Nonprofit News and Comment

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“White House Budget Curbs Some Deductions for the Wealthy.” By Graham Bowley. New York Times. April 10, 2013. President Obama is no longer pressing to raise income tax rates on the rich. But that doesn’t mean he thinks the wealthy are paying enough in taxes. Outlining his budget proposals to Congress on Wednesday, Mr. Obama pushed to raise more than $600 billion in new revenue, mainly by curbing deductions for the most affluent taxpayers and forcing millionaires to pay a minimum rate of 30 percent. Under the White House plan, deductions for tax breaks like mortgage interest and contributions to charities would be capped at a maximum rate of 28 percent. The caps would limit the value of the breaks to the top 3 percent of taxpayers who face higher marginal tax rates and generate about $529 billion in additional revenue over 10 years. Many of the budget proposals, including the limit on deductions, have been made before by the Obama administration. Analysts said Congress was unlikely to adopt them in isolation, but that some Republicans might be open to a broader deal that included measures to close various loopholes in the tax code.

“Buying Your Vote; Dark Money and Big Data; Senator Pushes for Investigation of ‘False Statements’ by Dark Money Groups.” By Lois Beckett. ProPublica, April 10, 2013. A Democratic senator is pushing for an investigation of nonprofit groups that told the Internal Revenue Service they would not engage in political activity — and then spent millions attacking or praising candidates in 2012 elections. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, said at a campaign finance hearing yesterday that there were “numerous instances” in which nonprofit groups may have made false statements to the IRS about whether they planned to be involved in federal or local elections. Applications for tax-exempt status are submitted to the IRS under penalty of perjury. If the IRS is not well-suited to investigate these “plain vanilla criminal cases,” the U.S. Department of Justice should, Whitehouse said. ProPublica has reported extensively on the gap between what these groups told the IRS they would do in their applications for tax-exempt status and what they actually did. Part of the benefit of being recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit is that these “social welfare” groups do not have to disclose their donors publicly. But in order to quality as a 501(c)(4), groups cannot make influencing elections their primary activity.

“California lawmakers threaten to strip Scouts of tax exemption; The goal of their proposed legislation is to force the Boy Scouts to abandon its ban on openly gay members. The bill clears a state Senate committee.” By Patrick McGreevy. Los Angeles Times. April 11, 2013. Some California lawmakers seeking to pressure the Boy Scouts of America to abandon its ban on openly gay members are taking a novel approach: They are threatening to strip the organization of its state tax exemption. The proposal, which cleared a legislative hurdle Wednesday, once again puts California at the center of a national debate on gay rights, and it could put the state on a collision course with the IRS if passed. The legislation would revoke the exemption from state taxes for any nonprofit that excludes members by sexual orientation, gender identity or religious affiliation. Supporters acknowledge that the bill is directed at the Boy Scouts. “Unfortunately in California, some organizations are out of step with state law and regularly discriminate,” state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), the bill’s author, testified before the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on Wednesday. “The most egregious violator is the Boy Scouts of America.” The measure passed the committee with only Democrats in favor. It requires two-thirds support in the full Legislature to pass. The Boy Scouts of America has been under pressure for years from advocates for lesbians, gays and bisexual and transgender Americans to change its policy, but leaders of the nonprofit group have voted twice since 2010 to maintain it despite boycotts by corporate donors and condemnation by politicians and celebrities. Gay rights groups such as Equality California see the threat to tax benefits as a way to gain leverage over the organization.

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“Louisiana Abbey Finally Able To Sell Its Caskets.” All Things Considered/ National Public Radio. March 31, 2013. Last year, Weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan spoke with a deacon at St. Joseph Abbey in eastern Louisiana, where monks have been making simple pine caskets for more than 100 years. Now, for the first time, the brothers are able to legally sell their caskets to the Louisiana public after a court ruling.

