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Christian Coalition of America

For other organizations with a similar name see Christian Coalition. Note that political parties in Europe also go by this name.

The Christian Coalition of America, originally called the Christian Coalition, Inc., is a US Christian advocacy group, which includes Christian fundamentalists, evangelicals, neo-evangelicals and charismatics. While it once wielded great power within the Republican Party, and helped shape the Republican majority in congress in the mid- to late- 1990's, it largely collapsed in the years following the departure of Ralph Reed, and has flirted with bankruptcy. It claims to have 1,200,000 members, but records of public contributions and former employees indicate that its mailing list of active members is around 30,000.

The Christian Coalition was founded by Rev. Pat Robertson, who served as the organization's president from its founding until February 2001. The current president is Roberta Combs (through 2006). Joel Hunter was scheduled to assume the presidency of the organization as of January 1, 2007, but he then declined to take the job, citing differences of philosophy and vision. Hunter believed the group could better represent Christ by focusing on issues such as poverty and the environment. And while he reported that he was not asked to leave, Hunter felt the board considered his additional issues weren't core to their constituency.

While labeling itself as the Christian Coalition, the organization represents certain viewpoints among numbers of Christians in the United States, but Christians with other beliefs disagree with the organization's ideas. The CCA's values are consistent with those of the Christian right. Its website states:

Christian Coalition of America is a political organization, made up of pro-family Americans who care deeply about becoming active citizens for the purpose of guaranteeing that government acts in ways that strengthen, rather than threaten, families. As such, we work together with Christians of all denominations, as well as with other Americans who agree with our mission and with our ideals.

Brief history

Beginnings with Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed

Following a well-funded but failed bid for the U.S. presidency in 1988, televangelist and political commentator Pat Robertson used the remains of his campaign machinery to jump-start the creation of a voter mobilization effort dubbed the Christian Coalition. Americans for Robertson accumulated a mailing list of several million conservative Christians interested in politics. This mailing list formed the foundation for the new organization.

However, despite public announcements that excitement among evangelical and Christian right voters prompted the creation of the Christian Coalition, the incorporation records of the State of Virginia reveal that the Christian Coalition, Inc. was actually incorporated on April 30, 1987, with the paperwork filed earlier, and with planning having begun before that. Thus the Christian Coalition was actually planned long before Pat Robertson's run for President began. Robertson's candidacy appears to have been planned from the start for launching the Christian Coalition.

Ralph Reed took control of day-to-day operations of the Coalition in 1989. From 1989 through 1997, the Christian Coalition wielded sizeable influence, largely in the form of the charismatic and persuasive public face of Ralph Reed, who became a commanding public voice in the news media. The perception if not the reality that Christian Coalition activists controlled local Party machinery in many locations and could reliably turn out large blocs of votes for Religious Right candidates caused many Republican and Democratic politicians at local levels to either vote as the Christian Coalition urged or else struggle with explaining their votes. The fear of being listed on Voter Guides as casting anti-Christian votes prompted politicians in moderate to conservative districts to carefully consider the positions urged by the Christian Coalition.

After its founding, it was granted a grace period to operate as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization before the IRS made its final determination. Several State chapters were also created as independent corporations within their states, including the Christian Coalition of Texas. The Christian Coalition of Texas successfully obtained non-profit status as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization, while the national group's application remained pending and unresolved.

In 1992, the national Christian Coalition, Inc., headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia, began producing non-partisan voter guides which it distributed to conservative Christian churches. Under the leadership of Reed and Robertson, the Coalition quickly became the most prominent voice in the conservative Christian movement, its influence culminating with an effort to support the election of a conservative Christian to the presidency in 1996.

False Complaints that the voter guides were actually partisan led to the denial of the Christian Coalition, Inc.'s tax-exempt status. The Christian Coalition, Inc. filed a lawsuit against the IRS. However, instead of pursuing legal action, Pat Robertson renamed the Christian Coalition of Texas, Inc. as the Christian Coalition of America, Inc., and transferred the trademark and all operations to the Texas-based corporation. Since the Texas chapter already enjoyed tax exempt status, the legal challenge became moot.

Decline in influence and Challenges to Tax-exempt Status

Following Bill Clinton's re-election and Reed's departure in 1997, the organization has made only limited progress and has greatly declined in influence, financial stability, staff, and resources.

It saw a loss in revenue from a high of $26.5 million in 1996 to $1.3 million in 2004. The organization's 2004 income tax return, (which for non-profits is made publicly available), showed the Christian Coalition to be technically bankrupt, with debts exceeding income and a negative net worth.

