out there.

Now, the reason that the figure is out there now is because no

one had ever asked it before. We still do not know how accurate

those figures are. Those figures are not very accurate.

But the point is that in talking to any number of social scientists,

any number of people who have looked at the field of faith-based

initiatives the last 20 years, they say, well, probably the $2 billion

or $3 billion figure that they came up with this year, that is probably lower than it was 10 years ago or 15 years ago, simply because the pot of money is smaller.

Mr. SOUDER. Let me add something to that. When I was Republican staff director of the Children and Family Committee years

ago, in the early 1980’s, we had a staffer, Dr. Jim Gimple, who now

teaches at the University of Maryland, who went through the

Hobbes Report. Everybody acts like this stuff is new. But Hobbes

had looked at this under Reagan, when he was Governor of California, and when he came to Washington, he looked at the private sector groups. They put out 100 groups that were supposedly free of

Government that were doing charitable work, mostly faith-based.

But it is faith-based and community organizations, Congresswoman Watts had asked the question earlier, why is community in

there. Well, that is why. It is a Compassion Capital Fund for faithbased and community-based organizations. It isn’t just faith-based.

But when he went through, he found that 33 percent of the people in Hobbes’ report got more than half the funding from Government sources, Federal and State. Even back in the early 1980’s. So

while there are wrinkles to today, there has been so much political

spinning it is hard to get down here and figure out how to do a

bill, how to sustain this. Because it has actually been part of the

U.S. Government for a long time.

Yes, we have a battle over one sub-part of should churches that

only hire inside their faith be part of this program. But that is different than whether there should be a program——

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. And how it is set up and how we reach

minority groups that are too small.

And I could add one more thing. One of my frustrations, and I

want to make sure before we close this panel that Dr. CarlsonThies can respond to this, about at the State and local level and

the Federal level, we do this in other categories. In SBA, when I

was a graduate student, through SCORE and though a program

333

through graduate business schools, we went out, when people

would apply to Small Business Administration for loans, we as

graduate students would go out and do an analysis.

The SCORE centers are retired executives who go out and do

analyses. We have small business centers in the urban areas where

they will share a phone, where they will have the information

books with which to go and help small businesses seek grants, that

when we do defense contracting, in my area we have set this up

for defense contractors, because it is hard to figure out defense contracting.

Why has there not been a sub-structure of setting up for social

service agencies pooled centers, like incubation centers, where

there is information, where it is free, it does not depend on who

you know, it is public, it is there, anybody can have access to it.

Because right now, when we were doing these field hearings, up

until our second to last one in Los Angeles, we didn’t even discover

the main intermediary organizations that you were working

through, the big one in Philadelphia, the Hispanic group there.

And there was one in Colorado.

It took us a year and a half with professional staff, with me

knowing the subject for 20 years, to figure out the pattern. Now,

how in the world is somebody on the street going to figure out this

pattern unless there is a substructure that is set up that is gradual? Yes, we do not have enough money to do it rapidly.

But a substructure that is set up much like we do other categories of Government to encourage, I mean, that’s how we had the

$1,000 toilets and the $500 hammers, because only a few people

who were traditionally bidding did it. Unless you can get more people bidding to do drug treatment, unless you can get more people

who are bidding to do juvenile delinquency, it is just like Reverend

Rivers says, you can tell who is getting it, because they come in,

into the urban center, and leave at 5:30. Because if you only have

one or two people bidding, then you are not going to have this diversity. It doesn’t mean that you are going to get the money.

But what Mr. Polito is saying is, we need more basically bidders.

The more bidders we get, the better services we will get, because

you will have less overhead and less corruption.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’ve got you.

Mr. KUO. Mr. Chairman, if I might?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Go ahead, please.

Mr. KUO. If I might also add, there is a need for more bidders,

but there is the objective need for a significant influx of funds. Because the core argument that Governor Bush made was that this

conservatism was not going to be the leave us alone coalition, we

don’t need a social safety net, it was not going to be the Government can solve it all. It was going to say, we need more money,

but we need it to go to the best groups.

Again, this 1,700 group figure, the amount of money these 1,700

groups got, what, $5,000, $10,000? We are not talking about very

large sums of money here. We have very tiny sums of money. For

political purposes, it sounds great for the White House to have $3

billion out there, 1,700 groups out there, it sounds good, it looks

like all of this stuff is being done. And the sad part about it is that

everybody who works in the Faith-Based Office is sad about it. The

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Faith-Based office has done an extraordinary job working against

the White House.

Mr. SOUDER. Dr. Carlton-Thies has something to say about it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Please.

Mr. CARLTON-THIES. If I may just say one or two things. I believe

that long before the centers and the White House started counting

the number of dollars, in their inaccurate way, there was this

rumor around about money floating out there. I think it is partly

because, when you start talking about faith-based groups have

been excluded, now there is going to be an effort to include faithbased and also community groups, then everybody says, well, what

does that mean. Well, everybody thinks that must mean, you create

a budget for them, to include them.

But instead, this was an effort to make sure that in existing programs they would have a fair shake. But that doesn’t sound very

interesting to very many people. So I continually got asked by reporters about the $80 million or $50 billion or whatever that supposedly was out there. So that rumor has been around for a long

time. It is because of a certain conception of what this is all about,

that it is targeted money for religion, that I think is inaccurate.

When it comes to counting, one of the reasons why it has been

difficult, I think, is because early on, when we talked, the FaithBased Office talked with OMB about getting some statistics, we realized that the Government does not ask organizations if they are

faith-based or not. So we thought, one thing we could do is try to

devise some definition, because everybody wants to know how

much money goes to faith-based organizations.

But any definition that anybody talked about was so legally problematic. That is to say, there was a worry on the part of OMB and

I think the White House and certainly the White House Office of

Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, that if grant managers

could identify the groups that were faith-based who were applying,

they would either steer money toward them if they were favorable

or steer it away if they were against them, and that would not be

a good thing for the competitive process.

So an effort to draw up a definition of faith-based that could be

used to gather statistics was turned down in 2001. So the consequence is that interns sit around and look at the names of organizations and say, well, this one must be religious, this one isn’t.

And they are bogus numbers. But it is partly for Constitutional

reasons, that is to say that the Government ought not to be going

out there and selecting out faith-based groups to give them money.

So we do not know if they are faith-based or not in any reliable

way.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So therefore, making statements that we have

given X amount of dollars to faith-based organizations sounds, just

based on what you just said, it has to be inaccurate, because basically what you have said is it is impossible to count.

Mr. CARLSON-THIES. I would say it is not probably a proper question to ask in any case. Because if the faith-based applicant is a

great competitor, they ought to get the money, and if they are not,

they should not.

Mr. CUMMINGS. But my point is a much higher point than what

you just made. What I am saying is that there is this perception

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out there, numbers have been thrown out, this is the first time I

have ever heard of the 1,700. You could come in here and say, look,

we have serviced 10,000. And if there was no way to even know

that they were faith-based organizations, what my point is, how

could you even make the assertion? That’s all.

Mr. CARLSON-THIES. Although I think the 1,700 applied to the

mini-grants that have been given to small organizations.

Mr. POLITO. We could count that. We could count that. We can

count how many mini-grants went out. That is not hard to count.

Mr. CUMMINGS. What do these people do with $5,000? I’m sorry?

Mr. POLITO. These are small grants for capacity building, buy a

computer, get some training so that you could figure out the grant

system, improve your management structures. These were not operating grants, by and large, to provide services. These were to

buildup the capacity of the organization.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So these were not operating grants. Some people

went out and bought some computers.

Mr. POLITO. They increased their capacity to be able to offer

services.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Say that again?

Mr. POLITO. They increased their capacity to be able to offer

services. They could now better compete for private funds, Government funds, they could run their programs according to Federal

standards because they had better accounting, things like that.

Mr. SOUDER. One of the problems you have with a lot of street

organizations is little churches and little community organizations,

unlike big suburban churches, often don’t have CPAs there, they do

not have attorneys there, they don’t even know what books are

there. Part of it is just to do capacity building.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Souder didn’t know this, Mr. Souder, my

mother pastored a church that started off with seven people. So I

know about small churches. [Laughter.]

Mr. SOUDER. My church had 100 in it, and I thought I was a big

church.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Foxx, do you have any questions for this panel?

Ms. FOXX. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to thank particularly Mr. Kuo, if your wife

was watching, she might have had the baby just watching us question you. But I know she’s overdue and I appreciate your——

Mr. KUO. I kept the phone on. [Laughter.]

