2008 Legislative Agenda

Christian Coalition's Agenda for the 110th Congress

Confirming judges

The Democrat-controlled 110th Congress is way behind the average confirmation rate of U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' nominees for a Congress controlled by the President's opposition party.

President George W. Bush, who sent conservative nominees for the federal courts to the Senate, ignored New York Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer's threats, who said that no conservative judges would be confirmed by the 51-to-49 Democrat-controlled body. Thus far, the Democrat Senate, playing politics, has confirmed only 6 nominees to the U.S. Circuit Court, with the 6th judge confirmed in late December. Normally, the Senate confirms 17 circuit court judges nominated by a president of the opposition party. The Democrat Congress is woefully short in doing their job of confirming President Bush's nominees.

Christian Coalition of America will fight to confirm conservative judges during the second session of the 110th Congress sent to the Senate by President Bush and to hold the Senate accountable to the American people.

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Passing "Net Neutrality" to ensure fairness for all on the Internet

Michele Combs of the Christian Coaltion has testified at several hearings on the issue of Net Neutrality:

• House Judiciary Committee
• FCC Hearing- Stanford University
• Senate Commerce Committee

A "Net Neutrality" provision to ensure fairness for all people on the Internet, including for grassroots groups such as Christian Coalition of America, was not passed in the 109th Congress. There is a better possibility that "Net Neutrality" on the Internet will pass in the 110th Congress.

"Net Neutrality" is an issue extremely important to America's grassroots organizations and to those Americans who want to ensure the cable and phone companies controlling access to the Internet will not discriminate against groups like Christian Coalition of America. It is anticipated that the Democrat-controlled Congress will agree with the position of the previous Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman, James Sensenbrenner, and pass a "Net Neutrality" bill during the 110th Congress.

If "Net Neutrality" legislation does not pass, consumers will have to pay an additional fee to have a website. The cable/telephone monopoly will be dividing the Internet into a "fast track" and "slow track." Our grassroots, who cannot afford the additional fees, will have to be on the slow track, which will mean that many of our websites will be passed by because the general public will not have the patience to go on the "slow track". In addition, if a member of the Board of Directors with an Internet Service Provider (cable/telephone monopoly) does not like Christian Coalition of America or the ACLU's email content, they can and will block our emails from going out over their infrastructure.

The Senate telecom bill -- as it was written in the last Congress -- will harm Christian Coalition of America and other grassroots groups from getting our message out. We cannot let the cable/telephone monopoly control the Internet and content.

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Protecting religious television programming

The issue of protecting television religious programming includes the important issue of "Multicast/Equal Access" (formerly called "Multicast/Must-carry").

Passing such legislation will go a long way to preventing discrimination against religious broadcasters. Without a "Multicast/Equal Access" law, the cable and satellite companies would probably not add new Christian channels and the influence of current Christian channels will be diluted.

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Opposing human embryonic stem cell destruction & increasing funding for successful adult stem cell research

Since last January when the Democrats took over Congress, there have been numerous votes on human embryo stem cell destruction and President George W. Bush has prevented all of these bills from becoming law - President Bush vetoed at least 2 human embryo destruction bills this past year.

In addition since last January, there have been astounding advances in adult stem cell research and stem cell research which should prevent any further human embryo destructive research, or at least wasteful public funding for such abominable research. There still is a majority of Members in the Democrat-controlled 110th Congress, in both the House and the Senate, for passage of a human embryonic stem cell destruction research bill.

Christian Coalition will fight to keep the votes for future human embryo destruction bills down to as low as possible and to increase funding for adult stem cell research which has had successes with over 70 diseases, while human embryonic stem cell destruction research has had zero successes.

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Keeping the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent

Christian Coalition of America helped President George W. Bush pass his legislation that would lower federal taxes for virtually every family in America by a total of $1.3 trillion, a bill which passed by a large bipartisan margin in the 107th Congress.

