Altar call: Christian Coalition's 'Families 2000' project seeks to enroll 100,000 churches in Pat Robertson's partisan political machine.

On the Sunday before Election Day, Republican legislative candidate Dick Black visited the 11:15 worship service at the Christian Fellowship Church in Ashburn, Va. He wasn't there just to pray.

Black, a Religious Right activist, was making one of several last-minute stops in his religiously grounded campaign for the 32nd District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. He found a warm welcome at the 2,500-member congregation.

According to the Loudoun Times-Mirror, Senior Pastor James Ahlemann advised his flock, "I do not have to tell you how to vote this morning. You know what is right. You can make your decision based on the information that you have."

And what information would that be? That same Sunday morning, voter guides from the Christian Coalition were tucked inside church bulletins and distributed to all churchgoers. Those fliers carefully steered the conservative evangelical congregants toward Black. He was depicted as standing against abortion and homosexuality and for parental rights and lower taxes, all positions likely to resonate with the faithful.

In the low-turnout special election Feb. 3, Black's church-based strategy -- and help from 20,000 Christian Coalition voter guides -- paid off. He won the election with 57 percent of the vote.

At the victory party at Glory Days restaurant in Sterling, Black illustrated theatrically how he won. Relying on a well-known children's nursery rhyme and hand game, he said, "Here's the church, here's the steeple. Open the doors and out come the people." His supporters cheered.

If the Christian Coalition has its way, the Virginia scenario will be repeated in hundreds of elections across America. In February, TV preacher Pat Robertson's political group announced plans to recruit 100,000 Christian churches into its operation by November 2000.

Touting its new "Families 2000" approach, a press release from CC Executive Director Randy Tate said the program "is a strategy for grassroots activism focused on churches as the Coalition's organizational base."

Relying on "church liaisons" appointed for each congregation, Tate's release said, "Church congregations will now serve as the primary source of people interested in participating in citizenship ministries, the nonpartisan voter registration and education efforts of the Coalition."

Tate also announced a renewed emphasis on controversial social issues, indicating that the Coalition will focus much more heavily on abortion restrictions, anti-gay lobbying, religious school vouchers and passage of a constitutional amendment eviscerating the church-state separation provisions of the First Amendment. He cited the Coalition's active role in the defeat of a Feb. 10 Maine gay rights referendum as an example of future endeavors.

The Christian Coalition's escalated drive to enlist churches drew sharp fire from church-state separationists. Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn said, "This is a deplorable misuse of houses of worship for partisan political ends."

In a Feb. 18 statement to the news media, Lynn warned that churches' participation in the Coalition's voter guide distribution and other politicking could jeopardize their tax-exempt status.

The Coalition operates under a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt category that allows some campaign activity, including candidate endorsements. Churches, however, are categorized as 501(c)(3), a status that forbids any work for or against candidates for office.

Lynn reminded reporters that Robertson himself boasted of the Coalition's Republican electoral successes in a closed-door speech last September, urging his lieutenants to emulate Tammany Hall and other notorious political machines of American history.

Said Lynn, "I don't know why any church would want to be associated with a Tammany Hall-style political machine. The Christian Coalition voter guides are legal, political and ethical poison. Simple decency and respect for the law dictate that no house of worship in America handle them."

Lynn's charges about voter guide bias were substantiated in the Virginia legislative race. There, Republican candidate Black, a county library board member who pushed through a censorship policy, was depicted on the CC guides as favoring a parental rights amendment, a ban on "partial birth abortions," a $20,000 car tax exemption, "parental choice in education," local charter schools and term limits for state legislators. He was categorized as opposing higher sales taxes, taxing authority for local school boards, taxpayer funding of abortions and homosexual adoption of children.

Democratic candidate Candyce Cassell was characterized as opposing parental choice in education, charter schools and a parental rights amendment and supporting higher sales taxes and separate taxing authority for local school boards. The fliers listed Cassell as giving "no response" on the car tax exemption, banning "partial birth" abortion, taxpayer funding of abortion, term limits for state legislators and homosexual adoption of children.

In reality, Cassell gave "no response" to all of the questions. The Coalition faxed her office its questionnaire Jan. 27 with a Jan. 28 deadline for reply. It was never answered. Cassell said she never saw the inquiry.