Mr. SOUDER. Thank each of you. We will be doing some followup

written questions and probably verbal questions. This has been a

fascinating discussion, a very challenging question as we try to

move ahead with this and make sure that the whole concept has

legs. Thank you all for your years of service in this.

We will go to the third panel. Thank you all for your patience.

If you will all please stand and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that each of the witnesses responded in the affirmative.

Once again, I appreciate your patience, and we are going to start

with Mr. Gregg Petersmeyer, vice chairman, Board of Trustees, at

America’s Promise, and also served on the senior White House staff

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under George H.W. Bush, Bush 41, and was the founding person

of the original Points of Light Office. Thank you for your years of

leadership in public and community service.

STATEMENTS OF GREGG PETERSMEYER, VICE CHAIRMAN,

BOARD OF TRUSTEES, AMERICA’S PROMISE; BOB WOODSON,

PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CENTER FOR NEIGHBORHOOD ENTERPRISE; DENNIS GRIFFITH, DIRECTOR, TEEN CHALLENGE

IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA; RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN, DIRECTOR, RELIGIOUS ACTION CENTER OF REFORM JUDAISM;

AND REVEREND C. WELTON GADDY, PRESIDENT, INTERFAITH ALLIANCE

STATEMENT OF GREGG PETERSMEYER

Mr. PETERSMEYER. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you very

much for inviting me to testify.

My remarks and experience relate to the value of a permanent

White House office on community initiatives, not in any way limited to faith-based initiatives. I look forward to responding to your

questions, but first I would like to offer a brief opening statement

framing two issues that I believe are relevant to your consideration

of a permanent White House office.

First, if the current President and his two immediate predecessors are guides, it is safe to say that the future Presidents will

bring their own perspectives to this work. However, I believe we

can frame useful principles that might underpin a permanent

White House office focused on community initiative.

Second, with respect to Presidential leadership in this area, I believe it is useful to think about the President more in his role as

national leader than as Federal leader. By that, I mean primarily

as a leader of the Nation rather than as Chief Executive of the

Federal Government.

When I came to Washington to join the White House staff in January 1989, I had known the President for almost 20 years and had

every reason to believe that he shared several fundamental beliefs

with me. One was that America is a Nation of communities. And

if America is to be a great Nation, it has no choice but to be a Nation of great communities.

A second belief was that within the tens of thousands of communities that make up America, very, very serious challenges exist.

Last, we believe that while the ability to overcome these challenges

far exceeds the capacity of Government alone, and even Government in combination with market forces, it does not exceed our national capacity, the potential energy and talent of millions upon

millions of Americans of all ages, acting purposefully both as individuals and as leaders and members of organizations in every community across America. This speaks more about what kind of Nation we are and more about the quality of the American civilization

than about what kind of government we have.

Following his inauguration in January 1989, the only two structural changes President Bush made in the organization of the

White House were to establish a White House office to strengthen

the President’s leadership of the civic engagement of Americans in

the Nation’s problemsolving, and to commission an assistant to

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lead that work. The objective of that new office, and my work as

that assistant to the President, was to increase the volume and effectiveness of the work of citizens in helping to solve serious social

problems in the tens of thousands of communities that exist across

America.

The actual strategy that the first Bush White House used was

a classic strategy of a movement. The focus was the public beyond

Washington, not office holders within the Federal Government. The

strategy had five parts. First, changing attitudes in ways that

would call every American to engage in helping to solve our most

critical social problems and that would convince all Americans that

a life which includes serving others is meaningful, adventurous and

successful.

Second, identifying what works and bringing that news to places

everywhere. Third, discovering, encouraging and developing leaders

from all walks of life who could lead by example and lead others

forward. Fourth, reducing volunteer liability so that one of the key

fears of engaging in voluntary activities would not have a deterrent

effect on people acting on the call they heard to help others.

And finally, building supporting infrastructure within every community to link people who care and their institutions to people in

need. To carry out this strategy, new or reformed institutions were

necessary. As you can see in my prepared statement on exhibit A,

we created four institutions during that 4-year period: The White

House Office of National Service in 1989; the Points of Light Foundation in 1990; the Commission on National and Community Service in 1991; and the National Center for Community Risk Management and Insurance in 1992. The four institutions were unified by

a common vision, but had individual missions and distinct strategies and programs that together worked to achieve that shared vision.

If the current President and his two immediate predecessors are

guides, I think it is safe to assume that, as I said, they will bring

their own perspectives to this work. I believe, however, that the beliefs which guided the establishment of the first White House Office on National Service and the principles which comprised the

movement-based strategy we developed should be included among

the underpinning principles of future initiatives. I believe a permanent White House Office should reflect the fact that the vast majority of Americans support the best contributions of each of the last

three Presidents of the United States and the Congress in this

area.

However, most important of all, in considering a permanent

White House office, I would argue, is that the President has two

important domestic roles to help the Nation achieve key objectives.

One role is to be the Chief Executive of the Federal Government.

The other is to be the leader of the Nation. The establishment of

this office would help the President fulfill this second role.

Rather than being focused on the capacity of the Federal Government to create programs to assist communities, former President

Bush’s work in this area was focused on the capacity of individuals

and organizations across the Nation to create and advance their

own community-based solutions. That is what I mean by the PresiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:44 Oct 28, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00345 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23829.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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dent acting more in his capacity as the leader of the Nation, rather

than as leader of the Federal Government.

It was about calling everyone to think differently about themselves and one another, about making room for people to step forward, about leading one another by example, about recognizing

that every problem is being solved somewhere, about honoring people in the application of their personal gifts for the benefit of others. It is part of why we used the Point of Light metaphor and instituted the first daily recognition program by a President in American history.

Far from preaching to people about what they should do, which

of course nobody likes or responds well to, this tactic sought to influence by example, to encourage everyday Americans to reveal to

one another what is possible by the evidence of their own experience. This was the strategy because it is the only way to really

build the volume of people working, to discovering and releasing

the human energy required to actually solve some of the most

pressing challenges facing tens of thousands of communities.

At the very time when there was ever-increasing focus on

credentialism and the need for more professionals, ours was a

strategy that called for far more amateurs to step forward and

help. There is simply no other way for us as a Nation or as a people to reach the volume of community engagement that is necessary to overcome our challenges.

I believe that the power of culture has far more influence than

that of politics on the behavior of individuals in communities.

Every President can and should play the indispensable role of helping the culture define one of the most powerful ideas there is;

namely, what it means to live a successful life. It will always be

all the more powerful if that definition is framed by the President

to include serving others, and if the President calls relentlessly on

all people, wherever they live, to serve others to the best of their

ability.

That is why in the very early days of the former President’s Presidency, I drafted for him a sentence that by President Bush’s own

admission he publicly stated more than any other during his Presidency; namely this: ‘‘From now on in America, any definition of a

successful life must include serving others.’’

I would close by offering a final comment. At a time of deep partisanship in this city, with no change in sight, community initiatives is a dimension of American life that could hold the greatest

promise for bringing us together. I know that the American people

who live in the tens of thousands of communities of this country

believe we can all do much better as a Nation and as a people in

working together in our communities.

I look forward to responding to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Petersmeyer follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Our next witness is Mr. Bob Woodson,

president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise.

I want to make a brief statement about him at this point, because it illustrates several things. When I first came to Washington

with the Children and Family Committee and heard about some of

his work, and he treated me with moderate disdain and basically

said, you are not going to be another one of these guys who comes

in here and pronounces on the problems of our urban centers and

does not look for the good stories. You need to go out and see the

success stories. I said, OK, introduce me.

And I think the particular word was, don’t be another White guy

who sits on his duff pronouncing what’s going on in our urban centers. [Laughter.]

The challenge there, there are a couple of interesting things

about that. That was 1985, nearly 20 years ago, meaning this stuff

is not brand new, this debate, and that you have been working

with it a long time. Second, even as Mr. Petersmeyer came in, this

was before the Points of Light. In effect, you didn’t tell Points of

Light, he said, go find the Points of Light and build that.

And as we look at how we are going to continue this and work

through it, I first wanted to pay tribute to you and also illustrate

in several ways that what we are debating today, as we heard from

the first witnesses and we are about to hear again, this is kind of

old news. What we are doing is packaging it in new forms.