In the 108th Congress, Christian Coalition helped pass a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives which would make these tax cuts permanent. The Christian Coalition fought in the 108th, 109th Congress and in the first session of this 110th Congress to at least extend these tax cuts until Congress voted finally to make these necessary tax cuts permanent. This is a top goal of Christian Coalition of America in the 110th Congress. Partly because the Democrat Congress has refused to make these tax cuts for all American families and small businesses permanent, the economy is beginning to show signs of weakness.

Indeed, new tax cuts -- in addition to these tax cuts which have not as yet been made permanent -- will have to be enacted by the 110th Congress and Christian Coalition of America will work hard to achieve this.

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Passing a Federal Marriage Amendment

The Marriage Protection Amendment, the constitutional amendment banning homosexual "marriages" received 236 votes in the House of Representatives in the 109th Congress, an increase of several votes in the United States House of Representatives from the previous vote in the 108th Congress. Unfortunately, only 49 Senators, all Republicans except one, voted for the constitutional marriage amendment in the Senate in 2006.

However, Christian Coalition state chapters are doing a tremendous job in passing state constitutional amendments banning homosexual "marriage." Thus far, 27 states have voted for, by an average vote of 70%, state constitutional amendments including 7 more states in 2006. It is expected that when Arizona voters -- the only state ever which defeated such an amendment (a too complex and flawed amendment) -- have an opportunity to vote on a simple amendment banning homosexual "marriage," it will pass overwhelmingly like the amendments passed in the 27 states which have already approved such amendments.

Florida voters will undoubtedly ban homosexual "marriages" when they vote this November 4th on Florida's state constitutional amendment. It is just a matter of time before the citizens of Massachusetts vote overwhelmingly to rebuke 4 radical Massachusetts judges and their liberal counterparts in the Massachusetts legislature and to ban the abominable practice of homosexual "marriages" in the state of Massachusetts - the only state where judicial dictators have forced such "marriages" on its citizens. It is expected that more states, besides Florida, will have constitutional amendments on their state ballots during the 2008 presidential election cycle and all of these are expected to pass overwhelmingly in addition to bringing out new pro-family voters in the presidential election.

Christian Coalition of America will continue to grow votes in both the House and the Senate for a federal constitutional amendment banning homosexual "marriage."

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Ending religious discrimination against Christians in the military

Even though a federal court during October 2006 dismissed gadfly Mikey Weinstein's infamous lawsuit which accused the United States military of promoting Christianity, he filed yet a new lawsuit less than two months later, wasting American taxpayer dollars yet again. He is trying to force the Pentagon into wasting more time to check into his allegations. Undoubtedly, another federal court judge will strike down his latest exercise in futility and harassment of Christians in the United States military.

Christian Coalition of America will fight to ensure that evangelical Christian military chaplains and other personnel are not discriminated against as they have been during the past number of decades. In the closing weeks of the 109th Congress, Republican congressional leaders got involved in this culture war and forced the Navy and the Air Force to repeal regulations the two services had adopted earlier this year which forbade military chaplains from praying in the name of Jesus during military functions other than worship services. The provision agreed to on September 25, 2006 by the House and Senate conferees debating the final Defense Authorization bill rolls back the current Air Force and Navy regulations which had overturned 200+ years of tradition allowing military chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus and according to their faith requirements. The Air Force had adopted restrictive guidelines on February 9, 2006 and the Navy had adopted similar restrictive guidelines on February 21, 2006. The Air Force and Navy had surrendered to atheist activists and left-wing Members of Congress in adopting these ill-advised regulations.

According to the September 25, 2006 agreement signed by the House and Senate conferees, the Secretary of the Air Force must reinstate the policy that was set forth in Air Force Directive 52-1 dated 1 July 1999 and the Secretary of the Navy must reinstate the policy set forth in Secretary of Navy Instruction 1730.7B dated October 12, 2000.