“I.R.S. Reversal on ‘Church’ Pension Plan Rescues a Fund.” By Mary Williams Walsh. New York Times. April 1, 2013. The Internal Revenue Service has taken an unusual step to rescue the pensions of more than 700 people whose fund was about to run out of money, but it said that their circumstances were unique and that it was not setting a precedent. All the employees once worked at the Hospital Center at Orange, a New Jersey hospital that succumbed to financial troubles in 2004 and was closed. Late last month, after negotiations and an eight-year internal review, the I.R.S. reversed a critical decision it made in 2003 — just before the hospital closed — to recognize the hospital’s pension fund as a “church plan” under law. That decision took away the former employees’ government safety net because the Constitution’s church-state separation was said to bar the federal pension insurance program from covering church pensions. Voiding the 2003 decision restored that safety net, something pension experts said they had never seen happen before.

“No Brownie Points for Idaho Senate as It Keeps Tax on Girl Scout Cookies Top Lawmakers Wouldn’t Hold a Hearing Because ‘Nobody Could Say No’ to Cute Kids.” By Sudeep Reddy. Wall Street Journal. April 5, 2013. Girl Scouts attended a cookie-selling rally in Boise, Idaho, in February. Who can resist a Girl Scout selling something, except perhaps the state of Idaho? Girl Scout troops for decades have lifted millions of dollars from adult wallets selling cookies to raise money for their programs. They’ve also been some of the nation’s best lobbyists, deploying their youthful charm to fight off so many tax writers that, today, just two states—Idaho and Hawaii—try to take a bite out of their cookie sales. During this year’s legislative session in Boise, a stream of Girl Scouts used boxes of Thin Mints, meetings with lawmakers and hand-drawn appeals to handily win a sales-tax exemption, from the Idaho House. “I Wan’t to Sell MY COOKes For Muney,” read one note signed with a drawing of a cookie, possibly chocolate-chip. It was all very sweet. Then came the proficiency badge in raw politics. A circle of senior senators blocked their next move, standing ground on the more fundamental but less winsome question about whether governments should be handing out more tax breaks.

“White House Fights Catholic Church Subpoena On Birth Control.” y David Ingram. Huffington Post/Reuters. April 6, 2012. The Obama administration has gone to court to try to block a subpoena from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York seeking White House documents about the government’s requirement of insurance coverage for birth control. The subpoena requesting documents from President Barack Obama and his senior advisers would be burdensome to fulfill, the administration said in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the suit also argues that civil subpoenas of the president’s executive office are inappropriate except in extraordinary circumstances. The lawsuit was filed on Thursday and released on a court website on Friday. Religious organizations, individuals and corporations have filed scores of suits to block a planned mandate that employers generally include coverage of contraception in health insurance plans they offer workers. Though the mandate has some exceptions for religious employers, the New York archdiocese, one of the largest in the United States, said it expected to incur nearly $200 million each year in penalties if it refuses to comply. The Catholic Church teaches that artificial birth control is sinful because it violates natural law. A judge in Brooklyn federal court allowed an archdiocese lawsuit over the mandate to move forward in December, over the administration’s argument that it was premature. A lawyer for the archdiocese declined to comment on Friday on the administration’s court action.

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“A First Amendment Storm.” Editorial. New York Times. March 4, 2013. House Republicans and Democrats do not agree on much these days, but they managed to join together last month to breach the proper separation between church and state. By a 354-to-72 vote, the House approved a measure sponsored by Representatives Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, and Grace Meng, a New York Democrat, that would authorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make direct grants to churches, mosques, synagogues and other houses of worship “without regard to the religious character of the facility or the primary religious use of the facility.” In the bipartisan lunge to give in to political pressure from some religious groups after Hurricane Sandy, the House dispensed with holding even a single hearing before passing the bill, which abandons decades of Supreme Court precedent and longstanding administrative rules barring direct taxpayer financing of religious activities. Complaints that current rules unfairly discriminate against houses of worship are simply wrong. Churches, like most nonprofit organizations and businesses, are eligible for government loans to make storm-related repairs. They are also eligible for disaster assistance grants, just as secular nonprofit organizations are, if they dedicate at least 50 percent of their facilities to providing “essential services of a governmental nature” — like a community homeless shelter or soup kitchen open to the general public on a nondiscriminatory basis. Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, one of only six Republicans to vote against the bill, rightly argued that it unfairly exempts churches from the neutral requirement that beneficiaries of federal aid have to provide key secular services.

