Bipartisan Support

The faith-based and community initiative has always enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington, although it has also been caught up in partisan disputes.

• The Charitable Choice language was adopted by Congress four times from 1996 to 2000, with Democratic as well as Republican support, and signed into law each time by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

• In the 2000 presidential campaign, not only George W. Bush, the Republican candidate, but also Vice-President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, endorsed Charitable Choice and advocated its expansion. 

• In the 2004 presidential campaign, Sen. John Kerry (D—Mass.), the Democratic nominee, proclaimed his commitment to expanding the engagement of faith-based organizations (downloadable PDF below).

• The major effort in Congress during the Bush administration to expand Charitable Choice, HR 7, which passed the House of Representatives in 2001 but did not receive Senate action, was co-sponsored by Republican J. C. Watts (Oklahoma) and Democrat Tony Hall (Ohio).

   

• The major effort to expand private giving to faith-based as well as secular charities, the CARE Act, was co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Rick Santorum (Pennsylvania) and Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman (Connecticut). Some elements of the CARE Act became law in 2006 with the signing of HR 4, the Pension Protection Act of 2006, now Public Law 109-280.

   

• In 2004 the bipartisan Community Solutions and Initiatives Caucus was launched in the the House of Representatives under the co-sponsorship of Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) and Rep. Mark Green, (R-Wisc.).

   

• When Blueprint, the journal of the Democratic Leadership Council in 1999 asked a sample of citizens whether social problems could be best dealt with by government, by religious and other charities, or by a closer collaboration between the two sectors, even more Democrats than Republicans favored “closer collaboration.”