Educating the Public About Positive Changes in Welfare Reform

March-April 1997

By Michelle N. Voll

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Center for Public Justice released A Guide to Charitable Choice in January to help state authorities understand and implement new federal welfare rules governing their relations with faith-based service providers. The Guide will also assist churches and other religious organizations decide whether to participate in providing welfare services funded by the new federal welfare block grants, which turn much of welfare responsibility over to the states.

This easily accessible, 30-page book is the Center's first publication of the year and was produced in cooperation with the Center for Law and Religious Freedom—the legal advocacy arm of the Christian Legal Society. Stanley Carlson-Thies, director of the Project on Government and the Religious Social Sector at the Center for Public justice, wrote the Guide based on materials prepared by Carl H. Esbeck, professor of law at the University of Missouri. Esbeck assisted Senator John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) in drafting the Charitable Choice provision in the 1996 welfare law.

A Guide to Charitable Choice is introduced by Senator Ashcroft and includes a Question & Answer section, a succinct overview of Charitable Choice, and the actual text of the provision.

In his introduction to the Guide Ashcroft asserts that "many successful faith-based organizations have not participated in government programs for fear of having to compromise their religious integrity or being hobbled by excessive government regulation and intrusion." Charitable Choice requires states to respect religious organizations as allies in the fight against poverty and social distress.

"The regulation does not violate the First Amendment's separation of church and state because the government funds are not spent to advance religion, but to fulfill the valid public purpose of helping the needy," as stated recently by the Center for Public justice in a widely distributed press release from World Vision's office in the state of Washington.

Charitable Choice obliges all states, even states with constitutional restrictions on the use of public money by religious organizations, not to discriminate against faith-based organizations in contracting or using vouchers to provide services to the needy. The provision protects the religious character and autonomy of such organizations, including their control of employment policy. Furthermore, it honors the religious liberty of welfare beneficiaries by ensuring that they may choose an alternative source of service if they object to a faith-based provider

For educational purposes, the Center for Public justice is distributing more than 3000 copies of the Guide to state and local officials, members of Congress, charities, grassroots community organizations, and the press.

The same week the Center released its announcement to the press about the new publication, representatives of the Center were invited by Senator Ashcroft to attend a Capitol Hill press conference, where the Guide was picked up by journalists and congressional staffers. The conference featured Ashcroft along with other members of Congress who are forming a new bicameral group called the Renewal Alliance. The Alliance, which is not opposed to accepting Democrats, is led by Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.), who will be the Center's Kuyper Lecturer this fall.

The Renewal Alliance wants to promote non-governmental solutions to human suffering by empowering the institutions of civil society to work for cultural and social renewal. In the future, the Alliance will consider drawing up a comprehensive piece of legislation that will combine the contributions of its individual members, including enterprise zones, tax credits for charitable giving, vouchers for public schools, and more flexible work schedules.

The Center for Public Justice encourages its own constituents to partake in the effort of educating churches and faith-based groups about the Charitable Choice provision in the welfare law.