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“Church, State and Bible Class in Texas.” By Mark Oppenheimer. New York Times. March 1, 2013. It may be a little late for the holiday of Purim, but on Tuesday, in Eastland, Tex., Gay Hart will be baking hamantaschen — the traditional doughy, triangle-shaped pastries accented with dollops of prune, Nutella or some other delectable paste — for the mostly Protestant students in her class on the Bible at Eastland High School. Her curriculum also includes latke recipes for Hanukkah, “challah-days” and the Hebrew melody “Hava Nagila.” Mrs. Hart, a Baptist, offers such tidbits of Jewish folk culture to help make her class, offered at a public school, welcoming to people of all beliefs. But according to a new study by Mark A. Chancey of Southern Methodist University, such efforts are not enough to make her class pass constitutional muster. Dr. Chancey asserts that Mrs. Hart’s class, while offering what he calls a “sympathetic appreciation” of differing points of view, is taught from an evangelical Christian perspective and probably runs afoul of the Constitution. And Dr. Chancey says that Mrs. Hart, 77, is not alone in using a high school elective to pole-vault the wall between church and state. “Reading, Writing and Religion II,” released Jan. 16 by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, a watchdog organization focused on the separation of church and state, is Dr. Chancey’s second study of public school Bible courses in Texas. He wrote the first in 2006, after becoming intrigued by a lawsuit in Odessa, Tex., brought on behalf of a Jewish student concerned about her public high school’s evangelical Bible curriculum. That case was eventually settled, but in 2007, Texas passed a law requiring school districts to pay attention in their curriculums to religious literature, including the Bible, and its “impact on the history and literature of Western Civilization.” The requirement can be met through classes on the Bible or through readings in other classes, like social studies or English. There has long been disagreement about the legitimate place of religion in student-led and extracurricular activities, like after-school prayer groups, and at public school sporting events. But the new trend is to push the Bible into the heart of the instructional day. Since 2006, public schools in four other states — Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee — have passed laws similar to the one in Texas, and North Carolina is considering such a bill. South Carolina allows students to receive credit for Bible courses taken off campus, say, at a church or a Christian college.

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“House Approves Storm Aid for Religious Institutions.” By Robert Pear. New York Times. February 18, 2013. The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved legislation that would allow the use of federal money to rebuild churches and synagogues damaged by Hurricane Sandy, despite concern that such aid could violate the doctrine of separation of church and state. The bill, approved last week by a vote of 354 to 72, had support from Roman Catholic and Jewish organizations. It was opposed by 66 Democrats and 6 Republicans. The prospects for the bill in the Senate are uncertain. Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said Monday that she supported the measure and was working to secure its passage in the Senate. She noted that religious institutions like St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Belle Harbor, Queens, had provided aid to many storm victims. Scores of churches, synagogues and other houses of worship were damaged — along with homes, schools, stores and roads — when the hurricane battered the Northeast in late October. Congress has provided $60 billion to finance recovery efforts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has generally refused to provide grants to rebuild houses of worship. In some cases, federal aid can be used to reimburse houses of worship for social services they provide, and houses of worship can sometimes qualify for low-interest loans from the Small Business Administration. The House bill adds houses of worship to the list of private nonprofit organizations eligible for disaster relief. Federal law already allows such aid to museums, zoos, performing-arts centers, libraries, homeless shelters and other private nonprofit entities that provide “essential services of a governmental nature to the general public.”

