Christian Coalition of America
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The Christian Coalition of America, originally called the Christian Coalition, Inc., is a U.S. Christian advocacy group, which includes Christian fundamentalists, evangelicals, neo-evangelicals and charismatics. It once wielded great power within the Republican Party but membership has declined drastically in recent years. It claims to have 1,200,000 members, but records of public contributions and former employees indicate that its mailing list of active members is around 30,000.
The Christian Coalition was founded by Rev. Pat Robertson, who served as the organization's president from its founding until February 2001. The current president is Roberta Combs.
While labeling itself as the Christian Coalition, the organization represents certain viewpoints among numbers of Christians in the United States, but Christians with other beliefs disagree with the organization's ideas. The CCA's values are consistent with those of the Christian right.
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[edit] Rise
Following a well-funded but failed bid for the U.S. presidency in 1988, religious broadcaster and political commentator Pat Robertson used the remains of his campaign machinery to jump-start the creation of a voter mobilization effort dubbed the Christian Coalition. Americans for Robertson accumulated a mailing list of several million conservative Christians interested in politics. This mailing list formed the foundation for the new organization.
However, despite public announcements that excitement among evangelical and Christian right voters prompted the creation of the Christian Coalition, the incorporation records of the State of Virginia reveal that the Christian Coalition, Inc. was actually incorporated on April 30, 1987, with the paperwork filed earlier, and with planning having begun before that. Thus the Christian Coalition was actually planned long before Pat Robertson's run for President began. Robertson's candidacy appears to have been planned from the start for launching the Christian Coalition.[citation needed]
Ralph Reed, a University of Georgia Ph.D. candidate and hotel waiter, whom Robertson had met at an inaugural dinner for George H.W. Bush in January, 1989, took control of day-to-day operations of the Coalition in 1989. From 1989 through 1997, the Christian Coalition wielded sizeable influence, largely in the form of the charismatic and persuasive public face of Ralph Reed, who became a commanding public voice in the news media. The perception if not the reality that Christian Coalition activists controlled local Party machinery in many locations and could reliably turn out large blocs of votes for Religious Right candidates caused many Republican and Democrat politicians at local levels to either vote as the Christian Coalition urged or else struggle with explaining their votes. The fear of being listed on Voter Guides as casting anti-Christian votes prompted politicians in moderate to conservative districts to carefully consider the positions urged by the Christian Coalition.
After its founding, it was granted a grace period to operate as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization before the IRS made its final determination. Forty-nine state chapters were also created as independent corporations within their states, including the Christian Coalition of Texas. A handful, including the Christian Coalition of Texas successfully obtained non-profit status as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization, while the national group's application remained pending and unresolved.
In 1990, the national Christian Coalition, Inc., headquartered in Chesapeake, Virginia, began producing "non-partisan" voter guides which it distributed to conservative Christian churches, with 40 million being distributed in the 1992 and 1996 presidential election years. Under the leadership of Reed and Robertson, the Coalition quickly became the most prominent voice in the conservative Christian movement, landing Reed on the cover of Time in May, 1994, its influence culminating with an effort to support the election of a conservative Christian to the presidency in 1996 or 2000.
Complaints that the voter guides were actually partisan led to the denial of the Christian Coalition, Inc.'s tax-exempt status in 1999. The Christian Coalition, Inc. filed a lawsuit against the IRS after which the IRS backed down for most of the years in question, holding out only on 1992. However, instead of pursuing legal action, Pat Robertson renamed the Christian Coalition of Texas, Inc. as the Christian Coalition of America, Inc., since the Texas chapter already enjoyed tax exempt status, and transferred the trademark and all operations to the Texas-based corporation.[citation needed]
[edit] Decline
Following Bill Clinton's re-election and Reed's departure in 1997, the organization has made only limited progress and has greatly declined in influence, financial stability, staff, and resources.
It saw a loss in revenue from a high of $26.5 million in 1996 to $1.3 million in 2004. The organization's 2004 income tax return, (which for non-profits is made publicly available), showed the Christian Coalition to be technically bankrupt, with debts exceeding income and a negative net worth.
In 2005, the Coalition concluded a settlement agreement with the Internal Revenue Service, ending its long-running battle with that agency regarding its tax exempt status.[1] As a result, the IRS has now recognized the Coalition as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization, the first time in the Agency's history that it has granted a letter of exemption to a group that stated in its application that it would distribute voter guides directly in churches. The consent decree enforces limitations on the terminology that may be used in the Coalition's "voter guides".[1]
After its tax-exempt status was denied, CCA turned all of its attention to politics. In 2000 the coalition moved from its long-standing base of operations in the Chesapeake Bay area to an office on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
After Robertson stepped down as the group's president in 2000, Roberta Combs took over the Coalition. Combs, who had been President of the South Carolina Christian Coalition, installed members of her family as high-ranking officials in the group, including her own daughter Michele Ammons and her son-in-law Tracy Ammons. Michele Ammons would later divorce Tracy Ammons in ugly divorce proceedings, which led to Tracy's departure.
Since Robertson and Reed left the group, the Coalition's influence has greatly declined under Combs, and the once prosperous group now owes more than $2 million in debt. It is now under siege by lawsuits from creditors and is also struggling to hold on to state chapters.
Roberta Combs canceled a direct-mail fund-raising campaign run by fund-raiser Bill Sidebottom of Interact Response Communications aimed at fighting child pornography after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The cancelation of the campaign in the middle of its run led to nearly a dozen lawsuits by creditors and the bankruptcy of its fund-raising company. Without a fund-raising company supporting it, the Christian Coalition went into sharp decline financially.
In March, 2001, the Christian Coalition of America was sued by its African-American employees, alleging racial discrimination by Roberta Combs, U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. [2] The District Court issued an injunction against the Christian Coalition and the case was later settled with money paid to the African-American plaintiffs.
In November 2002, Roberta Combs down-sized the staff and moved the organization's offices from Washington, D.C., to a suburb of Charleston, South Carolina, in a building reportedly owned by one of her late husband's many family trusts. The Christian Coalition was later sued by the moving company, Reese & Sons Enterprises of Maryland, because the Christian Coalition failed to pay its moving company in full. The Christian Coalition lost in court in Richmond, Virginia, and finally paid the movers.
In late 2005, the Washington Post reported that the Christian Coalition was unable to pay its office postage bill to Pitney Bowes, and that the Christian Coalition had not paid its lawyers in Virginia Beach, Huff, Poole & Mahoney, and that the law firm had sued the Christian Coalition for its legal bills. Attempts to collect the law firm's fees in Virginia and South Carolina returned no funds of the Christian Coalition at various banks.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ a b Cooperman, Alan; Thomas B. Edsall (2006-04-10). "Christian Coalition Shrinks as Debt Grows". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040901063.html. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
- ^ See Washington Post, "10 Blacks Allege Bias at Christian Coalition," March 31, 2001.