STATEMENT OF BOD WOODSON

Mr. WOODSON. Thank you, Congressman. Let me also say that

you are a breath of fresh air in this Congress, one of the few people

over here that puts principles above party and ideals above ideology. I want to applaud you for that, and I am honored to have an

opportunity to present my testimony.

The National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, which I founded 23 years ago, we have served about and trained about 2,000

grassroots leaders in 39 States, dating back to 1981. We are deeply

supportive of the President’s faith-based initiative. You know that

in the history of it, in 1994, the 104th Congress convened and

asked the National Center to bring the views and opinions of grassroots leaders to the table. It was based upon this that the Community Renewal Act was signed into law by President Clinton.

In June 1995, the Texas Teen Challenge chapter was attacked by

the State regulators under then-Governor Bush. We were able to

reach the Governor with our concerns, and as a consequence, he

convened a task force to look at barriers to faith-based organizations. Within 6 months, he signed into law a rule that exempted

the 200 faith-based drug and alcohol treatment programs in the

State of Texas from State law.

None of those groups received a dime of State money. But the

State was still trying to regulate them out of business because they

didn’t have trained professionals as drug counselors, they were

using ex-drug addicts as counselors, and they were, as one evaluator from the State said, what you’re doing is better than anybody

than I have seen, but you’re doing it the wrong way. [Laughter.]

So the deal that was cut then is that the Teen Challenge and the

other groups would not compete for State funds, so they were not

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interested in the money, they just wanted government off their

backs. So we offered this advice later on to then-candidate Bush,

and as a consequence, we were there at the beginning of the FaithBased Office.

But as someone we were, however, most disappointed in, the

thrust of the Office when they emphasized grants. I would cringe

every time I would hear the President speak of the faith-based initiatives as an attempt to get Government money directly into faithbased organizations.

This was not the reason that we came to the table. What we

wanted Government to do was use the bully pulpit to end the discrimination that not only Government has toward faith-based

groups but also corporations. I have spoken to about 1,000 heads

of foundations and corporate giving officers in this country. When

you ask them how many contribute a dime to faith-based groups,

about 20 percent of them will raise their hands.

And when you ask the others, well, why don’t you contribute,

they say, because of separation of Church and State. I say, you’re

not the State, you’re a private entity. But that’s how pervasive the

discrimination is in the marketplace against supporting things of

faith.

So we hoped that the President would use the bully pulpit to go

and speak to some of these corporate leaders and say to them, you

should support faith-based groups.

But let me give you some idea of what is missing in this whole

dialog. Many of the groups, as I said, we support, want the discrimination against these groups. And Mr. Cummings, you know,

as a veteran of the Civil Rights movement, as I am, that one of the

ways that we discriminate is develop surrogate ways of discriminating, like a poll tax or literacy tax to prevent people from coming

to the polls.

Well, the same moral equivalent exists in many of the cities. For

instance, in the whole issue, we believe that what this administration should support are tax credits, as Mr. Souder said. We were

appalled that the administration did not support it, because that

is what our groups want, tax credits to empower individual givers

to give to people in those communities. Seventy percent of all

American taxpayers have a tax liability of between $300 and $500.

Low-income people give a higher proportion of their income to charity than rich people. That means that if you had tax credits, people

could give directly without any church-State issues.

The second point we emphasize was vouchers, like food stamps

or the G.I. Bill of Rights, where the individual is empowered to select a provider, rather than the Government selecting the provider

and funding it. We think the provider ought to be selected by the

people suffering the problem. The customer should select the provider, not some Government or entity selecting it.

But what has happened, and I just want to rattle off a few of

these barriers. Food stamps. A lot of our groups don’t want money,

but individuals receive food stamps. Right now, under this administration, many of our groups, like Teen Challenge and others in

States, have been told that because they are not sanctioned or licensed by the State, they are prohibited from continuing to receive

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food stamps. We are continuing to try to get clarity on that, and

that makes a big difference.

Another is one of the Government programs forbids the grant recipients from hiring ex-offenders who are coming out of prison.

Now, on the one hand, the Government is saying to the business

community, we want you to hire ex-offenders, but yet you can’t hire

them on Government money. So that’s a barrier.

The third barrier has to do with giving the choice to the drug addict and the offender. For instance, under the old administration,

it is interesting, ironically, under the Clinton administration’s policies, if a person came to the door of a faith-based group and said,

I am an alcoholic, and I want help, and they said, well, if you want

to accept help here, you’ve got to take the bed and the Bible. Under

the old policies, that person would be given another option, saying,

you can go down the street to the secular program, and that was

acceptable.

This administration, through Executive order, changed that to

say that if a person comes to the door and says, I want the bed

but not the Bible, you must offer it. And this has had a crippling

effect. The other barrier is on access to recovery, they required any

organizations that received access to recovery voucher, has to be licensed by the State and have certified people. This is a big barrier,

and I have to take issue with Congressman Cummings, who assumes that certification is the same as qualification when it comes

to treatment of people.

The very fact that there are 55 public agencies that hire exclusively people with masters degrees to take care of children are facing court-ordered receivership because of incompetence. There are

studies that I point to in my testimony of some of the initiatives

that were developed by well-trained people, for instance, a 5-year

effort to discourage kids from taking drugs that was developed by

NIH’s behavioral scientists, all Ph.Ds. Well, a study last year revealed that the children that were viewing these ads on television

had a higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse as a consequence.

I am on the NIDA board, I can send you that study that NIDA has

produced.

So it seems to me that what the Faith-Based Office, if it is to

truly serve the people, it should really do something about these

barriers. Let me just offer some recommendations. The first is the

White House Office should act as an ombudsman for faith-based

and community organizations around the country, and play an active role in solving and resolving some of these regulatory barriers

that prevents them from participating.

Second, we should de-emphasize direct funding that gets you all

mired into hiring issues and go back to the original effort of emphasizing vouchers, tax credits. The third was pass charitable tax

credits legislation. That is most important. And the fourth, I suggested the subcommittee could set up an e-mail address to field

complaints from groups around the Nation about the kinds of barriers that they face so that we can really move and empower our

organizations.

Some of these groups, Mr. Cummings, that we support in your

district, in Southwestern High School, we have just started an initiative in Baltimore that has put ex-offenders in there as hall monVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:44 Oct 28, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00359 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23829.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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itors under a training program. These are faith-based people, and

as a consequence, Southwestern High School is turning around. I

testified before your city council, Sheila Dixon’s committee last

week. And we are going back to expand that effort in other Baltimore schools. Because we are judged by the amount of change we

produced. Outcome oriented. And so I would like to share some of

that with you and discuss that with you at another time, Mr.

Cummings.

Thank you for your time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Woodson follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Our next witness is Mr. Dennis Griffith, director of Teen Challenge in southern California. He has been accompanied here today

and I would like to recognize them, by Jerry Nance, president and

CEO of Teen Challenge of Florida-Georgia; Mike Hodges, senior executive director of Teen Challenge, National Pacific Northwest;

Randy Rowe, executive director, Teen Challenge Northern California-Nevada; Rodney Hart, president, Teen Challenge New England;

Rev. Manuel Barega, executive director, Teen Challenge Maryland;

and Phil Cookes, director of Los Angeles County Teen Challenge.

We welcome the members of your organization here at our hearing to watch the lovely business of Congress conducting debates.

But it is very informative, and hopefully they have learned a lot

as well. Thank you for your willingness to testify.

STATEMENT OF DENNIS GRIFFITH

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished

members of the subcommittee.

As executive director of Teen Challenge of southern California, I

welcome this opportunity to discuss President George W. Bush’s

Faith-Based and Community Initiative and its effect on faith-based

substance abuse recovery programs like Teen Challenge.

Teen Challenge supports and greatly appreciates this administration’s Faith-Based Initiative, but we continue to see barriers to

faith-based programs such as ours. Congressman Green’s legislative proposal affords an opportunity to discuss the role of the Office

of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Let me start by saying that various elements of the Faith-Based

Initiative have been very helpful to Teen Challenge. President

Bush, in fact, has publicly recognized Teen Challenge on numerous

occasions, helping to raise the visibility of the organization. Some

of the Teen Challenge chapter leaders have attended conferences

organized by the White House Office and have benefited from those

conferences.

In addition, the White House Office and some of the agency offices have provided useful introductions and networking opportunities between Teen Challenge and various departments of the Government. We have also benefited by being involved in a meaningful

dialog concerning the President’s access to recovery initiative with

SAMHSA and the State of California and others.

