Prodding Voters to the Right

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Democratic Congressman Dan Glickman of Kansas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, saw his re-election hopes thwarted last week by a covert operation he did not predict and could not prevent. On the Sunday before the election, the conservative Christian Coalition distributed thousands of "voter guides" throughout Glickman's congressional district. The pamphlets were slipped onto car windshields in church parking lots; some pastors allowed the guides to be distributed inside their churches. The guides, designed to appear objective and distributed close to the election so Glickman couldn't effectively protest them, gave the Congressman negative ratings on hot issues. Example: Glickman was labeled undecided on federal funding for abortion, although he has consistently voted against it except in cases of rape or incest. Last Tuesday nine-term incumbent Glickman lost his seat in Congress to conservative Todd Tiahrt.

This election marked the biggest year ever for the Christian Coalition and other conservative groups like Americans for Limited Terms, which use "voter- education" campaigns to influence federal elections. In past years they scored heavily in some state and local contests, but this year their national drives were devastatingly effective. Coalition leaders claim their voter guides helped Republicans prevail in 50 important races. According to People for the American Way, a liberal activist group, 60% of all the candidates affiliated with or strongly supported by the religious right won their races.

The coalition's campaign takes advantage of a loophole in campaign-finance laws. The Federal Election Commission prohibits outside groups from coordinating their attacks with the candidates they're supporting and requires that they file regular reports on their expenditures. But, according to FEC rules, so long as the group qualifies as tax exempt with the Internal Revenue Service and isn't "expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly . identified candidate," its spending doesn't have to be reported. To comply with the law, the voter guides distributed by such groups as the Christian Coalition don't endorse office hopefuls but are designed to put candidates the group opposes in a bad light. The '94 Christian Coalition Voter Guide for the Pennsylvania Senate race boiled down the complex subject of the Clinton health-care plan by saying that Democratic incumbent Harris Wofford supported "Federal Government control of health care" and that his opponent, Republican Rick Santorum, opposed it. Wofford lost.

Millions of dollars were poured into such voter-education campaigns, none of which had to be reported to the FEC. The Christian Coalition says it spent $2 million distributing 33 million voter guides to 60,000 churches around the country.

In Washington State, Americans for Limited Terms spent $320,000 on radio and television ads attacking House Speaker Tom Foley for opposing congressional term limits. Foley was defeated by Spokane lawyer George Nethercutt.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has filed a complaint with the FEC accusing the Christian Coalition and other groups of running "shadow" campaigns for Republican candidates. Coalition spokesmen deny the charges and say they're simply using the same tactics labor unions have long used to mobilize Democrats. "If you're a religious conservative, they try to portray you as some threat to democracy," says Christian Coalition staff member Michael Russell. "All we're seeking is a level playing field." They have achieved that, and then some.