Emboldened by their success in inserting restrictive abortion language into the House health care bill, Roman Catholic bishops say they’ve found a lobbying model that could provide them a louder voice in future policy debates.
“It was a good example of how we, as a conference, can work together to have a positive influence on legislation,” Bishop William Murphy, head of the domestic justice and human development committee of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, told the Catholic News Service last week.
Success in the House came after the church ran a classic lobbying operation: deploying paid staff to Capitol Hill, tapping influential bishops to make private appeals to key congressional leaders and distributing bulletin inserts to 19,000 parishes with easy instructions — and sample wording — for sending a message to local representatives.
But it remains to be seen if the bishops can have the same results as the broader health bill moves forward or on more complex life issues such as embryonic stem cell research.
In the health care debate, for instance, the bishops have consistently identified three priority areas: abortion, religious conscience clauses and immigrant rights.
“I don’t think the Catholics in the pews will get quite as focused on a message of immigrants as they have been on the question of abortion,” said Stephen Schneck, a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. “And I’m not convinced the church leaders are willing to expend the political capital with those Catholics in order to promote the cause.”
Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), a Catholic who participated in the intense negotiations over the final abortion language, said the pressure from the church to ease restrictions on immigrants was “not even close” to the abortion language tug of war.
The church’s strategic decisions are significant because — with Catholics representing, at 30 percent, the largest single religious group among members of Congress — it can gain access across party lines.
While pressuring Democratic leaders to adjust the abortion coverage language earlier this month, the bishops simultaneously contacted House Republican leaders and warned them against using procedural tactics to torpedo any amendment.
The church’s engagement also could help scramble some long-held partisan divides, given that its policy platform is more diverse than traditional Capitol Hill religious players — evangelicals on the right and Protestant groups such as the National Council of Churches on the left.
While taking conservative stands on life issues, the Catholic bishops have also allied themselves with advocates for labor rights and the poor because of the church’s traditional advocacy for the downtrodden. One reason the bishops could gain entry into the health care debate is the church’s vast array of clinics and hospitals that often serve those in most need, including legal and illegal immigrants.
But the church’s liberal positions on many social issues and strong anti-abortion stance have put it at odds with politicians who hold more traditionally liberal or conservative views. No dispute has been more contentious than the one with Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), nephew of the nation’s only Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, and a supporter of abortion rights.
In an interview with The Providence Journal on Friday, Kennedy said that Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin has forbidden him from receiving Communion because of his advocacy of abortion rights.
As the health care debate has intensified, Kennedy has called into question the anti-abortion credentials of the churchmen, and Tobin has responded that the bishops are firmly committed to health care reform but not without the abortion provision.
Tobin said in a statement Sunday that he “has never addressed matters relative to public officials receiving Holy Communion with pastors of the diocese,” according to The Associated Press.
An official familiar with the bishop conference’s strategic positioning on health care said the different engagement levels on abortion and the treatment of immigrants can be explained by the stakes in each debate.
The bishops argued that without the revisions they supported, the health care measure’s language on abortion insurance coverage would erode a three-decade-old ban on the use of taxpayer money to pay for the procedure. In other words, they feared losing ground on a hard-fought issue.
On immigration, however, they are more aligned with the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate in seeking more equitable treatment for immigrants, both legal and illegal. That makes both incremental and significant gains more possible.
For instance, the church worked behind the scenes to bolster the argument of House Hispanic members who vowed to block reform if it didn’t allow undocumented workers to use their own money to buy insurance on new exchanges.
Adding the provision would make the nation healthier and create another class of generally younger and healthier insurance customers, which could reduce costs for everyone, said Kevin Appleby, director of the conference’s Office of Migration Policy and Public Affairs.
“Is that not the point of health care reform?” asked Appleby. The argument — and legislative tactic — worked, and the language was included in the House bill. “In this case, wise policy trumped politics,” Appleby said in an interview with POLITICO.
As the debate moves to the Senate, the terrain is more difficult. The Senate bill doesn’t include similar language allowing illegal immigrants to buy private insurance, and it’s tougher on legal immigrants, as well, requiring proof of legal status before they can obtain tax subsidies to buy insurance.
President Barack Obama has signaled support for the Senate language. But thus far, the church has not taken up the cause of undocumented workers in the Senate, suggesting that issue will wait for the final negotiations.
The church is working to make other gains on behalf of immigrants during the upcoming Senate deliberations. It’s urging the Senate to ease a five-year waiting period for legal immigrants to gain access to Medicaid — a provision that is not in the House bill.
The ultimate test of the church’s lobbying muscle and its commitment to both the abortion and immigrant issues will come after a bill has passed the Senate and final language is hashed out among the House, the Senate and the White House.
Church leaders have made it clear they will go to the mat on the abortion provision.
In a statement issued last week, Cardinal Francis George, conference president, called the House amendment an “essential step” that honored “President Obama’s commitment to the Congress and the nation that health care reform would not become a vehicle for expanding abortion funding or mandates.”
George also reiterated the church’s commitment to the provisions aimed at immigrants, saying those families must “be treated fairly and not lose the health care coverage that they now have.”
Schneck predicts a lopsided effort by the church. “Can we expect them to go as full bore on immigration? My guess is no,” he said.
But, Schneck added, that also could reflect the church’s recognition of its limits rather than a lack of commitment.
“I think they understand the political system involves some degree of give and take. So they will push harder on abortion than immigration, but they will continue to push on behalf of immigrants,” he said.
What’s also unclear is how the church will respond to the political fallout prompted by its work. In his missive, George profusely thanked the House members who backed the abortion insurance coverage amendment, many of whom risked alienating female supporters.
But the treatment of immigrants is a much more controversial issue, and support for pro-immigrant measures could easily become fodder for Republicans in next year’s midterms. In fact, that political worry, some say, is what is driving White House reluctance to embrace some pro-immigrant provisions.
So one unanswered question is whether the church will criticize — by name — those Republican and Democratic lawmakers who don’t stand with it on the issue of immigrants, much as some bishops, including Tobin, have been willing to criticize by name those lawmakers who opposed the abortion coverage amendment.
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