“Supreme Court takes campaign finance case.” By Jennifer Rubin. Washington Post. February 19, 2013. The most important event today likely wasn’t the president hypocritically crying wolf about the sequester he insisted upon. It is not NBC News/MSNBC yet again throwing journalistic seriousness to the wind (this time by hiring David Axelrod, who was instrumental in getting the president elected twice but who will now give us his independent and unvarnished analysis?!). It is the Supreme Court’s granting review in McCutcheon v. FEC. The case is the next logical step in the series of campaign finance cases. At issue is whether the federal election donation dollar limits ($2,500 to a single candidate per race and $117,000 for a two-year period, including $46,200 for political candidates and $70,800 to political committees and PACs). The Supreme Court left open in the Citizens United case the potential for striking down limits on contributions as opposed to spending limits. In a three-judge panel in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the judges held that although there was a legitimate interest in preventing corruption, “contributing a large amount of money does not ipso facto implicate the government’s anticorruption interest.” Nevertheless, the court upheld the limits. As an aside the lower court judges noted, “Plaintiffs raise the troubling possibility that Citizens United undermined the entire contribution limits scheme, but whether that case will ultimately spur a new evaluation of Buckley is a question for the Supreme Court, not us.” And now it will.
Related stories:
“Justices Take On Campaign Funds; High Court to Review Caps on Individuals’ Total Donations; Challenge Brought.” Wall Street Journal. February 19, 2013.
“Supreme Court Takes Case on Overall Limit to Political Gifts.” New York Times. February 19, 2013.
“Campaign Donations and Political Corruption.” Opinion. New York Times. February 19, 2013.

“Oregon banks and credit unions once again at odds over tax-exempt status.” By Brent Hunsberger. Oregonian. February 20, 2013. Protesters gathered outside a JPMorgan Chase & Co. branch downtown Portland in 2011 before marching to Northwest Resource Federal Credit Union in Old Town on “Move Your Money Day.” The “Move Your Money” effort — part of the Occupy movement — is among factors that have contributed to significant growth for credit unions. Oregon banks argue that credit unions, as they become more similar to banks, should be taxed like banks, too. It’s becoming as reliable as interest on a time deposit: banks and credit unions clashing in the Oregon Legislature over the latter’s tax-free status. This year, the clash has become a deliberately public one. The Oregon Bankers Association has pushed legislation that would require Oregon’s largest credit unions to pay excise taxes, meet new community-lending requirements, and disclose more about their loans to businesses and services offered to low-income members. The association also paid for two recent consultants’ reports highlighting the growth of Oregon’s largest credit unions and the revenue that could be raised by taxing them. “This is about credit unions that have become pretty indistinguishable from banks,” said association president Linda Wilhelms Navarro. “Tax-exempt organizations have to fulfill a public benefit to justify the subsidy.” The Northwest Credit Union Association is fighting back, hiring Gallatin Public Affairs, a prominent Portland-based public relations and lobbying firm, to fight back. This week, it’s sending legislators results of a survey showing Oregonians favor credit unions and their tax break. Bankers have long held that credit unions’ nonprofit, tax-exempt status gives them an unfair competitive advantage. They say the largest no longer resemble the cooperatives that served a niche deserving a tax break. Credit unions counter that they can’t raise investor money as banks can and are sometimes limited by whom they can take as members. Their higher savings rates and lower loan rates generate economic benefits that justify the exemption. In Oregon, credit unions hold just less than one-fourth of the deposits held by banks.

“Sovereign Grace Ministries Uses First Amendment As Defense In Sex Abuse Case.” By Eric Tucker. Huffington Post. February 30, 2013. A small evangelical Christian denomination called Sovereign Grace Ministries was already grappling with fractured leadership, outside scrutiny of its policies and public criticism from former members when a new round of problems emerged. A lawsuit last fall brought by former members accused church officials of covering up allegations of child sexual abuse committed by its members. Then a onetime member of the church’s former flagship congregation was indicted in December on charges that he molested multiple boys in the 1980s while involved in youth ministries. The church hasn’t yet answered the specific accusations, but has signaled that it may lean on the First Amendment – a defense that religious institutions have used repeatedly and with some limited success in the last decade to inoculate themselves from sex abuse claims. A statement issued in response to the lawsuit, filed in Maryland, says permitting courts to second-guess confidential advice given by church leaders to congregation members would “represent a blow to the First Amendment.” “We are saddened that lawyers are now, in essence, seeking to violate those rights by asking judges and juries, years after such pastoral assistance was sought, to dictate what sort of biblical counsel they think should have been provided,” the statement said. The church’s formal response to the lawsuit, due Monday, is expected to provide a window into its legal strategy. The First Amendment argument, advanced by some legal scholars, derives from a belief that churches ought to be considered autonomous, self-governing institutions whose internal decision-making is off-limits to secular courts. Religious institutions, including the Roman Catholic Church, have invoked the Constitution in arguing that they shouldn’t be liable for the hiring or supervision of a priest facing abuse allegations.

