More politics in the pews. (Up front: news and opinion from independent minds).

If North Carolina Republican Representative Walter Jones Jr. has his way, churches in the United States will become precinct stations and its clergy, ward heelers. Introduced into the House last June and now heading for hearings in the House Ways and Means Committee, the "Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act" (H.R. 2357) represents the latest step in the politicization of religion in the United States.

Jones and his allies, who worked with the Reverend Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice in drafting the proposal, claim that white clergy are intimidated and unable to speak out politically while African American clergy routinely do so. This must come as a surprise to the thousands of evangelical Protestant congregations that distribute the Christian Coalition ratings of candidates before each election.

Technically, H.R. 2357 "amends the Internal Revenue Code to permit a church to participate or intervene in a political campaign and maintain its tax-exempt status as long as such participation is not a substantial part of its activities." But the bill does not define substantial.

In an interview with Robertson on January 7 on Robertson's CBN television channel, Jones admitted that he had been working with James Dobson, Tim LaHaye, former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Ray Flynn, and Rabbi Daniel Lappin to shape legislation favorable to conservative churches. Jones added, "With the help of the good Lord and good people in the nation blessed by God Almighty, our ministers, priests, and rabbis should not be restricted of their constitutional rights." Both Jones and Robertson pleaded with conservative Christians to write letters of support for H.R. 2357.

Ironically, Jones, a Catholic, seeks to legitimize clergy involvement in partisan politics--the same kind of involvement that nearly defeated the only Catholic U.S. president--Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy. In 1960 Protestant clergy by the thousands engaged in direct political action in an attempt to defeat Kennedy because of his religious affiliation. In vicious and often misleading defamatory ways, the clergy--particularly in the South--used politics to maintain religious power. Author James Michener wrote an entire book, Report of the County Chairman, about the religious smear campaign directed by Protestant churches, using tax-exempt mail privileges, against Kennedy in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where Michener was Kennedy's campaign chair.

Jones must be oblivious to history when he asserts that clergy have been denied their constitutional rights or restricted in their political enthusiasms.

The sponsors of H.R. 2357 are slightly less southern and Protestant in orientation than the new Istook Prayer Amendment sponsors (see "Church and State," this issue), though its chief advocate, Walter Jones Jr., is a southern Catholic Republican, and one of its sponsors is the only Jewish Republican from the South, Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Still, sixty-three of the 111 sponsors, or 56.8 percent of all, are from the seventeen southern and border states, compared to 36.3 percent of all House members.

Politically, the bill could accurately be called the Republican Party Political Protection Act, since 107 sponsors are Republicans, three are Democrats, and one is Virginia Independent Virgil Goode, who votes with Republicans on almost all issues. (Two of the three Democrats are from the South--Ralph Hall of Texas and Ronnie Shows of Mississippi--while the third is the unpredictable Jim Traficant of Ohio.)

Religiously, H.R. 2357 has attracted disproportionate support from Protestants. Eighty of the 111 sponsors (or 72 percent) are Protestants compared to twenty-two (20 percent) who are Catholic, while six are Mormon, two are Eastern Orthodox Christian, and one is Jewish. The six Mormon sponsors constitute half of all the Mormons in Congress.

The bill's sponsors clearly represent the conservative, Bible Belt wing of the Republican Party. It should be seen as the latest move to ensure Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2002 congressional elections.

Albert J. Menendez is associate director of Americans for Religious Liberty and a church-state research specialist and demographer.