Replies to post #59965 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[Rick Faurot]

Bush redirects funds: Bush's faith-based changes scrutinized
He has made changes without Congress' OK
Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
President Bush has gone "under the radar" and around the Congress to spread his faith-based initiative throughout the federal government, according to a new study released Monday.

The study, compiled by researchers at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y., is one of the first comprehensive looks at the Bush administration's efforts to redirect government grants to churches and other faith-based groups.

"Religious organizations are now involved in government-encouraged activities ranging from building strip malls for economic improvement to promoting child car seats,'' the study states.

Branches in 10 agencies

Taken together, the report finds that the Bush programs "mark a major shift in the constitutional separation of church and state."

"Few if any presidents in recent history have reached as deeply into or as broadly across the government to implement a presidential initiative administratively,'' said institute director Richard Nathan.

The study focuses on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which has set up faith-based branch offices in 10 federal agencies ranging from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Bush administration officials say the faith- based initiative is meant to merely "level the playing field" so churches and other religious groups can compete for billions of dollars the federal government hands out each year through government social service contracts.

Jim Towey, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said Monday that he hadn't had time to read the entire study.

"But parts of it that I have read seem to lay out dark motives for what is happening,'' Towey said in an interview with The Chronicle. "What it shows is that the president is taking the steps he promised he would take to end discrimination against faith-based groups.''

Religious groups such as Catholic Charities USA and Lutheran Social Services have long gotten government funding to feed the poor, heal the sick and house the homeless. But they were required to set up separate nonprofit agencies to run those programs and to operate under strict rules that forbid them to proselytize or limit hiring to employees of a particular faith or religious denomination.

So far, Congress has resisted Bush administration proposals to rewrite the rules and loosen long-standing restrictions against preaching in publicly funded poverty programs.

What the new study by the Rockefeller Institute's Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy shows is how the administration has pushed its agenda through presidential fiat.

Study has 'point of view'

Anne Farris, a co-author of the report, said President Bush had promoted his personal beliefs "both in ideology and deeds -- in the workings of the federal government."

Nathan, the institute director, said the study was based on "independent, nonpartisan research on faith-based social service."

Towey questioned the institute's motives and said they had not interviewed him about the program he runs. "They have a point of view," he said.

Most of the report relies on the government's own statistics and Bush administration statements about expanding church involvement in social welfare programs.

For example, grants given to faith-based groups by the Departments of Health and Human Services increased 41 percent in fiscal year 2003.

The report also cites newly revised Department of Labor rules that exempt religious organizations from provisions of the Civil Rights Act that forbid discrimination in employment based on religion.

It also notes changes in federal regulations that now allow churches to use federal funds to renovate buildings that are used for both social services and religious worship.

Joe Conn, a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, called the new study "very alarming."

"This administration seems obsessed with faith-based solutions for everything,'' Conn said. "What they don't seem to worry about is the Constitution.''

'Pray for rain'

Even the Department of Agriculture now has its own office of faith-based initiatives, Conn noted.

"Maybe they're going to pray for rain,'' he said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/ar...

[Rick Faurot]

Saving the Vote
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Tuesday 17 August 2004

Everyone knows it, but not many politicians or mainstream journalists are willing to talk about it, for fear of sounding conspiracy-minded: there is a substantial chance that the result of the 2004 presidential election will be suspect.

When I say that the result will be suspect, I don't mean that the election will, in fact, have been stolen. (We may never know.) I mean that there will be sufficient uncertainty about the honesty of the vote count that much of the world and many Americans will have serious doubts.

How might the election result be suspect? Well, to take only one of several possibilities, suppose that Florida - where recent polls give John Kerry the lead - once again swings the election to George Bush.

Much of Florida's vote will be counted by electronic voting machines with no paper trails. Independent computer scientists who have examined some of these machines' programming code are appalled at the security flaws. So there will be reasonable doubts about whether Florida's votes were properly counted, and no paper ballots to recount. The public will have to take the result on faith.

Yet the behavior of Gov. Jeb Bush's officials with regard to other election-related matters offers no justification for such faith. First there was the affair of the felon list. Florida law denies the vote to convicted felons. But in 2000 many innocent people, a great number of them black, couldn't vote because they were erroneously put on a list of felons; these wrongful exclusions may have put Governor Bush's brother in the White House.

This year, Florida again drew up a felon list, and tried to keep it secret. When a judge forced the list's release, it turned out that it once again wrongly disenfranchised many people - again, largely African-American - while including almost no Hispanics.

Yesterday, my colleague Bob Herbert reported on another highly suspicious Florida initiative: state police officers have gone into the homes of elderly African-American voters - including participants in get-out-the-vote operations - and interrogated them as part of what the state says is a fraud investigation. But the state has provided little information about the investigation, and, as Mr. Herbert says, this looks remarkably like an attempt to intimidate voters.

Given this pattern, there will be skepticism if Florida's paperless voting machines give President Bush an upset, uncheckable victory.

Congress should have acted long ago to place the coming election above suspicion by requiring a paper trail for votes. But legislation was bottled up in committee, and it may be too late to change the hardware. Yet it is crucial that this election be credible. What can be done?

There is still time for officials to provide enhanced security, assuring the public that nobody can tamper with voting machines before or during the election; to hire independent security consultants to perform random tests before and during Election Day; and to provide paper ballots to every voter who requests one.

Voters, too, can do their bit. Recently the Florida Republican Party sent out a brochure urging supporters to use absentee ballots to make sure their votes are counted. The party claims that was a mistake - but it was, in fact, good advice. Voters should use paper ballots where they are available, and if this means voting absentee, so be it. (Election officials will be furious about the increased workload, but they have brought this on themselves.)

Finally, some voting activists have urged a last-minute push for independent exit polling, parallel to but independent of polling by media groups (whose combined operation suffered a meltdown during the upset Republican electoral triumph in 2002). This sounds like a very good idea.

Intensive exit polling would do triple duty. It would serve as a deterrent to anyone contemplating election fraud. If all went well, it would help validate the results and silence skeptics. And it would give an early warning if there was election tampering - perhaps early enough to seek redress.

It's horrifying to think that the credibility of our democracy - a democracy bought through the courage and sacrifice of many brave men and women - is now in danger. It's so horrifying that many prefer not to think about it. But closing our eyes won't make the threat go away. On the contrary, denial will only increase the chances of a disastrously suspect election.