“Waco’s Assault on Religious Toleration; Americans tend to accept different beliefs. Less so the government.” By Philip Jenkins. Wall Street Journal. February 21, 2013. Twenty years ago, on Feb. 28, 1993, a firefight near Waco, Texas, began a weeks-long confrontation between members of the Branch Davidian sect and agents of the federal government. The conflict culminated at the sect’s compound known as Mount Carmel on April 19, with the deaths, as a fire spread through the buildings, of 80 sect members, including 20 children. Looking over the span of American history, we must be struck by what a radical departure the conflict marked in religious terms. Rather than ask what could have led believers to follow such a bizarre movement, we should see the Davidians as part of a well-established tradition of religious movements in America. It is the ferocity of the official response that still demands explanation. From the earliest days of British settlement, religious secession has been a fundamental theme of America’s history. Throughout that history, evangelical and apocalyptic ideas have been commonplace, boosted by repeated revivals and spiritual awakenings. Sometimes, religious fervor has spawned new denominations, and often it has driven believers to seek out new territories. For the most part, these sects were tolerated. Though some religious groups (most notably the Mormons) have occasionally faced violent opposition, Americans have proved remarkably tolerant of religious separatists. If people who believe in imminent apocalypse feel the need to flee the wrath to come and seek refuge in the wilderness, why shouldn’t they?

“IRS Should Bar Dark Money Groups From Funding Political Ads, Lawsuit Says.” By Kim Barker. ProPublica, February 20, 2013. A former Illinois congressional candidate and a government watchdog organization have teamed up to sue the Internal Revenue Service, claiming the agency should bar dark money groups from funding political ads. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday by David Gill, his campaign committee and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, is the first to challenge how the IRS regulates political spending by social welfare nonprofits, campaign-finance experts say. As ProPublica has reported, these nonprofits, often called dark money groups because they don’t have to identify their donors, have increasingly become major players in politics since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in early 2010.

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“House clears disaster aid for houses of worship; Houses of worship damaged by Superstorm Sandy move one step closer to receiving federal disaster aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, despite some critics.” Crain’s New York Business/Associated Press. February 13, 2013. The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill to allow houses of worship damaged by Superstorm Sandy to receive federal disaster aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The House voted 354-72 for the bill, which now goes to the Senate. Houses of worship would be added to the federal government’s list of private nonprofit organizations eligible for FEMA aid to help rebuild under the measure. Critics said it goes against the constitutional separation of church and state. Backers of the bill say hundreds of houses of worship were damaged in the storm and that many of them continued to serve their stricken communities providing help such as shelter and food. Sandy roared up the East Coast and pounded several states in late October, especially New York and New Jersey. It was the deadliest hurricane in the northeastern U.S. in 40 years and the second-costliest in the nation’s history, a recent National Hurricane Center report said.
The measure, co-authored by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. and Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., allows houses of worship to seek grants from FEMA’s disaster relief fund, which helps pay for rebuilding efforts, restoring power and other immediate needs arising from the storm.

