WASHINGTON (ABP) — Congress has adjourned until late January, and several significant church-state issues are left hanging in the legislative balance.
The Senate went into recess Dec. 9 after failing to pass an omnibus funding bill for several federal agencies. The legislation includes a measure that would create the first federal school-voucher program, targeted for schools in the District of Columbia.
The House provided final passage to the bill on a 242-176 vote Dec. 8. In the Senate, Republican leaders had hoped to bring the bill to the floor the next day, but some senators' objections to the legislation meant it could not be passed at least until the Senate reconvenes Jan. 20.
The massive $328 billion package is an end-of-the-year catch-all spending bill that provides funding for 11 federal agencies and for the District of Columbia's government. The bundling of legislation is necessary because the Senate has failed to pass funding bills for those agencies.
The voucher program would provide scholarships of up to $7,500 a year to low-income D.C. students to attend the private school of their choice — including religious academies. Many church-state separationist organizations oppose such voucher programs as a violation of the First Amendment's ban on government support for religion.
However, the Supreme Court ruled last year that a school-voucher program in Cleveland passed constitutional muster because government money flowed to the religious schools through the genuine private choice of parents.
The bill is also laden with what congressional observers call “pork” — funding slipped into the bill by congressmen for pet projects in their own districts. Fiscal hawks in both parties have decried the legislation.
In addition, many Democrats and some moderate Republicans have objected to the voucher provision and other aspects of the bill — such as its softening of a gun-control law — that House and Senate leaders reportedly slipped in at the behest of the White House. This was done even though both houses of Congress have not approved the measures individually.
If passed, the bill would create the nation's first federally funded voucher program — a precedent that voucher opponents don't want to see set. Because of objections over the vouchers and other aspects of the bill, it may face a filibuster when Senate leaders bring it to the floor again Jan. 20. The bill is H.R. 2673.
A handful of other bills touching on church-state issues also are pending in Congress:
— Gay marriage. The Federal Marriage Amendment has now been introduced in both houses of Congress. It would amend the U.S. Constitution to ban marriage and “the legal incidents thereof” for same-sex couples. Both versions have been referred to their respective chamber's Judiciary Committees. The House version (H.J.R. 56) had garnered 107 co-sponsors as of Dec. 11.
— Government funding for religious charities. The House has passed two bills re-authorizing government programs that contain provisions expanding the government's ability to provide funding to religious groups to perform social services.
The School Readiness Act (H.R. 2210), which authorizes funding for the federal Head Start early-childhood-education program, passed the House July 24. It contains a provision explicitly allowing religious organizations receiving Head Start funds to discriminate in their hiring practices on the basis of religious ideology. This would repeal anti-discrimination provisions under which Head Start has operated for years.
That bill is now before the Senate Education Committee. Many observers believe it will have a more difficult time in the Senate than in the House.
In May, the House added similar provisions to the Workforce Reinvestment and Adult Education Act of 2003 (H.R. 1261). However, the Senate passed a version in November removing the employment-discrimination exemption. The bill is now before a House-Senate conference committee to hammer out the differences between the two versions.
Critics of government funding for social-service programs at churches and other religious organizations claim both bills are a part of a wider plan by the Bush administration to enact Bush's “faith-based initiative” in a piecemeal fashion.
— Partisan political involvement by religious groups. Legislators who think churches should be allowed to endorse or oppose political candidates without losing their tax-exempt status are making the second attempt in as many years to amend Internal Revenue Service codes. The latest version of Rep. Walter Jones' (R-N.C.) “Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act,” currently in a House committee, had managed to gain 165 co-sponsors as of Dec. 11.
Although the House soundly defeated a similar bill last year, it has strong support from many Religious Right leaders and organizations. They claim that churches, pastors and religious organizations are being unfairly silenced on political issues by IRS regulations. Opponents claim the bill threatens religious liberty and gives religious groups political privileges that other tax-exempt organizations don't enjoy.
This year's version of the bill is H.R. 235. It has not moved out of the House Ways and Means Committee since it was introduced there 11 months ago.
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