Los Angeles Times
March 2, 2005

Bush Says Faith Should Figure in Charity Jobs
By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday threatened to impose
controversial new policies to let federally funded religious charities
make hiring decisions based on the religious beliefs of potential
employees.

Calling for an expansion of his faith-based initiative, Bush said that
if Congress did not vote for the changes in hiring law this year, he
would consider doing it himself through "executive action."
Administration officials later said it remained unclear what powers the
president had to affect hiring laws through executive order.

The president's remarks came on the eve of a House vote on the hiring
issue. Administration officials say that some religious charities have
been dissuaded from applying for federal grants out of fear that they
would lose their religious identities in having to comply with civil
rights laws that prevent discrimination in hiring.

Opponents say the change would be tantamount to government-sponsored
discrimination, a fear that led Senate Democrats and skeptical
Republicans to block the initiative during Bush's first term.

"One of the key reasons why many faith-based groups are so effective is
a commitment to serve that is grounded in the shared values and
religious identity of their volunteers and employees," Bush said. "In
other words, effectiveness happens because people who share a faith
show up to help a particular organization based on that faith to
succeed. And that's important, now, for people in Washington to
understand."

Bush's faith-based initiative has been credited with boosting the GOP
vote in battleground states last year among African Americans and
Latinos. Under the initiative, the administration has encouraged
federal agencies to funnel more money to religious organizations that
Bush says often perform social services more effectively than the
government.

The House is expected to approve legislation today that, among other
things, would allow religious organizations that receive federal
job-training grants to consider religious beliefs when hiring staff.
The measure's fate is less certain in the Senate.

Bush, speaking Tuesday at a conference of groups involved in the
faith-based initiative, said Congress should pass the measure to clear
up a confusing web of laws regarding whether federally funded religious
groups can restrict hiring to people with matching beliefs.

President Clinton signed laws that the White House was now contending
permitted such hiring practices, including a landmark 1996 welfare
measure that permitted preferential hiring by faith-based organizations
engaged in welfare-to-work programs.

But other laws prohibit discrimination under federally funded
job-training and education programs.

Opponents charged that Bush misinterpreted the laws signed by Clinton,
and that the measures being sought by Bush represented a sharp shift in
U.S. policy, creating an historic rollback of civil rights laws.

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Church and
State, which opposes the House bill, said the legislation being
considered by the House would roll back existing discrimination
statutes.

"It is astonishing that the president would put his so-called moral
power behind a rollback of the nation's civil rights principles," Lynn
said. He said that he would defend any religious organization's right
to hire whomever it pleased for jobs and programs not funded by the
federal government. But, he said, "this is about tax dollars being used
affirmatively to fund discrimination."

Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-Va.), who has led opposition to the
job-training legislation to be voted on today, said Tuesday that
institutionalizing religious discrimination would lead directly to
legalized racial discrimination. He said blacks would be shut out of
jobs created by a Mormon organization, given that Mormonism was almost
entirely white, while whites would be shut out of jobs created by
programs run by the Nation of Islam or the African Methodist Episcopal
Church.

"That is a profound change in position for the federal government," he
said.

Bush's faith-based initiative has proved politically beneficial to the
GOP, which has used taxpayer-financed grants as an entree into black,
Latino and evangelical churches, many of which are run by charismatic
pastors who backed Bush's reelection.

But the program came under criticism last month from a former official
from the White House faith-based office, David Kuo, who penned a column
for a religion website accusing the administration of failing to live
up to Bush's campaign promises to be a "compassionate conservative."
Kuo criticized the White House as failing to lobby hard enough for
major expenditures and changes to help religious charities, including a
tax break for charitable giving by people who do not itemize their tax
returns.

That deduction didn't pass amid criticism that the measure was too
costly in light of Bush's other tax breaks. In his budget for 2006,
Bush for the first time did not request it.

Still, Bush said that the administration had increased spending on
faith-based groups. Bush said the government spent $2 billion in fiscal
year 2004 on such organizations, an increase over the $1.1 billion the
administration said was spent the year before. He took credit for
increasing the percentage of federal grants that go to faith-based
groups.

But Jim Towey, director of the White House Office on Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives, later told reporters that the numbers were
inconclusive. The 2003 figure represented spending by five agencies,
while the 2004 number totaled that of seven agencies. What is more, he
said, both figures might be too high or too low, because there was no
systematic way to tally spending on faith-based groups.

Rep. Major R. Owens (D-N.Y.), a member of the Education and Workforce
Committee that produced the bill, said he planned to join other members
of the Congressional Black Caucus in voting against the hiring measure.
But he cautioned Democrats not to be seen as consistently negative
toward programs sending real dollars and real aid to local communities.


"If we don't have a strong alternative six months from now, we will be
in serious trouble because these [faith-based] programs have great
appeal," Owens said in an interview on the eve of the vote. "We should
recognize the appeal of programs that reach down to churches and
community organizations to solve local problems and develop our own
parallel program" but with more oversight and targeting than occurs
under the White House initiative.

Los Angeles Times
March 2, 2005

Bush Says Faith Should Figure in Charity Jobs
By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday threatened to impose
controversial new policies to let federally funded religious

make hiring decisions based on the religious beliefs of potential
employees.

Los Angeles Times
March 2, 2005

Bush Says Faith Should Figure in Charity Jobs
By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday threatened to impose
controversial new policies to let federally funded religious charities
make hiring decisions based on the religious beliefs of potential
employees.

Calling for an expansion of his faith-based initiative, Bush said that
if Congress did not vote for the changes in hiring law this year, he
would consider doing it himself through "executive action."
Administration officials later said it remained unclear what powers the
president had to affect hiring laws through executive order.

"If we don't have a strong alternative six months from now, we will be
in serious trouble because these [faith-based] programs have great
appeal," Owens said in an interview on the eve of the vote.