gious activities and not putting religious organizations in precarious positions where 5 years down the road some preacher because he didn't vote for somebody is going to get prosecuted or have his program terminated. And you can't determine whether he complied with the law or didn't comply with the law without making an assessment of the religious activities that he either did or did not engage in. Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman's time has expired. But the witnesses can address the questions put to the panel by the Member. Mr. LUPU. If I may have one word on it, Mr. Watt did not use the word entanglement or excessive entanglement in his questions but he certainly might well have. That is what he was asking about. I do think that there are issues of monitoring and auditing that are very serious, that are very delicate, that are very complicated. Many of them will be quite subvisibility to people like you. They will happen in local communities, they will happen when States administer their contracts. And if I were in your position in trying to design legislation of this character, I would be very mindful of the tension between enforcing the limits of the establishment clause and the problems of monitoring and intrusion that those limits might create. I think those issues are quite serious. Mr. LAYCOCK. I agree those are the right questions to ask. I would suggest you might not have the right witnesses to answer them. The four of us are experts in constitutional law, first amendment law, the law on religion. You need to get some people who are experienced and experts in the nuts and bolts of actually administering these programs and delivering these services to answer questions about how it actually works on the ground. Mr. WATT. Mr. Esbeck, I think he is experienced in this area. Mr. ESBECK. Professor Laycock has it right. We in fact are people who would look at the Constitution on statutory issues, and the implementation or what Mr. Nadler called the sort of nuts and bolts is not what we were of course asked to testify to here and prepare to. I would just say that of course the government has a vast amount of experience in the regulatory oversight of Federal programs and issuance of grants. And from what little I have been able to learn about that is when a statute is passed, of course there is quite a lot of consideration given to the very next layer, which is the regulatory layer, and then underneath that is policy explanations. And also I am told that when new program begins or when an old program is reauthorized, always with some changes, there are a number of workshops that are held which are free, workshops for those who are considering applying for grants as to the dos and don'ts, what they can do, what the rules are, and then even after grants are approved and an organization is a new grantee or an old grant is renewed, again there are workshops. And there is something called a project officer over every grant and he or she is sort of the person assigned to be a point of contact to answer questions, and so on. So it is not like these organizations are just cast out there on their own without some sort of guidance or ability. Mr. SCOTT. But if they are given one set of instructions from the White House and another set of instructions from the Justice De partment, whose instructions are they giving? I guess that is the political question on this side. But a more practical question, you are absolutely right that the government has much experience with the administration of grants. I am not sure that you are so right that they have experience in the administration of grants where the recipient on the other side has the kind of political and moral and religious authority that some of these religious organizations tend to have. Now, that creates this disparity. One group gets away with proselytizing and never gets looked at, audited, certainly not prosecuted because it just can't be done politically. And then the little guy down at the end of the line, where there is no political price, typically in my community, is the guy that gets indicted because instead of using the money, all the money to do drug rehabilitation, he went out and bought two or three Bibles. Mr. SAPERSTEIN. Because there is, under H.R. 7, the right of action here and, depending on how the law is read, (perhaps you are right) if the government did not fund a church because of its perception of the mix of religion with the program, or a right of the church to sue the government, here and the right (outside this) bill for taxpayers to contest violations of church and state. You are also this is-and because Professor Lupu so rightly said, this is a confused area of law. There really is no great certainty about it. This is clearly begging for a spew of lawsuits that are going to really burden the individual church here. We are putting them in a Catch-22 situation where they are going to get sued: dammed if they do, dammed if they don't. That is just not wise public policy. Mr. WATT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence. Mr. CHABOT. We thank the gentleman. I think you made some very good points. I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony here this morning. I think it was very helpful in Congress' attempt to deal with this very important issue. I think you shed a lot of light. Mr. ESBECK. Do I have just 15 seconds to make one point? Mr. ESBECK. The comment was made that the White House sort of obliquely and Mr. John Dilulio, or Dr. Dilulio is saying different things. I would just point out that Dr. Dilulio has testified in a House Committee and that testimony is available. And that was a Committee chaired by the Honorable Mark Souder. And I know that the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives has made a number of information papers available and I am in communication with them from time to time, and it is my understanding that the position of the Department of Justice today in our written testimony is consistent with the White House Office of Faith-based Initiatives. Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. We appreciate the panel's testimony. I want to thank the Members for being here. Mr. Nadler. Mr. NADLER. I now ask unanimous consent that all Members shall be permitted to revise and extend their remarks and submit any additional material for the records. Mr. CHABOT. Without objection. And I also want to thank you very much. I also want to thank the folks who came here from the faith-based community and thank you for your work with the American people. And with that, we are adjourned. [Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the Subcommitteee was adjourned.] APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC APPAIRS 1640 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20036 Tel: 202-857-2770 Fax: 202-331-9161 WRITTEN TESTIMONY of NATHAN J. DIAMENT, Esq. Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America June 7, 2001 United States House of Representatives With regard to The Constitutional Role of Faith-Based Organizations in Competitions for Federal Social Service Funds UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH CONGREGATIONS OF AMERICA 1640 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20036 TEL: 202-857-2770 FAX: 202-331-9161 |