The mission of Teen Challenge is to provide youth, adults and

family with an effective and comprehensive faith-based solution to

drug and alcohol addiction. Our objectives are to enable individuals

to find freedom from addictive behavior and to become socially and

emotionally healthy, physically well and spiritually alive. Through

committed staff and effective programs, Teen Challenge strives to

produce graduates who function responsibly and productively in society and who have healthy relationships in the workplace, family,

church and community.

Since its founding in 1958, our faith-based network has grown

into the largest of its kind in the world. Teen Challenge now operates 185 centers here in the United States, and an additional 370

in 85 countries around the world. Teen Challenge has a well established track record and is recognized as one of the largest and most

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effective faith-based substance abuse prevention and recovery programs in the country. More than 2,000 men and women graduate

annually from our 1-year residential recovery programs just here

in the United States.

Anywhere from 20 percent to as much as 50 percent of the participants in the 1-year residential recovery program have been assigned to us by the courts. The fact that so many judges, probation

and parole officers make referrals to Teen Challenge is just one indication of the recognized effectiveness of the Teen Challenge program.

Throughout our history, Teen Challenge has contended that the

fundamental reason for our success in helping people with life-controlling problems through our residential program, typically drug

addiction, is because these individuals have had a spiritual transformation experience as an act of God’s grace. This perspective produces a sense of dignity, self-worth, hope, and personal empowerment. This is the foundation and core of our residential program.

Typically 1 year in length, it offers an environment of therapeutic support and spiritual formation. The program, into which

entry has always been voluntary, requires discipline, responsible

decisionmaking and accountability. Students participate in daily

devotions, chapel, church services and outreach activities. These

are essential elements for what we do and why we have been so

successful. In addition, throughout the 1-year experience, students

are equipped with functional tools, including job skills and vocational-technical training to assist them in re-entering society as

productive and healthy people.

As I mentioned, entrance into these programs is always voluntary, and each prospective student clearly understands the program’s distinctiveness.

Teen Challenge fully understands and recognizes that most of

our residential programs will not be eligible for direct Government

support. However, it is our understanding that the concept of indirect funding would allow individuals who qualify for certain entitlements, such as food stamps or access to recovery vouchers, to use

these benefits in the institution of their choice.

However, faith-based organizations like Teen Challenge are prevented from fully participating in these voucher programs because

they cannot meet the State licensing or certification criteria. At

present, only 5 percent of the 185 Teen Challenge centers are licensed by the State. The methods and strategies employed by Teen

Challenge differ considerably from those of traditional clinical programs. As a result, Teen Challenge chapters, although effective,

cannot meet licensing standards that only recognize traditional

clinical programs.

Because the vast majority of our chapters are not licensed, they

face difficulties in qualifying for federally supported voucher programs. In addition, because these programs cannot obtain a license,

they are often not recognized as a drug and alcohol program by

Federal and State agencies. For example, the lack of recognition affects the ability of our program’s participants to access even indirect benefits such as food stamps.

For many years, Teen Challenge chapters in Texas and Massachusetts had been able to receive food stamps for their qualified

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participants. Recently, in Texas and Massachusetts, State agencies

told Teen Challenge that the Federal Department of Agriculture required the licensing of all programs for eligibility purposes. Those

Teen Challenge programs in Texas and Massachusetts were taken

off the eligibility rolls to receive food stamps.

In addition, licensing requirements and the resulting lack of recognition of programs like Teen Challenge have prevented us from

fully participating in the access to recovery initiative.

Clearly, certification standards appropriate for clinical or traditional treatment programs are not wholly adequate for their faithbased counterparts. A new category of residential recovery support

programs would take into account the mission and method of faithbased recovery programs and would provide Teen Challenge equal

access to recovery resources available to traditional treatment programs. Most importantly, it would offer those in need of addiction

relief an equal choice between traditional approaches and faithbased recovery programs.

In conclusion, I want to stress that we support the President’s

Faith-Based Initiative and desire that efforts related to the Initiative continue. Significant progress can still be made to help level

the playing field and remove barriers.

As you will be able to see, on an attached DVD, I enclosed a DVD

with my written testimony, as you can see on the attached DVD,

our country’s leadership has been involved in faith-based programs

for many years. These efforts should be a permanent part of our

Government’s effort.

I applaud all the President’s efforts to help those who hurt, even

those who have made mistakes in life concerning drugs and alcohol. Each time the President mentions this topic, he lifts the spirits

of recovering drug addicts and alcoholics across America, giving

them hope and a sense of dignity and for that, I am eternally

grateful.

I also want to express my appreciation to Director Charles Curry

of SAMHSA and John Walters with ONDCP and the members of

the California Access to Recovery effort who have aided and welcomed faith-based organizations.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for

this opportunity to appear before you today, and I would be happy

to answer any questions at a later time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Griffith follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Our next witness is Rabbi David Saperstein, director, Religious

Action Center of Reform Judaism. Thank you for your patience in

this long hearing today and for sticking around, and we look forward to your testimony.

STATEMENT OF RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN

Rabbi SAPERSTEIN. Thank you for your invitation and your attention to this important issue. I am deeply honored to be here with

such a distinguished panel. I want to recognize my superb staff

person, Eric Gold, who works on these issues, and my young son,

Ari, who has attentively been listening to hours of testimony here.

Mr. Chairman, we urge you not to pass at this time the legislation which would codify the President’s Faith-Based Initiative

through the formal creation of a permanent White House Office on

Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Now, the creation of an office designed and dedicated to helping Government find appropriate ways to partner with religious organizations to deliver social

services resonates powerfully with our religious sensibilities.

Thus, it is not for this reason we object to it but because of the

actual history that you have discussed at length today and what

the office does. So long as the centerpiece of this office is to get

money directly to houses of worship, an endorsement of the office

on the grounds that it does other good things would constitute endorsement of a Trojan horse, attractive on the outside, but support

for a structure that will facilitate programs that violate the establishment clause, undercut good social services programs and infringe on the rights of beneficiaries.

To be perfectly clear, we agree wholeheartedly with the President’s oft-cited remark that Government cannot always put hope in

people’s heart the way that religion can, therefore it is not surprising that almost all of our Reform Jewish synagogues across America have wonderful social service programs. However, we strongly

oppose the central component of the Faith-Based Initiative that

would involve direct Government funding of our synagogues; indeed, of any of America’s pervasively sectarian institutions. Insofar

as this office seeks to codify this so-called charitable choice into

law, it is bad for religion, bad public policy, unconstitutional and

socially divisive. Other than that, we have no objections. [Laughter.]

It is bad policy first because, with Government money comes

Government rules, regulations, audits, monitoring, interference and

control. Second, with Government money comes compromises in the

religious mission of churches, synagogues and mosques in America.

Reliance on Government funding creates the temptation to skew

your program to attract the money and to mute the prophetic obligation of calling the Government to account.

Further, when there are limits placed on religious activity in

Government-funded programs as the Constitution demands, those

churches committed to including such activities as essential to

their programs—I just heard Dennis Griffith speak about the spiritual enhancement that is at the core of what they are about. Those

churches either must compromise their mission in order to obtain

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the money or ignore the rules with potentially dire consequences to

the beneficiaries of services and to the churches.

Third, by opening up our Nation’s limited funding for social services to potentially scores of thousands of houses of worship, let me

remind you, there are 300,000 houses of worship in America. Let’s

assume only a small number, but some scores of thousands of them

compete for this limited, shrinking pot that you discussed before.

The result is going to be countless millions of dollars will be diverted and thus weaken what are widely regarded as the finest,

most effective social service providers today, the superb, although

albeit overwhelmed religiously affiliated social service providers,

such as Catholic Charities, Jewish Federations, Lutheran Social

Services, all of which abide by the vast majority of regulations applicable to other charities. Without a national commitment to substantial increases in funding, there is no guarantee that the FaithBased Initiative will see one more needy person being helped.

Fourth, Charitable Choice will lead to increased social divisiveness in America as different churches compete for Government

money and endorsement. The prospect of intense competition for

limited funding, the politicizing of church affairs to obtain funds,

the impact on those made to feel that they are outsiders when they

fail to obtain funds, all this sectarian competitiveness leads to the

very kind of sectarian divisiveness that has plagued so many other

nations and which we have been spared because of the separation

of church and State.