Coalition official Mike Cleppy told the Loudoun Times-Mirror the group drew its own conclusions about Cassell based on her voting record on the school board. Experts say this kind of subjectivity means the Coalition guides are not neutral under Internal Revenue Service rules and churches could get into tax trouble for handing them out.

Although Coalition leaders have repeatedly claimed that the group is nonpartisan, an ongoing avalanche of facts suggests otherwise.

At a Feb. 13-15 Coalition leaders' summit in Virginia Beach just before the "Families 2000" strategy was announced, a poll was conducted of the 65 attendees' presidential favorites.

According to The Washington Post, U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), a close friend of Robertson and fellow Pentecostal, was the "clear winner," attracting first or second place marks on 29 ballots. Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist preacher, came in second with 16 first or second place picks. Steve Forbes and Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) pulled in 15 votes each, while Texas Gov. George Bush came up with 10. Former Religious Right favorite Dan Quayle landed only 8 votes.

The Post said Democrats were also listed on the survey form but drew a grand total of zero first or second place votes.

Publication of the survey illustrated the decided Republican bias of the group, but it also caused fissures in the organization. After the results of the straw poll appeared in the news media, some state leaders expressed outrage.

The Washington Times said the Coalition was near "open rebellion" because state chairmen had been assured the poll would remain secret.

Georgia CC affiliate chair Jerry Keen told the Times he felt betrayed. "It was totally inappropriate for this information to be leaked to the press," complained Keen. "It violated the trust of the leadership." Keen added that he thought many CC members in Georgia would prefer Forbes to Ashcroft.

Paul Volle, Maine CC executive director, also was upset. "We were told when we did this poll that it was secret and not to breathe a word about it once we left the room," he said.

The Times said insiders believe Tate leaked the results at Robertson's insistence. Robertson, they charge, has been looking for a way to endorse Ashcroft, but Tate and CC President Don Hodel have been reluctant. The critics also noted that Ashcroft received only 29 of 130 possible first and second place votes, hardly the "clear winner" status suggested by the Post.

Many Coalition activists, the Times said, remain angry that Robertson and then CC Executive Director Ralph Reed threw the organization's support behind Republican Robert Dole in the 1996 GOP primary and the general election.

"If there is another fiasco like Dole, I would not be surprised if a lot of the leadership left," Volle told the newspaper. "That is not what we are in this for. We are in it to compete in the marketplace of ideas and not to be an auxiliary of the party."

Grumbled Religious Right firebrand and Republican National Committee member Tim Lambert of Texas, "Unfortunately, this looks like the sort of top-down maneuvering we have come to dislike in the Republican Party."

Observers say Robertson is finding it increasingly difficult to keep his troops in line. He and Reed adopted a "team player" role to win acceptance within the GOP establishment. But hardline Religious Right activists want confrontation, not cooperation, and are believed to be switching to more rigid groups such as Gary Bauer's Family Research Council.

Bauer and his mentor, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, are waging a very public war on House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican congressional leadership for failing to move on the Religious Right agenda. (See "Republican Party Could Go The Way Of The Whigs, Says Dobson," People & Events, page 17.)

Robertson followed Bauer and Dobson's lead in the Coalition's first fund-raising letter of 1998, charging a "lack of moral leadership in Congress."

Vowing to "reclaim our nation for the traditional Biblical values that our nation was founded on," he promised use of election-year pressure, through congressional scorecards and voter guides, to force a change of course.

But even as Robertson was adding heightened militance to his rhetoric, new information was coming to light about his establishment-oriented involvement with Republican campaigns in the past. In February the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot detailed documents from the 1992 presidential race that suggest close coordination between George Bush's campaign and Robertson's religio-political empire.

Before a scheduled Bush appearance on Robertson's nationally televised (and tax-exempt) "700 Club" program, Reed sent a five-page script to Bush giving Robertson's potential questions and suggested answers from the Republican candidate.

According to the Virginian-Pilot, the actual interview didn't follow the script word for word, but themes from the answers did turn up in Bush's remarks.

