Title: Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2017
Policy area: Social Welfare

Summary:
Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2017
This bill prohibits the federal government, and any state or local government that receives federal funding for any program that provides child welfare services under part B (Child and Family Services) or part E (Foster Care and Adoption Assistance) of title IV of the Social Security Act (SSAct), from discriminating or taking an adverse action against a child welfare service provider that declines to provide, facilitate, or refer for a child welfare service that conflicts with the provider's sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.
The bill bars such prohibition from applying to SSAct requirements that forbid state entities from denying or delaying adoption or foster care placements on the basis of an adoptive parent's or a child's race, color, or national origin.
The Department of Health and Human Services must withhold 15% of the federal funds that a state or local government receives for such programs if the state or local government violates this bill.
An aggrieved child welfare service provider may assert such an adverse action violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and to obtain all appropriate relief (including declaratory relief, injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and reasonable attorney's fees and costs).

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1881 Introduced in House (IH)]

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115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1881

 To ensure that organizations with religious or moral convictions are 
         allowed to continue to provide services for children.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 4, 2017

 Mr. Kelly of Pennsylvania (for himself, Mr. Pittenger, Mr. Duncan of 
South Carolina, Mr. Rothfus, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, Mr. Hultgren, Mr. 
  Jones, Mr. Palazzo, Mr. Renacci, Mr. King of Iowa, Mr. Palmer, Mr. 
Mooney of West Virginia, Mr. Grothman, and Mr. Sessions) introduced the 
 following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To ensure that organizations with religious or moral convictions are 
         allowed to continue to provide services for children.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act 
of 2017''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
            (1) Child welfare service providers, both individuals and 
        organizations, have the inherent, fundamental, and inalienable 
        right to free exercise of religion protected by the United 
        States Constitution.
            (2) The right to free exercise of religion for child 
        welfare service providers includes the freedom to refrain from 
        conduct that conflicts with their sincerely held religious 
        beliefs.
            (3) Most States provide government-funded child welfare 
        services through various charitable, religious, and private 
        organizations.
            (4) Religious organizations, in particular, have a lengthy 
        and distinguished history of providing child welfare services 
        that predates government involvement.
            (5) Religious organizations have long been and should 
        continue contracting with and receiving grants from 
        governmental entities to provide child welfare services.
            (6) Religious organizations cannot provide certain child 
        welfare services, such as foster-care or adoption placements, 
        without receiving a government contract, grant or license.
            (7) Religious organizations display particular excellence 
        when providing child welfare services.
            (8) Children and families benefit greatly from the child 
        welfare services provided by religious organizations.
            (9) Governmental entities and officials administering 
        federally funded child welfare services in some States, 
        including Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and the District 
        of Columbia, have refused to contract with religious 
        organizations that are unable, due to sincerely held religious 
        beliefs or moral convictions, to provide a child welfare 
        service that conflicts, or under circumstances that conflict, 
        with those beliefs or convictions; and that refusal has forced 
        many religious organizations to end their long and 
        distinguished history of excellence in the provision of child 
        welfare services.
            (10) Ensuring that religious organizations can continue to 
        provide child welfare services will benefit the children and 
        families that receive those federally funded services.
            (11) States also provide government-funded child welfare 
        services through individual child welfare service providers 
        with varying religious and moral convictions.
            (12) Many individual child welfare service providers 
        maintain sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions 
        that relate to their work and should not be forced to choose 
        between their livelihood and adherence to those beliefs or 
        convictions.
            (13) Because governmental entities provide child welfare 
        services through many charitable, religious, and private 
        organizations, each with varying religious beliefs or moral 
        convictions, and through diverse individuals with varying 
        religious beliefs or moral convictions, the religiously 
        impelled inability of some religious organizations or 
        individuals to provide certain services will not have a 
        material effect on a person's ability to access federally 
        funded child welfare services.
            (14) The activities of funding and administering these 
        child welfare services substantially affect interstate 
        commerce.
            (15) Taking adverse actions against child welfare service 
        providers that are unable, due to their sincerely held 
        religious beliefs or moral convictions, to provide certain 
        services (or provide services under certain circumstances) 
        substantially affects interstate commerce.
            (16) The provisions of this Act are remedial measures that 
        are congruent and proportional to protecting the constitutional 
        rights of child welfare service providers guaranteed under the 
        Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
            (17) Congress has the authority to pass this Act pursuant 
        to its spending clause power, commerce clause power, and 
        enforcement power under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment 
        to the United States Constitution.
    (b) Purposes.--The purposes of this Act are as follows:
            (1) To prohibit governmental entities from discriminating 
        or taking an adverse action against a child welfare service 
        provider on the basis that the provider declines to provide a 
        child welfare service that conflicts, or under circumstances 
        that conflict, with the sincerely held religious beliefs or 
        moral convictions of the provider.
            (2) To protect child welfare service providers' exercise of 
        religion and to ensure that governmental entities will not be 
        able to force those providers, either directly or indirectly, 
        to discontinue all or some of their child welfare services 
        because they decline to provide a child welfare service that 
        conflicts, or under circumstances that conflict, with their 
        sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.
            (3) To provide relief to child welfare service providers 
        whose rights have been violated.