Fifth, such funding violates the religious rights of taxpayers. As

Jefferson said, to compel a man to furnish contributions of money

for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and

tyrannical. This helps explain why so many religious leaders, on

the left and the right, oppose the program.

Now, there are a number of Constitutional concerns as well,

here. First, in all the discussions of all the cases that you have

heard here today, there is one central principle, one legal standard

that must be kept in mind. The Supreme Court of the United

States and the vast majority of lower courts have never upheld direct Government cash support for pervasively sectarian institutions. The Helms case, Mr. Chairman, that you referred to before,

provided in-kind help. The busing cases provided services, but not

direct payments.

In the most recent case, the Helms case, the controlling concurring opinion of Justice O’Connor noted our concern with direct

monetary aid is based on more than just concern about diversion

of tax-funded aid to religious uses. In fact, the most important reason for according special treatment to direct money grants is that

this form of aid falls precariously close to the original object of the

Establishment Clause’s prohibition.

Second, the rights of beneficiaries would inevitably be infringed.

In the real world, protecting beneficiaries will be difficult and I

add, all but impossible. Look how integrated together in Teen Challenge and so many other wonderful programs is the secular and religious components of it. The notion that Government money will

pay only for the secular parts and not for the religious parts integrated into that is almost impossible to monitor and to audit, but

puts the beneficiary in a terrible situation.

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People who come to the many of these services come at moments

of crisis in their lives. They have so few choices, they grasp at

straws. The notion that they can truly make a voluntary decision,

whether to abide by all the stipulations in a part of your wonderful

program, Mr. Griffith, is just unrealistic in the real world.

Third, churches and synagogues have rightly been exempted

from many laws that would compromise their religious freedom, including the right to discriminate. We have two principles in tension: one, Government money should never be used to discriminate.

We heard about that earlier. Second, if religious entities are to

function with autonomy, they have to be able to hire people that

subscribe to their beliefs. The way to balance them out is to say,

protect those rights with private money, but if you want Government money, go after it only if you can provide secular services.

And finally, much has been argued that all the proponents of this

money want is a level playing field. Just treat religion like everything else. God forbid. The framers did not do that; they accorded

religion special status, special protections; only religion has an Establishment Clause. We have all kinds of privileges, protections,

exemptions. If those who are willing to sell their birthright for the

porridge of Government money do so on the basis that all we want

is to treat religion just like everything else, then some day the Government and everyone else will listen, and it will be a disaster for

America.

And it does not have to happen. There are better ways, and we

heard about many of them, from Bob Woodson, from the chairman

today, there are many Constitutional ways to achieve our goals,

providing technical assistance, training programs for staff of all

groups, best practice sharing, targeted research on how to improve

programs, reducing and eliminating fees for small organizations,

including churches and synagogues, to establish separately incorporated social service arms, to assist the poor with voucher programs for social service, providing better information to the public

about available programs like you provide and encouraging charitable contributions through appropriate tax relief.

Mr. Chairman, I would finally just suggest to you, what is the

answer to your question about why the administration did not support your bill that as I listened to it, your proposed bill, as I listened to it I can imagine a wall to wall religious coalition getting

behind? Even people who differ on many of the core issues here

today?

I think one reason you have to consider is that Representative

Cummings might be right, that what is at stake is greater interest

in delivering money to core constituents or potential supporters

than it is about really helping the poor. If we are about helping the

poor, then vouchers would have been at the core of this, then your

suggestion would have been welcomed with open arms. With mutual respect and hard work, we can affirm religious liberty, even

while we enhance the ability of religious institutions to provide social services.

[The prepared statement of Rabbi Saperstein follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you for maintaining your enthusiasm on this

long day. [Laughter.]

Our last witness is Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, on behalf of the Interfaith Alliance. Thank you very much.

STATEMENT OF REV. C. WELTON GADDY

Rev. GADDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member

Cummings. Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony on

behalf of the Interfaith Alliance. With a membership of over

150,000 persons coming from 75 different faith traditions, the

Interfaith Alliance is a non-partisan national grassroots organization dedicated to promoting the positive and healing role of religion

in public life. Personally, in addition to serving as president of the

Interfaith Alliance, I also serve as pastor for preaching and worship in Northminster Baptist Church in Monroe, LA.

Now, why would a religious leader, a Christian pastor, not want

Federal money to do social services? My opposition to the FaithBased Initiative comes not out of a lack of concern for the increased

number of people living in poverty, battling hunger, people without

medical insurance, a proliferation of people with other overwhelming needs. Mr. Chairman, I am deeply moved by your transparent

passion for helping poor and hurting people.

My opposition to this program resides in a profound concern that

the program as presently configured ultimately will hurt, not help,

both the religious community and the civil community in their efforts to meet those needs and possibly impact adversely the people

in need as well. Today I will only summarize and highlight a few

of the specific reasons that I oppose the Faith-Based Initiative.

Those reasons are elaborated at length in my written testimony

submitted for the record.

First, the Faith-Based Initiative incorrectly assumes that faithbased social service providers are superior in delivering services.

The fact is that some faith-based social service agencies do a better

job than their secular counterparts, and some don’t. In my first

year in seminary, when my seminary notes were stolen, I learned

that people in religious institutions represent a cross-section of society just as do people in other institutions. [Laughter.]

Second, the Faith-Based Initiative allows civil rights violations to

be supported by taxpayers’ money. Witness the dramatic deletion

of civil rights guarantees in this year’s version of the Workforce Investment Act.

As a Baptist minister, I have always valued the Government’s

understanding that houses of worship need to employ ministers

who are within their own religious tradition. But when houses of

worship agree to become contract employees of the Federal Government, that changes. They change their nature, their identity, their

ministry. As a patriot as well as a pastor, I want Federal money

to go to organizations that are faithfully in compliance with civil

rights laws. I would suggest that expectation also qualifies as an

expression of good religion.

Third, the Faith-Based Initiative endangers the integrity of religion, threatens to compromise the prophetic ministry of religion

within our Nation and creates a possibility of harmful conflict, competition and division within the religious community of our Nation.

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With all due respect, I cannot help but observe that this hearing,

in this, the most religiously pluralistic Nation in the world, has included language that has not reached beyond the religions of Judaism and Christianity. I fear the relevance of that reality to the distribution of charitable funding by persons looking intently at majority opinions related to electoral politics.

Government-funded religion is as bad for religion as it is for the

Constitution. In conclusion, let me say, I have many Constitutional

concerns about this program. Those concerns are being articulated

eloquently by many other people, David Saperstein being at the top

of that list. But I speak to you today primarily focused not on what

this program does to the Constitution of our religion, but what it

does to the vitality and integrity of religion in our Nation. We are

forgetting too easily the lessons of history. The institutions of Government need to stay out of the institutions of religion for the sake

of religion.

Authentic religion requires a context of freedom. Even the most

avid evangelists know that religion can never be pushed down a

person’s throat and come out as authentic religion. Viewed from

that perspective, the piece of legislation that prompted this hearing

epitomizes the problem. It would impose a faith-based office on future administrations. Our Government has no more business legislating the imposition of a faith-based office on future administrations than imposing religion on vulnerable persons through faithbased initiatives.

In virtually every testimony given to this committee today, I

have heard serious concerns about the manner in which the

present program functions. Why then any insistence on perpetuating a program flawed to such an extent that it would be better for

us to replace it than attempt to continue it? If Congress wants a

special office in the White House to assure that our Presidents are

constantly aware of the Nation’s responsibility to care for the weakest, poorest and most hurting among us, the Interfaith Alliance will

work with enthusiasm to support that initiative.

But let me reiterate: we do not need a faith-based office in the

White House. We have faith-based offices all over this Nation. And

they are right where they belong; in synagogues and gudwaras and

mosques and churches, in temples and in storefront ministry centers.

Mr. Chairman, you began this hearing this afternoon—I think it

was this afternoon—by asking how you could sustain this program.

At the end of this hearing, personally, I don’t think you can. But

I don’t believe you should.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Rev. Gaddy follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

I think one of the things that baffles a lot of us conservative Republicans, and particularly people of deep faith, particularly more

whether it be orthodox Jewish, conservative Catholic or evangelical

faith, is an exasperation at some of the tone of the criticism. Because basically, we were your natural alliance to try to help get

more funds to address poverty. What you were asking us, but you

have to include us at the table with these criteria.

Basically what we are being told is, you are not welcome if you

have these criteria. What you do is you push us with the free market conservatives who say, OK, go it on your own. And the bottom

line, that is in effect what is happening in our country right now.