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“Federal Aid For Religious Institutions In Murky Waters After Sandy.” By Margot Adler. Morning Edition/National Public Radio. February 8, 2013. More than 200 houses of worship damaged in Superstorm Sandy have applied for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But given the separation of church and state, it’s unclear whether federal funds are available to them. The sanctuary of Temple Israel of Long Beach, N.Y., was flooded with more than 10 feet of saltwater in some places, says Rabbi David Bauman. “Roughly 5 to 7 feet [of water] in most, and there were surges — particularly in our mechanical room — that went upwards of 12 to 14 feet,” he says. It’s warm inside the synagogue, but Bauman says this is a recent development. They just got their heat back. The sanctuary is mostly undamaged, but every room downstairs has been gutted. All that is left of the religious school and recreation rooms are concrete floors and wooden beams. One room has rolls and rolls of Torah scrolls, laid out like ribbons over dozens of chairs. The temple lost six Torahs and all the historical records of a 90-year-old synagogue. Bauman says it will cost about $5 million to restore the buildings; the congregation has raised a couple hundred thousand so far. FEMA has told houses of worship to apply for aid. The federal agency has extended the deadline, but the rules are murky. Religious institutions are considered ineligible according to FEMA regulations. But if they run a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, or if they have community activities that are nonsectarian, they may be considered for federal aid.

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“Christian school sues ex-teachers who refused to give proof of faith.” By Gordon Tokumatsu and Frava Burgess. NBCLosAngeles.com. January 29, 3013. A Christian school in Thousand Oaks, Calif., is suing two former teachers who threatened a lawsuit over the school’s requirement to provide proof of faith. When the Godspeak Church bought Little Oaks Elementary in 2009, it started requiring employees to fill out questionnaires that asked whether they attended church, which church they attended and what the pastor had to say about their beliefs. “We do believe their personal rights were violated,” said the teachers’ attorney, Dawn Coulson. Coulson said Lynda Serrano and Mary Ellen Guevara received their questionnaires last summer. After they refused to fill out the form, they were not rehired. The teachers then filed paperwork saying they intended to sue. The school’s attorney, Rick Kahdeman, said the church exercised its constitutional right to freedom of religion. He said that trumps any claim the teachers may have under state equal employment laws. “The teachers chose not to [fill out the paperwork], and they knew it was a condition of employment,” Kahdeman said. Coulson contends that California’s employment laws protect her clients, in part, because the school northwest of Los Angeles was purchased by a church as a for-profit entity, not a nonprofit. She said employers can’t require such questionnaires as a basis for employment, even if they are churches. “That would be like the church buying shares in IBM, and IBM saying, ‘We can now discriminate, based on religion,’” Coulson said. “That issue is totally irrelevant because the rights of the school come from the First Amendment to the Constitution,” Kahdeman countered. Kahdeman is suing the two teachers and their attorneys in federal court.

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“At Stanford, Clinical Training for Defense of Religious Liberty.” New York Times. January 21, 2013. [For story, go to Religion].

“The Influence Industry; Florida group wants to end caps on campaign donations.” By T.W. Farnam. New York Times. January 23, 2013. A Florida good-government group is pushing a novel plan to fix a state political system overrun with untraceable money. It wants to remove a $500 cap on checks to campaigns and allow donors to contribute as much as they like. Republican leaders in the state legislature seem intent on overhauling campaign funding, replacing a system that almost everyone agrees is dysfunctional. Under current rules, candidates can create amorphous political war chests — called Committees of Continuous Existence — to raise unlimited funds to pay for perks and political advertising for themselves and their allies. “Loopholes in the state’s campaign finance laws are giving Florida’s citizens the worst of all possible worlds,” the National Institute on Money in State Politics wrote in a 2011 report. “Rather than limiting the influence of large campaign donors, Florida’s laws simply drive them, in effect, underground.” Integrity Florida, a good-government group formed last year, has proposed ending the charade by removing restrictions on donations and requiring that they be disclosed online within 24 hours. The fate of the group’s proposal is worth paying attention to, because it ultimately could shape reform efforts on the federal level as well.

