Political Coalition Plans ‘In-Pew’ Voter Registration

Christian Coalition, a national political action group launched more than two years ago by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, hopes to make its first impact on California elections this year using an unusual “in-pew” voter registration plan along with traditional grass-roots techniques.

The coalition has set sights on reaching 250,000 like-minded Californians who are not registered to vote and, whenever possible, to find them in the pews of fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches, according to state director Sara DeVito Hardman of Tarzana.

“As long as I can remember, my church, the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, has had voter registration tables outdoors,” Hardman said. “But people are in a hurry to go to church and then they’re in a hurry to go home. I was thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have pastors in the service ask who wasn’t registered and to have ushers pass out cards?’ ”

At Hardman’s suggestion, the Church on the Way, where Sunday attendance averages 5,500, will probably make voter registration cards available during services on the first Sunday in May, said the Rev. Scott Bauer, a church spokesman.

“It only takes five to seven minutes to fill them out,” Bauer said. “We’ll collect them and mail them in.”

Like other church spokesmen interviewed, Bauer emphasized that churches must be nonpartisan and endorse no candidates in order to keep their tax-exempt status.

Christian Coalition leaders have taken credit for persuading three Orange County churches to do in-pew registration as well, but inquiries at those congregations cast doubt on the claims.

The large Calvary Church in Santa Ana, which Hardman cited as the coalition’s first success, made voter registration cards available one Sunday last year, according to Bart Hansen, a layman with the congregation’s citizenship committee.

“But it was our idea and not a joint effort with Christian Coalition,” Hansen said.

In a second case, a Christian Coalition volunteer manned a voter registration table outside Ocean Hills Community Church in San Juan Capistrano one Sunday, but cards were not handed out in the sanctuary.

“It was a passive approach,” Executive Pastor George Wakeling said.

At the third church, South Coast Community Church in Irvine, communications director Sharon Quick said that the congregation does not get involved in “political activism” and that she knew of no plan to do more than provide voter registration tables staffed by the League of Women Voters.

“Our outreach is to the secular world and the last thing we want to do is alienate people or make them feel uncomfortable,” Quick said. “We don’t have an agenda other than the agenda of Jesus Christ.”

That view may be common in other conservative churches, even those that believe that America is slipping into a moral morass. At the influential Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, for example, spokeswoman Helen Kidd said the church believes that “putting voter registration cards into church bulletins” or otherwise bringing such activity into the service could distract from and “dilute the Gospel message.”

Although Christian Coalition has been operating in California only since April, about 10,000 people have joined 35 chapters to date, according to Hardman.

“What I’m seeing is a hunger for wholesomeness, a return to values and stability,” said Hardman, whose lexicon reflects her longtime membership in a conservative Pentecostal church and her post as a vice president of the right-wing California Republican Assembly.

The organization hopes to identify 250,000 registered voters, primarily Christians, who would be likely to favor what Hardman called “pro-family” candidates--those opposing abortion, homosexual rights and increased taxes--in races ranging from Senate primaries to local school board elections.

These voters would be asked to knock on doors, stuff envelopes and make telephone calls to get out the vote on behalf of like-minded candidates.

Christian Coalition’s statewide voter registration drive will not officially begin until Feb. 29, when Robertson addresses a rally at an Assemblies of God church in San Jose. Robertson, an unsuccessful candidate for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination, will speak the next day at a prayer breakfast during the semiannual California Republican Convention in Burlingame.

Hardman, a businesswoman who entered politics at the end of the Robertson campaign, said she believes that Robertson is unlikely to try for the Republican nomination in 1996 because of the toll the previous effort took on Robertson’s ministry and family.

Nor does Robertson, who is the host of the “700 Club” talk show on his Christian Broadcasting Network, need the coalition to become a Republican power broker, she said.

“He’s on television every day and has a lot of power without Christian Coalition,” she said.

Hardman said the state organization is financially autonomous.

“All the money we collect stays within the state,” she said.

Nevertheless, the national body provides most of the literature and training. Members receive the coalition’s national newspaper, Christian American, published in Chesapeake, Va., and featuring “Pat’s View” on political questions.

Two-day leadership training schools are scheduled around the country to teach registrants such things as how to “reverse unrighteous judicial decisions . . . protest Christian-bashing by your local paper . . . raise a moral standard in government.”

The school brochure adds: “Believe it or not, the Lord may even want you to run for office.”

“We are not permitted as a nonprofit organization to support candidates, but we can introduce people in our leadership schools to consultants who can be helpful to them,” Hardman said in an interview at Hardman Industries, which manufactures small furniture for restaurants and hotels. She bought out her ex-husband after their 1986 divorce and has run the business at its Pacoima plant since then.

She indicated that the coalition’s use of the word Christian has a limited meaning. For instance, one brochure asks: “Isn’t it time Christians had an influence on the direction of our country?” Hardman said she does not mean liberal-to-moderate Christians who might not object to legal abortions and homosexual civil rights.

“They are misguided, misinformed Christians,” she said. “Obviously, they are not reading the Bible.”

The fledgling coalition’s aims have not been taken lightly by People for the American Way, the national civil liberties group founded by producer Norman Lear.

“What’s dangerous and scary about Christian Coalition from our perspective is that their focus is on building grass-roots organizations, along with other far-right groups, to win local elections where voter turnout is historically low,” said Michael Hudson of Marina del Rey, regional director of People for the American Way.

Hudson said Christian Coalition has been effective in concert with other conservative activists in San Diego County during local elections.

“We’ve been monitoring the situation and helping community leaders to organize the Mainstream Voter Project to counter a fundamentalist effort, in effect, to take over local offices,” he said.

Christian Coalition recalls the now-defunct Moral Majority founded by outspoken fundamentalist Jerry Falwell. Despite a high profile in the early 1980s, however, Falwell’s organization was weak or nonexistent at local levels.

In contrast, Christian Coalition recently claimed to have formed 210 chapters in 38 states since its founding in October, 1989.

The different approach signals a shift from “the grandiose Christian Right notion of a ‘moral majority,’ ” according to Church & State, the magazine of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“The Robertson forces are a self-conscious minority seeking power through smart utilization of political campaign technology and the institutions of democracy,” Frederick Clarkson wrote in the January issue.

The coalition’s combination of national resources and local chapter emphasis makes it distinctive among older “pro-family” organizations in California, according to Hardman.

She said Christian Coalition will probably not do much lobbying in Sacramento--an activity for which the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition has become known.

The Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of Traditional Values Coalition, which claims a constituency of 7,700 conservative churches supportive of its work, asserted that in-pew voter registration is not a new idea and indicated that his organization also engages in grass-roots organizing.

“I support the concept of Christian Coalition,” Sheldon said, adding that he backed Robertson in the 1988 primaries. But Sheldon claimed that his organization brought voter registration into church sanctuaries in 1984 with forms tucked into church bulletins and announcements made from the pulpits.

“We’re doing 40 to 50 seminars across the state to train our public affairs representatives to go back to their churches and educate people before talking about voter registration,” Sheldon said. “We’re networking with other pro-family groups, and I suspect Christian Coalition will join the combined effort.”

The growth of Christian Coalition of California is welcomed more enthusiastically by Jim Dignan of Modesto, Republican state chairman.

“I believe their agenda is the same as the Republican Party’s, and they will help us elect more Republicans to office in November,” Dignan said.