Because we were not able to build a coalition to increase poverty

funds with the condition that we would be able to take our faith

to the table, there has been no increase in poverty funds.

And as a practical matter, this is happening at every State level.

It is much like when you go to a school bond issue, if you have the

conservative predominantly Christians but would also include orthodox Jews, and for that matter conservative Muslims believing

that faith is excluded, and you already have 50 percent plus of the

people who don’t have their kids in the schools, if you divide the

people who have their kids in the school and basically shut those

of us out who are conservative but admittedly a minority of the Republican party, what you have is no new school bonds, no support

for school funding.

And if we can’t figure out how we are going to address this and

bring these two sides together, bottom line is, we will just continue

in the path. It doesn’t matter in our country right now whether you

have a conservative Republican or a liberal Democrat, nobody is increasing Medicaid spending. Nobody is doing more for juvenile justice. Nobody is doing more in the different spendings, because in

effect, you have cut out your natural allies, because of the approach.

I understand why, because it is somewhat inherently contradictory. Quite frankly, I have deep concerns about the entanglement

of Government. But let me ask Rabbi Saperstein a question here,

because I thought I heard you say this, because it was a great list

where you said that we could work together. Did you say that you

would support the tax credits?

Rabbi SAPERSTEIN. Yes. We would support either tax deductions

that were targeted benefits for the poor or even tax credits. So I

am very encouraged by hearing you suggest that.

Mr. SOUDER. Reverend Gaddy, did you agree with that?

Rev. GADDY. Yes, in fact, I was struck with what Mr. Woodson

said about expectations going into this program early on, and the

fact that he had hoped the President would use the bully pulpit to

rally support among businesses and corporations for this program

and also to make tax adjustments that would encourage charitable

giving. We affirm that wholeheartedly.

Mr. SOUDER. Let me ask a tougher question, because I also

thought I heard Rabbi Saperstein say vouchers. Now, Teen Challenge presents a very aggressive, problematic version of the vouchers. In other words, somebody has a voucher, and they are taking

their voucher to an overtly religious organization, let’s say in this

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case food stamps. Should they be able to use a food stamp voucher

to pay for the food that the people are eating at the program?

Rabbi SAPERSTEIN. It is an interesting question. We recognize

that the court has recently upheld vouchers in fairly specific circumstances. We oppose that decision and we think it is bad public

policy to use even indirect money allocated through vouchers to

pervasively sectarian activity. But if you are talking about the secular parts of programs run by such institutions, we would probably

lean toward doing it. It would depend on the specificity of the program, the specifics of the program.

If the vouchers are going to be used the way they are in parochial schools, to support the teaching and proselytization and worship that is at the center of religious activity, we would probably

oppose it on public policy grounds. If it were relegated simply to

the secular components of this, we would be open to looking at that

program, might possibly oppose it.

My point to Mr. Woodson, who has always made this argument

about vouchers being a better way of doing it is, if people want to

avoid the Constitutional battle under the court’s ruling there is a

way to do it. And I have to ask, why isn’t it happening? Why aren’t

people following what Mr. Woodson says?

Mr. WOODSON. Let me just say that this whole debate about

vouchers took place back in 1943, as a preamble to the vote for the

G.I. Bill of Rights, when the educational experts argued that to

give money directly to G.Is. would create an intellectual hobo jungle out of higher education. And we debated it. And the Congress

voted to trust the opinions of the American people to make informed, individual choices.

As a consequence, the money went directly to the G.Is. And over

the course of that program, we educated 500,000 rabbis, Baptist

preachers, Catholic priests, because they chose to use their money

to educate. So we need to go back and look at that history. So I

have to challenge you a little bit about somehow, on the one hand

you are supporting individual choice, but then you are going to go

in and prescribe and discriminate and say, but you can’t use it for

religious education.

We don’t do this with Pell Grants. We don’t say to kids who are

poor, you can’t use it at Catholic University, you can’t use it at

Southern Methodist. So I don’t understand that.

One other point about your barriers, about protection, Pastor

Gaddy. I have to challenge you too, because the groups that I support, 2,000 of them in 39 States, they didn’t want Government

money, but Government was coming down on their case like in

Texas. We had volunteers, they have these drop-in centers that our

gang members consider sanctuary. And we lead people out of

gangs.

What is happening is that the local government and the State

government is saying, because your volunteers are volunteers, they

are technically employees of and therefore you must pay workmen’s

compensation. And because their cars are driven by them, not

owned by the organization, you have to have a collective liability

insurance. Insurance issues, and it is only done against these religious organizations.

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So the licensing, all of those, they do require some protection

from the Government. We are not asking for direct money. But we

are asking for protection. That’s why there needs to be some entity

out there to help to protect these groups from the intrusion of Government into their operations.

And a final point is that we should stop using faith-based as synonymous with church. The devil has a church. But I think that

there are a lot of faith-based organizations who are faith-based but

are not churches. So I think that we need to honor that, too.

But I really think we need to look more deeply, and I am really

pleased that I think we have a consensus on this panel that at

least the charitable tax credits are a good thing. I have found this

to be true throughout the country and I can’t understand why the

administration has a tin ear to listen to the thousands of grassroots

groups on the left and right of center. There is a consensus, but

somehow they are ignoring this consensus.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to kind of probe this voucher question just

a little bit further, because it is always difficult, anything that says

voucher panics everybody here, and I think Congressman Scott addressed part of that, and Mr. Woodson responded to some degree,

and that is, do we actually trust people, are we going to have measurements, is it going to be too chaotic in the structure of the measurement system.

But there is this fundamental question of, with a voucher, you

get to take a higher ed Pell Grant or whatever to whatever college

you want, that includes proselytization, Rabbi Saperstein, you

could address that. But the second thing is, the court also said in

effect, in recent rulings, regarding Catholic schools, that the bus

does not proselytize. The simplest way to say it is they allowed

computers and said the computers did not proselytize but a software could.

Now, the question is, a food voucher does not proselytize either.

In other words, a food stamp, what does that have to do with proselytizing, even under that question when you said you didn’t believe food stamps should be used at a Teen Challenge? Because

isn’t that the same argument of yes, the bus and the computer still

are vehicles with which people do go to an event where they get

proselytized?

Rabbi SAPERSTEIN. Of course, we oppose the decision that came

down in Helms. We agreed with the dissenters there. The court has

upheld, until this time, that, and has never overruled this, that

pervasively sectarian entities, meaning houses of worship and parochial schools, and some proselyting missions, have religion so infused through the entirety of it that you can’t break out the secular

and the religious. The court has always been resistant about direct

funding, even through the Helms case. Even Justice Thomas, writing for the four-person plurality acknowledged it would be different

if it would be direct funding to the institution.

So the court has always been hesitant about doing this. The term

‘‘faith-based organization’’ is a broad term. I couldn’t agree more

with Mr. Woodson than he me, that is not our doing. That is the

President’s doing. Over and over again he would say, we have got

to get money to faith-based organizations, then he would turn

around and say, like Catholic Charities. Well, Catholic Charities

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gets money. There are all kinds of religious groups now getting

money.

It is the limited category of the pervasive sectarian entities that

we have to look at differently that raise special problems. So in

light of the court’s decision, we for instance have always upheld,

you want to take your Medicare benefits, go to a religious hospital,

you have the right to do that. Same kind of logic.

But the courts, in dealing with children, have always dealt differently than with adults. Children are more impressionable than

adults, harder for prayer in the school, always different than prayer in this chamber, because you can see the difference of Government sponsorship. You can decide to leave, you are not compelled

to be there. And educational settings are different than other kinds

of settings.

Well, some of these social service programs, their strength lies in

the fact that they are almost teaching, inculcating kinds of things.

I think that is one of the foundations of the success of Teen Challenge. Hard to differentiate, is it pure social service or educational

or a mix or both? Is it secular or religious, a mix of both? Vouchers

in those situations are right on the cusp.

We are willing to take a look at that, much prefer it to direct

funding. Because you don’t have the same problem about Government intrusions, audits, monitoring, interference. You don’t have

the same problems here about tax dollars going by the Government’s choice to pervasively sectarian entities, etc.

So we would be willing to look at it, but it is right on the cusp

and problematic. We have not reached a decision. But certainly far

better to do that than direct grants.

