Clinton’s Appearance Triggers New Church-State Controversy

As a get-out-the-vote event, President Clinton’s nationally televised appearance at a Baltimore church on the eve of the November elections was deemed a great success: It helped Democrats in Maryland and across the country fare better than expected at the ballot box.

But the gathering, which included Clinton urging the more than 2,000 African American parishioners to vote, has left considerable controversy in its wake.

A group advocating the separation of church and state alleges that the New Psalmist Baptist Church was inappropriately used for a partisan rally. And the lone Republican official who attended now says that he was used for political cover.

In addition, federal election records and interviews show that the local Democratic congressman, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, solicited $1,000 political contributions from numerous supporters who attended the Sunday service and met privately with the president at a reception on church grounds.

The church event--with its combustible mix of religion, politics and campaign cash--evokes echoes of the Democrats’ infamous 1996 luncheon featuring Vice President Al Gore at the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights. The temple gathering, which raised $140,000, was among the most embarrassing episodes for the Democratic Party and Gore related to the 1996 campaign finance scandal.

It is unclear whether the Nov. 1 event in Baltimore violated the federal prohibition on using religious institutions for partisan political activity. Experts in campaign finance said that the event raises serious concerns.

“This is the unseemly mixing of politics and religion,” said Ellen S. Miller, a proponent of campaign finance reform. “There ought to be a separation between a partisan political fund-raising event and a Sunday morning church service. In this case, the lines have been completely blurred.”

A top aide to Cummings said in interviews that the church gathering was entirely proper. Vernon Simms, the congressman’s chief district aide who doubles as a campaign consultant, said that campaign funds were solicited to pay for expenses surrounding the president’s visit.

Cummings, a two-term lawmaker whose district includes the church, did not respond to requests for an interview.

The church’s lawyer said that New Psalmist Baptist officials were unaware of the fund-raising arrangement until they learned about it from The Times. Attorney Edward Smith Jr. expressed disappointment that Cummings, a New Psalmist member for a decade, had failed to inform church officials.

“Everybody would have felt more comfortable knowing what was going on because it seems to me obvious this kind of thing can be misconstrued,” Smith said.

Jim Kennedy, a White House spokesman, said the administration knew that campaign donations were collected for the president’s Baltimore visit but understood that this was not done “in connection with the church service itself.”

After the packed service, a group of 100 to 150 people was invited to an adjacent building--called the church mansion--for a private reception with Clinton. Among those introduced to the president and photographed with him were more than a dozen supporters of Cummings.

These individuals--most of whom were not church members but witnessed the service--received VIP treatment after donating $1,000 each to Cummings’ campaign. Simms said that the goal was to raise about $30,000.

Campaign records show that Cummings received 27 contributions of $1,000 from individuals in the six days surrounding Nov. 1. The reported costs of the events that day were about $10,000, according to records and interviews.

The Cummings campaign staged the reception outside the church and paid the for-profit corporation that runs the adjacent church mansion for the reception space and catering services, said Simms, the event organizer. He said that this was done to ensure that the church, a tax-exempt nonprofit institution, did not engage in prohibited partisan political activity.

Democrats have been sensitive to such issues in the wake of the disclosure that Gore attended a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser at the Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights in April 1996. The DNC later refunded $140,000 in donations and reimbursed the temple for its costs.

Asserting that the Baltimore service became “a partisan pep rally for Democrats,” Americans for Separation of Church and State, a nonpartisan watchdog group, has filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service.

Executive Director Barry Lynn said that the $1,000 campaign contributions for the church reception, which he called “unsavory at the least,” help bolster his case.

The church contends that the service was nonpartisan because anyone could come, because a Republican elected official attended and because the church did not endorse any party or candidate, Smith said.

But the Republican, State Delegate Donald Murphy, whose district includes the area around the church, says he is sorry that he went to the service.

“It wasn’t billed as a political rally,” Murphy said in an interview. “In hindsight, that’s what it was. I guess I gave them cover” to call it nonpartisan.

After the election, Cummings had $193,000 in his campaign account, reports show. He won a third term last month with 86% of the vote in the overwhelmingly Democratic district.

In interviews, some of the $1,000 donors said that they contributed to sponsor Clinton’s visit and attended the events. Others said they donated to defray costs but did not participate. And a few said that their donations were unrelated to Clinton’s appearance.

“We were basically interested in hearing the president and we were told that to go to the program we would have to contribute to the campaign,” said Jaya Bansal, a Baltimore resident who works at a computer-services company.

Frances Reaves, an attorney active in Maryland politics, said she was told that Cummings’ campaign “was paying the expense of bringing the president here.” Like others, she called the service “a magnificent spiritual experience.”

Simms said that, after Clinton agreed to visit the church, Cummings was told that he had to cover the cost of the president’s travel and advance work, prompting a last-minute drive to find donors. White House spokesman Kennedy said the president’s trip was deemed “political” and therefore could not be paid for with official government funds.

Simms said that the cost was not known at the time. He said Cummings’ office has not been given a final figure by the White House. Based on previous White House visits to Baltimore, he said, he expects it to be about $30,000.

A Democratic National Committee spokeswoman said that a $7,299 payment for “travel offset-president’s visit” to the party on Oct. 28 by Cummings’ campaign was the anticipated total cost of Clinton’s visit.

Cummings paid the corporation that runs the church mansion $1,500 for the reception and $1,000 to a photographer.

Smith, the church lawyer, said that Cummings should not retain any funds beyond the cost of the event for which they were raised: “You at least give the people who gave it the option of getting it back. Or you give it to charity. You don’t keep it.”