by Nicole Maharaj
July 23, 2001

The House of Representatives passed the Community Solutions Act (H.R. 7) on Thursday, July 19. The legislation is a priority of the Bush Administration and the bill seeks to expand the role of faith and community serving organizations in addressing social problems by allowing them greater ability to compete for federal grants to provide social service delivery to persons in need of assistance. The bill intends to expand charitable choice provisions under Welfare Reform, signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. It also includes more than $13 billion in charitable tax breaks. The vote for H.R. 7 was 233-198, including 15 Democrats favoring the bill.

While acknowledging and supporting the good work and accomplishments of faith and community-based groups across the nation, The Conference of Mayors has expressed substantive and merited concerns with H.R. 7 to sponsors of the legislation and other members of congress relating to unfunded mandate, liability and pre-emption issues.

As passed, the current version of the bill requires local governments to provide an accessible alternative when a service recipient objects to a community-based provider's religious character, which is in essence an unfunded mandate. No additional funding is provided to meet this requirement, which could create an undue fiscal burden and liability concern for local governments.

In addition, while changes were made in Committee to remove language which would have exposed local officials directly to lawsuits, bill provisions could be interpreted to give faith-based providers broader authority to sue local governments if they are denied funding based on what they feel to be religious discrimination, causing city governments to expend public resources to defend lawsuits. The bill also pre-empts state and local civil protections of protected classes of citizens in hiring practices.

The bill faced ardent opposition from Democrats in the House and will probably still encounter much opposition by Democrats in the Senate, who argue the bill allows for federally sanctioned religious discrimination. Much of the debate focused around the hiring practices of a faith-based provider, which enables them to maintain their religious character in staff hiring selections. Many civil rights activists consider this to be federally funded religious discrimination. The present legislation would pre-empt religious charities from state and local anti-discrimination laws that cover protected classes of citizens. Although Republicans feel the legislation preserves current civil rights laws that allow churches and synagogues to hire people who share same religious principles, both bill sponsors promised to more clearly address the concern when the measure is taken up in conference. "Nothing in this bill changes civil rights laws. It's about giving people who are in the trenches and are compelled and have a desire to help those in need more resources. We should work with religious groups, not against them," said Representative J.C. Watts (OK).

Bill sponsor, Representative Tony P. Hall (OH) defended the legislation by saying, "Small religious groups that most need financing, also need to retain their character of their faith by hiring members of their own religion. This is about the little guy, the small organization with two or three employees. And, we Democrats need to be careful and not dismiss and discourage people in this country of faith. These groups, which are inspired by their faith provide outreach and assistance where others won't and caring for those considered to be the least, last and lost," said Hall, who also acknowledged that most Democrats opposed the measure purely for political reasons.

Endorsements and support for the bill were received from groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Habitat for Humanity International, and the United States Catholic Conference. Opponents of the bill included the American Civil Liberties Union, the United Methodist Church and the National Association of Advancement of Colored People.

House Minority Leader Representative Richard Gephardt, said he felt the bill represented a missed opportunity to help faith-based organizations, because they often tend to the most underprivileged in our society and are vital and irreplaceable to every community. However, he felt that the consequences of allowing groups to pre-empt civil rights protections, would make it easier for these groups to ignore fundamental principles of liberty and equality.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (SD), said that H.R. 7 is unlikely to be considered soon in the Senate. Daschle said the exemption would be taken out of the Senate version of the bill. "I can't imagine that we could pass any bill that would tolerate slipping back into a level of tolerance that would be unacceptable in today's society. We can't move backwards on the progress we've made on discrimination in this country," said Daschle. In addition, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate, is considering writing his own measure that he feels will win greater bipartisan support.