“Separation of Church and State, Disaster Edition; The government is reluctant to fix religious institutions. Will Sandy aid be forthcoming?” By Avi Schick. Wall Street Journal. January 24, 2013. In coming days, the Senate is expected to approve $50.5 billion in federal aid for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. This is in addition to the $9.7 billion in aid approved earlier this month. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Housing and Urban Development will determine how most of the aid is distributed. Their to-do list should include a clear message that houses of worship and other religious institutions will be fully eligible for assistance. In New York state alone, hundreds of houses of worship were damaged by Sandy. More than 200 Catholic parishes were affected, including Our Lady of Solace in Coney Island, which was completely devastated. The New York State Council of Churches reports that over a hundred of its member churches sustained damage, while the UJA-Federation reports that dozens of synagogues were affected. Among them was Agudath Israel of Bayswater in the Rockaways, which had recently completed a top-to-bottom rebuilding and is now destroyed. Hurricane Sandy was nothing if not ecumenical. Yet with the FEMA application deadline less than a week away, there is fear that the distribution of relief aid will be less inclusive. Without clear guidance from the Obama administration, it is likely that many religious institutions will be discouraged from applying for assistance while others are likely to have their applications denied. After an earthquake struck Seattle in 2002, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel stepped in to continue what the Oklahoma City amendment began. After FEMA denied the Seattle Hebrew Academy’s application for assistance, the Justice Department issued an opinion deeming the distribution of disaster relief to the religiously affiliated school a permissible extension of the government’s police powers. That seems like common sense. After all, when evacuation orders were issued for Hurricane Sandy, houses of worship were not excluded. When emergency workers helped fortify buildings, houses of worship were not excluded. When first responders trained their hoses on burning roofs and used their pumps to empty flooded basements, houses of worship were not excluded. So when FEMA is going up and down the block distributing aid to repair the roofs of damaged buildings, why should houses of worship be excluded?

“A Flood of Suits Fights Coverage of Birth Control.” By Ethan Bronner. New York Times. January 26, 2013. In a flood of lawsuits, Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Mennonites are challenging a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to cover birth control in employee health plans — a high-stakes clash between religious freedom and health care access that appears headed to the Supreme Court. In recent months, federal courts have seen dozens of lawsuits brought not only by religious institutions like Catholic dioceses but also by private employers ranging from a pizza mogul to produce transporters who say the government is forcing them to violate core tenets of their faith. Some have been turned away by judges convinced that access to contraception is a vital health need and a compelling state interest. Others have been told that their beliefs appear to outweigh any state interest and that they may hold off complying with the law until their cases have been judged. New suits are filed nearly weekly. President Obama’s health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act, was the most fought-over piece of legislation in his first term and was the focus of a highly contentious Supreme Court decision last year that found it to be constitutional. But a provision requiring the full coverage of contraception remains a matter of fierce controversy. The law says that companies must fully cover all “contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures” approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including “morning-after pills” and intrauterine devices whose effects some contend are akin to abortion. As applied by the Health and Human Services Department, the law offers an exemption for “religious employers,” meaning those who meet a four-part test: that their purpose is to inculcate religious values, that they primarily employ and serve people who share their religious tenets, and that they are nonprofit groups under federal tax law. But many institutions, including religious schools and colleges, do not meet those criteria because they employ and teach members of other religions and have a broader purpose than inculcating religious values.

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“Will the SEC Force More Campaign Finance Disclosure?” By George Zornick. Nation. January 8, 2013. We’ve long been covering pressure by good-government groups on the Securities and Exchange Commission to require publicly traded companies to disclose their campaign spending, which, thanks in part to Citizen’s United, remains behind an impenetrable wall. Right off the bat, such a requirement is simply good policy for investors. As we saw when Target was exposed for contributions to anti-gay politicians in Minnesota, political giving can be dangerous for companies because they’ll inevitably end up alienating customers—maybe a lot of them. So investors have the right to know what risks are being undertaken. But beyond that, there’s a strong belief among reformers that more disclosure ultimately leads to less corporate influence in elections, for that same reason. (There’s a reason why very few corporations give to SuperPACs, which do disclose donors, and instead prefer the lockbox of a 501(c)(4) operation). The big news is that SEC quietly announced last month that it will consider that rule this year. This came after a sustained campaign, spearheaded by the Corporate Reform Coalition—composed of labor groups, progressive organizations and government watchdogs—that resulted in over 320,000 public comments asking the SEC to act.
Related story:
“U.S. to Take Closer Look at Flood of Corporate Political Spending.” By Carey L. Biron. Interpress Service (ipsnews.net). January 9, 2012.
“Investigating the intersection of politics, lobbying and public policy. Secret Money Lobbyists Fight SEC Disclosure Rule.” Nation. January 10, 2013.

