Constitutionally Suspect Earmarks in the FY2008 Congressional Appropriations

April 2, 2008 - The Secular Coalition has completed a review of the 24 Congressional appropriations committee reports for the fiscal year (FY) 2008 appropriations process and found over 140 earmarks* that are constitutionally suspect. These earmarks total almost $30 million in public funds which have now been appropriated for religious activities.

Today the Coalition delivered a letter to each of the 107 members of Congress listed on our database of potentially unconstitutional religious earmarks. The complete list was provided to the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the American Humanist Association, our coalition members that engage in litigation, to review for possible legal action.

Our study found that political party was a poor indicator in determining whether a member of Congress would provide an earmark to a religious organization; 52 percent were sponsored by Republicans and 42 percent were Democrat sponsored. Six percent of the earmarks were bipartisan.

Even prominent Democrats such as House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) were found to have earmarked monies for religious groups. Conyers successfully secured an earmark for the Detroit Rescue Ministries' Wildwood Ranch, a youth program whose "primary goal is to share the joy of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" with over 1,000 young people each summer.

The most common types of religious organizations receiving earmarked funds were institutions of higher education (e.g. Grace College, Northwest Nazarene University, California Baptist University, etc.), youth programs (e.g. World Impact's Morningstar Ranch, Camp Barnabas, Wildwood Ranch, etc.), addiction recovery programs (Goodwill Rescue Mission, Minnesota Teen Challenge, etc.) and ministries (World Impact Ministries, New Song Urban Ministries, Progressive Believers Ministry, etc.).

A notable category is abstinence-only education. Although it received relatively few earmarked dollars, abstinence-only receives a great deal of funding through general appropriations. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) provided 8 earmarks to religiously motivated and operated abstinence-only programs with funding totaling $365,000. Senator Specter produced an additional 12 earmarks, mostly to religious colleges, for about $1,300,000.

In fact, Senator Specter requested the greatest number of religious earmarks, by far, of any member of Congress. In sheer dollars, Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) was the leader with a total of $2,250,000 in religious earmark requests.

Several organizations received multiple earmarks from different Congressional sponsors; for example, World Impact Ministries, a Christian group that "ministers cross-culturally to people unreached by the gospel of Jesus Christ through evangelism, follow-up, discipleship and indigenous church-planting," received five earmarks for a total amount of $1,875,000 from Senators Kit Bond (R-MO) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) and from Representatives William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Xavier Becerra (D-CA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS). Teen Challenge, a program designed for at-risk youth that involves conversion to Christianity, received four earmarks for a total of $600,000 from Representatives Christopher Carney (D-PA), Steve Buyer (R-IN), Jim Ramstad (R-MN) and Howard Coble (R-NC).

Among earmarks to religious educational institutions, most were for colleges with open admissions but which nonetheless have historically religious affiliations. We have not included this type of earmark in our list. The earmarks identified in our list went to religious institutions that boast of spiritually-oriented curricula or religiously motivated codes of conduct for students.

A note about earmark dollar amounts: The figures cited here are taken from the individual committee appropriation reports. In H.R. 2764 Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008, the final legislation passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president, spending on earmarks and discretionary accounts was reduced by a very small percentage (varying in amount in each appropriations subgroup).

We began researching earmarks in 2007 in order to lobby against those which appeared to be unconstitutional. We focused on Senator Vitter's (R-LA) creationist funding (which was removed) and Senator Brownback's (R-KS) Morningstar Ranch (which was not removed).

Now that the budget is passed and signed, we are undertaking a more in-depth review and contacting the members listed in this database to urge them to cease this constitutionally precarious practice for the 2009 budget cycle.