Mr. SOUDER. And I have said during our many debates on the

faith-based, I believe direct funding prohibits proselytizing. I believe the court has already ruled. I believe that is a modern ruling,

because in the old days, even the King James Bible was printed

twice with Library of Congress stamped on it, and it is an avowed

ruling. But it is a law of the land in that only indirect funding is

at debate here, and how we work out the indirect funding and what

constitutes indirect funding is really what we are trying to work

through.

Let me yield to Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. First of all, I want to thank all of you for being

here, and thank you for your testimony. I was just thinking about

something that you said, Reverend Gaddy, that was very—it does

not, we don’t hear a lot about it, this whole issue of the damage

that some of this may do to religion itself. It is a very, very powerful argument.

I was talking to my pastor, Dr. Walter Thomas. He was talking

about how the church, he felt that the church, it is a Baptist

church, but he felt that the church had to have a certain level of

independence, so that no matter who is in politics, that the church

could still speak up with integrity, without fear.

I heard what you said, Mr. Woodson, that all faith-based is not

necessarily a church. But I want to just put it in this context, because you know, the church has, the church, I think, when it

stands as the independent entity, and when I say church, I am

talking about very broadly, they have a way of sort of policing—

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I hate to say morality, because morality is relative. But the church

has a way, with independence, to maintain a certain level of integrity. And I think that is what you were getting at. Correct me if

I am wrong.

But the reason why it is such a powerful concept is because you

want, you would hope that there would be something, some institution that would be able to honestly say, look, there is something

wrong with this, and that it not be judged from the standpoint

that, well, are they agreeing because of this or that? Do they get

some money?

And I just think that is something, that is an argument that you

do not hear a lot. I don’t see how you could even have this discussion, to fully deal with this discussion, without bringing that up.

And I thank you for doing that.

Rev. GADDY. May I respond briefly?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.

Rev. GADDY. Mr. Cummings, I think we have to look carefully at

the way in which religion has best impacted this Nation through

its history. And I would suggest to you that its best contribution

to the whole American experience has been calling this Nation to

fulfill its highest and best vision of how people ought to treat each

other. It was behind that movement in the Civil Rights battle, it

was behind that movement in issues of war and peace.

And my concern is, in relation to the subject here, that if the

granting of funds is politicized, like we have politicized almost everything else, we are going to compromise the integrity of religion.

Because here is what is at stake. People who are opposed to this

particular legislation are just as compassionate about helping poor

people and drug addicts as everybody else. We want to do it, but

we want to do it the right way.

If you are out there in one of those storefront churches, or you

are in a temple in the midst of a bad neighborhood and you are

wanting to help, and you know there is a possibility that you could

get some funding coming from the Faith-Based Initiative, say, and

yet you want to raise a moral challenge to the politicians in your

district or to the President of the United States, so intense is that

compassion you are going to think twice before you do it. Because

you are going to say, I do not want to speak truth to power if

speaking truth to power may cost me money that I can use to help

that family down the street that I know. We should not put religion

in that bind.

And if we compromise the integrity of religion and its ability to

speak truth to power, we will bemoan the day we did it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Rabbi Saperstein.

Rabbi SAPERSTEIN. I would just add that at the core, Representative Cummings, of your observation, is the fact that some critics of

the Establishment Clause, as interpreted by the Supreme Court,

have foisted a myth on America that somehow separation of church

and State is anti-God or anti-religion. Nothing could be further

from the truth.

It is that wall that has kept Government out of religion, that has

allowed religion to flourish with the diversity and strength in

American unmatched anywhere in the democratic world, including

every country that has a government-sponsored, government-preVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:44 Oct 28, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00417 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23829.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ferred, government-established, government-supported religion. Far

more people going regularly to worship, far, far more people believing in God and holding religious values central to their lives in

America.

The autonomy of religion is protected by a strong wall separating

church and State. In pursuit of money to tear down that wall

would welcome Government into the life, the central life of the religious communities of America. It would be a disastrous change

from that which has made America great for religion.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I was telling some of my staff members that I

think religion is very, very, very important. Whatever your religion

is, assuming that it is for the greater good of society, I don’t mean

some cultist out to destroy the world or something, to destroy people. Because I think what it does is it gives people some kind of

a sense that there is something greater than they are. I think.

And I don’t know all the religions, but I know a few, being a son

of two preachers. I guess I am just trying to figure out, going to

what you just said, Rabbi, do we throw the baby, just throw everything out because it is the money and lose all of those wonderful

things? The thing that I was glad to hear that you said, Reverend

Gaddy, is that you want us to respect all the religions, which is important. Because a lot of people, these arguments are made, but if

somebody came up and said, OK, I am a Buddhist, I want some

money, or I am a Muslim, then I do not know whether everybody

would be as tolerant of that.

Are you following me? One of you all made the implication, somebody said something about Christianity and Judaism and how,

when you get beyond that, what happens. It is just like right now,

we are having a debate, and I will close out with this, a debate in

Maryland about whether schools should be closed for Muslims.

So our board in Baltimore County decided no, it should not happen. So you wonder, at what point, I mean, we have to be careful,

we have to make sure that we do everything in our power, I think,

to maintain that moral high ground. The moral high ground, I

guess, is best, has a better chance of existing if you do have some

independence, like you all have been saying.

Mr. WOODSON. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, sir, Mr. Woodson.

Mr. WOODSON. If I may, just a comment on that. I think that the

danger from some of my constituents is that not only separation of

church and State, but making the State hostile to religion. To the

point, my wife is a teacher in Montgomery County, and she is not

permitted to even say, peace on Earth. In Pittsburgh, in the hill

district, one of the most violence-prone areas, because a group

wanted to have Bible study for some kids that everybody is neglecting, and we used a public school that was empty all summer, we

get suits filed against us from the ACLU and others, saying separation of church and State.

But the ACLU and all these other groups are going to come down

there and provide an alternative service for those kids. All they are

concerned about is going back to their suburban homes and saying,

well, we have protected the Constitution. What about protecting

those kids?

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So I don’t think there has to be a tradeoff on this. But I really

think that we ought to be very careful when we walk down that

road, to make sure that we are not throwing the baby out with the

wash, in this case not making the State hostile to religion. There

are a lot of hostile actions that are taken in our low-income communities. Every time our groups want to do something to help a

population of people that everybody has abandoned, the only time

they hear from some of these groups is when they are in opposition

to something that smells of separation of church and State.

Rabbi SAPERSTEIN. Except in point of fact, there is an answer to

that, which is working together, we can actually defuse those problems. Let me remind the committee that when there were disputes

on the issue of what was allowed religiously in the schools, an extraordinary coalition of groups, from the right to the left, Christian

Legal Society over to the American Jewish Congress and the other

Jewish organizations, the Baptist Joint Committee and others, all

got together left to right to write guidelines that were then disseminated by the Department of Education in both administrations

affirming what was allowed. Because there would be the folks who

were so scared about separation of church and State they would do

silly things that clearly are allowed under the law.

The way to deal with that is education. There is actually a robust

amount of religious expression that is allowed. But don’t solve the

problem by going overboard in the other direction. Therefore, I am

particularly concerned about the administration acting on its own.

I think it was Representative Green who said, all we want to do

is codify the existing law. Whose law? This Congress did not act.

That is why the administration moved by Executive order to do it.

You have not reviewed this, you have not set down the guidelines

that you would set down if you were implementing and developing

such a program about it. The courts have not ruled on those issues.

None of these things have yet made it up through the courts. It is

not codifying. This bill that is before you is not codifying anything

other than the administration’s take on what politically it thinks

will be helpful for it and we have heard criticism from the left and

the right on that. That is one of the reasons we are urging you not

to pass this bill.

Mr. CUMMINGS. As I close, let me just say this. As all of you were

talking, I was just saying, I am so grateful that we have the freedoms that we have and that we have the independence that we

have, so that you could even feel free to come here and feel comfortable to say what you just said.

Rev. GADDY. That’s right.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I think we have to really be very careful that we

guard those freedoms.

But thank you all very much for what you all do, for touching

so many lives in so many ways. I am sure sometimes you feel like

it is kind of a thankless job, I know. But the fact is that you are

making a difference, not only for the people that you touch every

day, but for generations yet unborn. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to conclude with a couple of comments.

First, clearly if you do religious freedom, it includes everybody, it

includes Muslims, it includes Buddhists, and the Religions Freedom in the Workplace Act that I have, these bills, a lot of

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evangelicals don’t understand that. And their support might be less

enthusiastic if they understood it.