SEC. 3. DISCRIMINATION AND ADVERSE ACTIONS PROHIBITED.

    (a) The Federal Government, and any State that receives Federal 
funding for any program that provides child welfare services under part 
B or part E of title IV of the Social Security Act (and any 
subdivision, office or department of such State) shall not discriminate 
or take an adverse action against a child welfare service provider on 
the basis that the provider has declined or will decline to provide, 
facilitate, or refer for a child welfare service that conflicts with, 
or under circumstances that conflict with, the provider's sincerely 
held religious beliefs or moral convictions.
    (b) Subsection (a) does not apply to conduct forbidden by paragraph 
(18) of section 471(a) of such Act.

SEC. 4. FUNDS WITHHELD FOR VIOLATION.

    The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall withhold from a 
State 15 percent of the Federal funds the State receives for a program 
that provides child welfare services under part B or part E of title IV 
of the Social Security Act if the State violates section 3 when 
administering or disbursing funds under such program.

SEC. 5. PRIVATE RIGHT OF ACTION.

    (a) A child welfare service provider aggrieved by a violation of 
section 3 may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial 
proceeding and obtain all appropriate relief, including declaratory 
relief, injunctive relief, and compensatory damages, with respect to 
that violation.
    (b) A child welfare service provider that prevails in an action by 
establishing a violation of section 3 is entitled to recover reasonable 
attorneys' fees and costs.
    (c) By accepting or expending Federal funds in connection with a 
program that provides child welfare services under part B or part E of 
title IV of the Social Security Act, a State waives its sovereign 
immunity for any claim or defense that is raised under this section.

SEC. 6. SEVERABILITY.

    If any provision of this Act, or any application of such provision 
to any person or circumstance, is held to be unconstitutional, the 
remainder of this Act and the application of the provision to any other 
person or circumstance shall not be affected.

SEC. 7. EFFECTIVE DATE.

    (a) The amendments made by this Act shall take effect on the 1st 
day of the 1st fiscal year beginning on or after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, and the withholding of funds authorized by 
section 4 shall apply to payments under parts B and E of such Act for 
calendar quarters beginning on or after such date.
    (b) If legislation (other than legislation appropriating funds) is 
required for a governmental entity to bring itself into compliance with 
this Act, the governmental entity shall not be regarded as violating 
this Act before the 1st day of the 1st calendar quarter beginning after 
the first regular session of the legislative body that begins after the 
date of the enactment of this Act. For purposes of the preceding 
sentence, if the governmental entity has a 2-year legislative session, 
each year of the session is deemed to be a separate regular session.

SEC. 8. DEFINITIONS.

    The following definitions apply throughout this Act:
            (1) The term ``child welfare service provider'' includes 
        organizations, corporations, groups, entities, or individuals 
        that provide or seek to provide, or that apply for or receive a 
        contract, subcontract, grant, or subgrant for the provision of, 
        child welfare services. The provider need not be engaged 
        exclusively in child welfare services to be considered a child 
        welfare service provider.
            (2) The term ``child welfare services'' means social 
        services provided to or on behalf of children, including 
        assisting abused, neglected, or troubled children, counseling 
        children or parents, promoting foster parenting, providing 
        foster homes or temporary group shelters for children, 
        recruiting foster parents, placing children in foster homes, 
        licensing foster homes, promoting adoption, recruiting adoptive 
        parents, assisting adoptions, supporting adoptive families, 
        assisting kinship guardianships, assisting kinship caregivers, 
        providing family preservation services, providing family 
        support services, and providing time-limited family 
        reunification services.
            (3) The term ``State'' includes any of the several States, 
        the District of Columbia, any commonwealth, territory or 
        possession of the United States, and any political subdivision 
        thereof.
            (4) The terms ``funding'', ``funded'', or ``funds'' include 
        money paid pursuant to a contract, grant, voucher, or similar 
        means.
            (5) The term ``adverse action'' includes, but is not 
        limited to, denying a child welfare service provider's 
        application for funding, refusing to renew the provider's 
        funding, canceling the provider's funding, declining to enter 
        into a contract with the provider, refusing to renew a contract 
        with the provider, canceling a contract with the provider, 
        declining to issue a license to the provider, refusing to renew 
        the provider's license, canceling the provider's license, 
        terminating the provider's employment, or any other adverse 
        action that materially alters the terms or conditions of the 
        provider's employment, funding, contract, or license.
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