The newspaper cited other documents uncovered in the Federal Election Commission (FEC) lawsuit against the Coalition for illegal campaign activities. The documents show how Coalition leaders placed dozens of their operatives in key positions in the Bush campaign and provided advice on strategy and damage control.

As early as January 1992, Robertson wrote to Bush operative Frederick V. Malek, "I have built up a superb grassroots organization in our Christian Coalition, and I would like to see the key leaders of this organization serving in positions in the Bush reelection effort in their respective states."

A Sept. 17, 1992, internal Bush campaign memo by staffer Tony Denny, suggested close coordination between the Republican reelection drive and the Coalition. Observed Denny, "I spoke with Bill Boyd [North Carolina Christian Coalition president] yesterday regarding the fall campaign and the co-ordination of Bush-Quayle and coalition activities throughout the state....Tonight I am meeting with Judy Haynes, Southern field representative for the coalition, regarding church registration, crowd building and full integration of campaign activities in North Carolina and beyond."

Other information about Robertson's politicking may be forthcoming, thanks to the FEC court case. A federal court has ordered the Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson's tax-exempt religious ministry, to turn over 39 other documents that may reveal interaction between CBN and the Coalition.

The Virginian-Pilot said the documents concern the Coalition's use of the CBN airplane, common employees of CBN and the Coalition and "invoices to the Republican Party."

The Coalition's political work also drew harsh fire in March when the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs released its report on wrong-doing in the 1996 elections. Chaired by Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), the panel investigated fund-raising irregularities by both Democratic and Republican candidates and groups allied with them.

The 1,100-page final report, issued by Thompson and the majority Republicans, focused on allegations of Democratic improprieties, but it also slammed the Christian Coalition and other groups for refusing to comply with committee subpoenas for witnesses and materials.

(Americans United was subpoenaed to provide information about the elections and complied with the panel's requests. Although AU engaged in no campaign activities whatsoever, documentation about the partisan efforts of the Christian Coalition and other religious nonprofits identified through AU's Project Fair Play was turned over.)

The majority report noted that the Republican National Committee "considered nonprofit groups an integral part of the conservative coalition." It cited a March 4, 1996, memo to RNC Chairman Haley Barbour from RNC Political Director Curt Anderson that listed "nonprofit groups that would be most supportive of the Republican agenda." The Christian Coalition was on the list.

Senate Democrats were much harder on the Coalition, devoting an entire chapter of their minority report to the misconduct of the Robertson group. It concluded, "The evidence shows that the Christian Coalition is closely tied to the Republican Party and functions as a partisan political committee."

Relying heavily on information from Church & State, the minority report insisted the Coalition should not be granted 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status and instead should register as a political committee. It encouraged the FEC to continue its lawsuit against the Coalition and urged the IRS to act swiftly to reject the Coalition's application for tax exemption, which has been pending since 1989. (The full Republican and Democratic committee reports may be found at the committee homepage at http:// www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs)

Christian Coalition leaders clearly hope to continue their profligate ways. The group's lobbying office in Washington, D.C., worked hard against the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill that would have checked dirty electioneering.

After a Republican-led filibuster killed the bill in late February, the Coalition crowed, "The war is not over, but it's another battle won. This is a great victory for First Amendment rights, for issue advocacy groups such as Christian Coalition and for all citizens in America."

But things were not going as well for the Christian Coalition in the field. In March voting, Republican congressional candidate Torn Bordonaro Jr. lost to Democrat Lois Capps, despite a major voter guide blitz by the Coalition and a blizzard of television advertisements by Gary Bauer's PAC, the Campaign for Working Families. The special election in California's Republican-leaning 22nd Congressional District was considered a bellwether of the Religious Right's power.

Meanwhile, in Texas, Religious Right leader Tom Pauken lost in his bid for the Republican attorney general nomination, while former U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman failed in his race for a seat on the state's railroad commission.

These are bitter losses for Christian Coalition leaders because the Religious Right has traditionally achieved its greatest victories in low-turnout primaries and special elections. The California and Texas results show that the Coalition's influence in this year's elections and those in the year 2000 may well turn on the success of its new "Families 2000" church recruitment drive.

Both friends and foes will be watching.