But basically what’s good for one is good for all. The question is,

you are either for it or you are against it. But it does include all

religions, even though overwhelmingly this is a Christian Nation,

even with the influx of minority groups. The fact is that even

among Christians, there are many different divisions. I come from

an Anabaptist background, and was persecuted by everybody.

[Laughter.]

So we tend to be skeptical of the State.

We also have a real fundamental problem with the private sector

funders that Mr. Woodson addressed, because the Government

funding has become a Good Housekeeping seal. Part of the reason

that groups want it, because the foundations just say, well, if you

don’t get Government funds, then you don’t deserve it. We do not

have time to audit you, what weight do you have.

So we have to find, and it may be through these intermediary institutions that we develop a Government certified audit, if we can’t

get them direct funding, that says this group is behaving up to certain standards. Because the big money is in the private sector, not

in the public sector right now. And yet these groups aren’t there,

aren’t getting the private sector, because they are hanging it on the

Government. And the same groups get the Government funds.

So what we have seen in the private foundations also, but in the

private service sector, is that you are getting bigger, large boards.

And the fundamental thing that drove this project, and it has been

extremely exasperating to many of us that are involved in this, is

when Mr. Woodson said, go out there and meet these individual

people, what you see are very small, effective groups working from

5 p.m. to 5 a.m, on very little budget with no health care, with

nothing else. The question is, how do we get them dollars?

Quite frankly, one of the things we did not mention in the tax

thing is you have to have non-itemizers being able to do it, that’s

why the credit works as well. We have to figure out how to get dollars there.

But even so, without supplemental or private dollars, the question is, these groups, everybody believes, are effective. They are

working the neighborhoods. How do we monitor them is one challenge. And the second thing is, how do we get them dollars. It was

very easy then to look at the Federal dollars and if I can—but that

has been one of the challenges.

It is really frustrating, because yes, this has gone political. Quite

frankly, part of the reason it went political is because we can’t sell

it unless we can show some Republicans a political advantage to

it, because it’s not our base. If this was designed to win the Black

vote, it was sure a miserable failure. I happen to believe it was designed for altruistic motives. I also think we might want to change

it to community and faith-based. But if we don’t institutionalize it,

and community-based organizations have always had a high percentage of faith-based in it.

But let me point out, if we don’t do this bill, it doesn’t change

the fact about the way it is going to function. Your points about

the law, you may argue with the substance parts of the bill. The

fact is, the administration opposes this bill. They don’t want to reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:44 Oct 28, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00420 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23829.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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port to Congress with it. They don’t want to have legislative descriptions of the language. And they can do whatever they please

under the current thing.

So unless we do a bill, there will be no regulation of a faith-based

office. So I do not understand the opposition to the bill. You may

be opposed to components of the bill. But to say you are opposed

to the bill means you believe they ought to do whatever they want.

Part of this is a difficult challenge for how we work. I want to

insert at this point in the record the full Points of Light movement

statement that Mr. Petersmeyer wrote and the President’s report

to the Nation. Because part of the reason we had him first in this

panel is I believe if you look deeply, beyond what political people

may have seen out of the current President Bush, that he’s actually

very reflecting of his father that was a deeper type of concern for

service.

[NOTE.—The Points of Light report may be found in subcommittee files.]

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. And Mr. Petersmeyer, you told me a story about

why you went to the daily Points of Light, and how hard it is to

battle for these kinds of issues in the White House. I wonder if you

would share that here, because it gives us a perspective that this

is not a new battle. What you described I’m sure goes on every day

there, it goes on in every one of our offices. I may have a real heart

for this, but then insurance reps come in from the insurance industry and doctors come in and different industries come into my office

that can be regulated or put out of business by it. And huge, billions of dollars at stake. And your schedule gets pushed around.

How did you address this? Shed light, so to speak, on the problem that we are facing.

Mr. PETERSMEYER. Thank you.

Well, I told you the story of the frustration in the early months

of the Presidency that I felt, this was back in 1989, where I, as I

said in my testimony, I knew President Bush well. I knew that he

felt deeply that it was very important for us to actually solve these

most serious social problems, and that he believed, as I did, that

the only way that was going to happen was if we substantially increase the volume of people engaged, whether it is through churches or other faith-based groups or secular groups.

The challenge was that within the White House, there is tremendous crowding out that occurs on the President’s daily schedule.

Unless something is a big problem or seems to have a big payoff,

it is very, very hard to maintain the leadership attention within

the White House for anything that’s beyond the next news cycle.

I felt as did one or two other people, that even though he had started his Presidency by creating this office, as I said, the only structural change made, created a role for an assistant, that the bureaucracy of the West Wing was going to crowd out, even with the

President of the United States’ own best instincts and desires were.

So I realized, to put it in kind of graphic terms, that this issue

would never be the most important issue of the day for him when

he came to work, because of the crush of other things. But that we

needed to find a way to have this seem to be important to his Presidency every day. I thought there was great integrity in that, because I knew personally this is what he wanted to do.

So we proposed what was quite a radical idea at the time, which

was to name someone in the country every single day who was

doing extraordinary work and who would lead by example. There

was tremendous difficulty in getting approval of that idea within

the White House, because of course people there are jealous of the

President’s time or distraction from their issue. And everybody

around the Cabinet wants to be the most important person in the

Government second to the President.

And it was clear that there were risks associated with this. What

if we picked a pedophile on the third day? We pick somebody who

we think is doing good work and then we learn that there is tremendous problems?

Well, we got it approved, and there was a good bit of blood on

the carpet about it. I held my breath, as I told you, those first few

weeks, that we would inadvertently choose somebody that would

allow people to say, see, I told you, and yank it. We did run into

one problem, there was a Point of Light that we named—and by

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the way, Marian Wright Edelman and I were sitting next to each

other about a year into this process, and we were naming five a

week, and eventually moved to six a week. She was no friend of

President Bush’s as you know.

But she said, I don’t know how you’re doing it, but you’re naming

the right people. And they are all the kinds of people we have been

talking about here. David knows this and others. They came over

the transom and whatever.

But I think that over time, people began to see that, and this

was of no interest in Washington, by the way, the White House

press corps couldn’t have cared less. But in communities, this was

important. We found that every individual who was named generated four or five little stories in their own community, radio

interviews and whatever, because it seemed that not just the President was thanking them, but that the Nation was thanking them

for what they were doing.

My testimony has been quite different in character from the others in this, because I don’t really, I’m not knowledgeable on the

issues around the faith-based component of what you are talking

about. But I do think that there was a mistake in naming the office

the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. I think they should

have reversed it.

I think all of this attention around faith-based and the relationship between the Government is missing the point that I tried to

make in my testimony, which is that we must find a way as a people, as a Nation, to solve these serious social problems in communities. We must find a way to get more and more people feeling

that they can make a difference in their own back yards.

The more we lose time where the debate is, I would argue, about

a tactic, it is about a tactic, one subset of one issue, and lose the

opportunity to talk about the need to aspire to a handful of national goals, or the talk the President gave in June 1991, which I

would like to have be put in the record, which was June 12, 1992,

where he talked about what it means in America to have communities that are whole and good.

And he said, there are three engines that we have always relied

on in this country to build our Nation of communities. One is an

economy that is growing. And that is a terribly powerful engine.

Another is the work of Government. The final is the work of nonprofit and private organizations. He said, we must find a way for

all three of these engines to move us forward as a Nation, because

not a single engine can do it alone.

To me the great opportunity around, just in closing, around the

White House office that drew me to this testimony is really not so

much about the need for a faith-based piece as there is a need for

a national strategy that only the President of the United States can

lead, that calls people to be about this kind of work. I believe that

we will not get where we need to get as a Nation unless the President of the United States, and frankly, several Presidents back to

back, pound away relentlessly in the need for every American and

every organization in America to claim some of these problems as

their own. There is no other solution.

So I commend you, chairman, for your faithfulness to this idea,

and I just hope that if there is a bill, that much of what we have

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talked about today is really not so much the point as it is to have

the President be encouraged permanently to be of the work of leading communities. Because we are a Nation of communities, and we

need that kind of help. Because we can’t get it from anywhere else.

Thank you very much.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. I think I am going to let that be the conclusion. I

appreciate all your testimony today. If you have any additional

things you want to submit into the record, this will be a strong

record of the debate and where I think we can find compromises

to move ahead.

With that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 8 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger and

additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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