“Cultural institutions need to pay up.” By Lawrence Harmon. Boston Globe. January 12, 2013. Boston’s leading arts and cultural institutions elevate spirits, but they lack appreciation for the high cost of providing police, fire, and road services to their patrons and employees. The city’s tax-exempt colleges and hospitals, for the most part, take a more enlightened approach when it comes to making voluntary payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, to offset the costs of city services. A new report from the nonprofit Boston Municipal Research Bureau shows that the 48 largest, private tax-exempt institutions in the city — ranging from Massachusetts General Hospital to Boston College High School — contributed nearly $20 million to the the city’s coffers in so-called PILOT payments in 2012. Hospitals and colleges complied admirably with the city’s requests, 96 percent and 88 percent respectively. The cultural institutions posted a pathetic 39 percent compliance rate. In the past, these payments in lieu of taxes carried the whiff of a shakedown: Institutions paid up when they came in search of building permits and zoning variances. Now a sensible formula is in place that asks nonprofit groups with properties worth $15 million or more to pay 25 percent of what a for-profit owner would pay. That corresponds with the quarter of the city budget spent on services that directly benefit the institutions, such as public safety and snow removal. Nonprofit institutions are an irreplaceable source of jobs, prestige, and spending on local goods and services. But the ability to attract students, patients, tourists, and a talented workforce depends on Boston’s reputation as a safe and livable city. The “eds and meds’’ get the concept of mutualism and recognize the difficulty of running a city where half the land area is tax-exempt. Cultural institutions either don’t get it or prefer to view the city from sublime heights. The Children’s Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Science, and New England Aquarium made no cash payments last year. The Museum of Fine Arts, with property valued at $282 million, contributed just $56,000 — about a fifth of the amount requested. Only the Boston Symphony and WGBH paid their fair share. The decision to pay nothing — even a reduced payment — suggests arrogance. The Municipal Research Bureau report sympathizes with cultural institutions that struggle during fluctuations in the economy. It notes that the city’s PILOT formula already allows an institution to fulfill up to 50 percent of its obligation in the form of scholarships, summer jobs, and other community benefits. So why not allow the cultural institutions to exceed that 50 percent threshold and even, in some cases, make no cash payments at all?

“Judge denies Planned Parenthood effort to be in Texas women’s health program.” By Vivian Kuo. CNN. January 11, 2013. A Texas judge Friday denied Planned Parenthood’s request to be included in the state’s newly revamped women’s health program. Judge Stephen Yelenosky said he denied the organization’s request for a temporary injunction because it was unlikely Planned Parenthood would win at trial, since federal funds are not at issue in the case. “If, as plaintiffs argue, a successor program must be Medicaid-funded then the only legal remedy would be for this court to shut down the state-funded women’s health program, not to order the inclusion of Planned Parenthood,” Judge Yelenosky wrote in the ruling. The Judge says with no federal funds involved, Planned Parenthood doesn’t have a case. Planned Parenthood is excluded from the state’s Women’s Health Program. The law puts funding of women’s health clinics in state hands rather than federal. No clinics associated with abortion providers can receive any of the money. Texas lawmakers applauded the ruling. “This is great news for Texas women and further proves that Planned Parenthood’s case attempting to derail the Texas Women’s Health Program lacks merit,” Gov. Rick Perry said in a statement. He added that the injunction request was “nothing more than a desperate move by an organization more concerned with obtaining taxpayer money than with helping women get care. With this ruling, our state can continue caring for Texas women.”