In 1998, an advocacy group for religious freedom Americans United urged the IRS to review the Coalition’s partisan political activities over the decade in which its tax-exempt status was pending. The following year, the IRS revoked the Coalition’s provisional tax-exemption, in view of the Coalition's distribution of "voter guides" which had a partisan bias. The revocation cost the Coalition up to $300,000 in back taxes and penalties. Following this, the Coalition reorganized as the Christian Coalition of America, as an effort to regain its tax-exempt status. Churches that once embraced the Christian Coalition have disassociated themselves for fear of losing their own tax-exempt status. After its tax-exempt status was denied, CCA was able to turn all of its attention to politics. In 2000 the coalition moved from its long-standing base of operations in the Chesapeake Bay area to an office on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

After Robertson stepped down as the group's president in 2000, Roberta Combs took over the Coalition. Combs, who had been President of the South Carolina Christian Coalition, installed members of her family as high-ranking officials in the group, including her own daughter Michele Ammons and her son-in-law Tracy Ammons. Michele Ammons would later divorce Tracy Ammons in ugly divorce proceedings, which led to Tracy's departure.

Since Robertson and Reed left the group, the Coalition's influence has greatly declined under Combs, and the once prosperous group now owes more than $2 million in debt. It is now under siege by lawsuits from creditors and is also struggling to hold on to state chapters.

Roberta Combs canceled a direct-mail fund-raising campaign run by fund-raiser Bill Sidebottom of Interact Response Communications aimed at fighting child pornography after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The cancelation of the campaign in the middle of its run led to nearly a dozen lawsuits by creditors and the bankruptcy of its fund-raising company. Without a fund-raising company supporting it, the Christian Coalition went into sharp decline financially.

In November 2002, Roberta Combs down-sized the staff and moved the organization's offices from Washington, D.C., to a suburb of Charleston, South Carolina, in a building reportedly owned by one of her late husband's many family trusts. The Christian Coalition was later sued by the moving company, Reese & Sons Enterprises of Maryland, because the Christian Coalition failed to pay its moving company in full. The Christian Coalition lost in court in Richmond, Virginia, and finally paid the movers.

In late 2005, the Washington Post reported that the Christian Coalition was unable to pay its office postage bill to Pitney Bowes, and that the Christian Coalition had not paid its lawyers in Virginia Beach, Huff, Poole & Mahoney, and that the law firm had sued the Christian Coalition for its legal bills. Attempts to collect the law firm's fees in Virginia and South Carolina returned no funds of the Christian Coalition at various banks.

In March 2006, the Coalition's influential Iowa chapter broke from the group and formed the Iowa Christian Alliance, followed by the official departure of the Maryland chapter, and the Georgia chapter. Once, the Christian Coalition organized a dozen lobbyists in Washington, but now the only remnant of the Coalition near the nation's Capitol is a single employee who works from his home quite far away in Frederick, Maryland. This is Jim Backlin, with ties to scandal-plagued Ed Buckham and the Jack Abramoff scandal.

In 2005, the Coalition concluded a settlement agreement with the Internal Revenue Service, ending its long-running battle with that agency regarding its tax exempt status. As a result, the IRS has now recognized the Coalition as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization, the first time in the Agency's history that it has granted a letter of exemption to a group that stated in its application that it would distribute voter guides directly in churches. The consent decree enforces limitations on the terminology that may be used in the Coalition's "voter guides".

Activity in 2000 and 2004 presidential elections

In both the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections, voter mobilization efforts of conservative Christians tended to be focused internally within the machinery of the Republican Party, as opposed to lobby groups and voter mobilization organizations such as the Christian Coalition. In a related example of this more "in-house" approach to mobilizing votes from the conservative Christian community, Reed served as Southeast Regional chairman for the Bush-Cheney campaign during the 2004 election.

In the 2000 Presidential election, the organization claims that it distributed over 70 million voter guides in churches all across America, including over 5 million in Spanish, approximately 2 million of which were distributed in Florida alone. In 2004, the group claims to have distributed approximately 30 million voter guides, but this time in targeted states and congressional districts, choosing instead to focus its efforts on areas that were more politically competitive.. However, former leaders dispute that these figures are accurate, explaining that voter guides were frequently printed and sent to past volunteers with no intention of continuing to distribute them. The Christian Coalition has no means of tracking how many voter guides are actually distributed, and merely hopes that the voter guides printed and mailed to contacts in the various states actually distribute them.

In 2006, the Christian Coalition joined with Moveon.org to support Network Neutrality.

Criticism and loss of affiliates

In March 2006, the Christian Coalition of Iowa renamed itself the Iowa Christian Alliance. In splitting from the national group, the Iowa Christian Alliance cited "the current problems facing the Christian Coalition of America" in announcing that it had no ties to the national organization. In August 2006, the Christian Coalition of Alabama split from the national group. It later renamed itself Christian Action Alabama.

In November 2006, the president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America resigned his post, citing a difference in philosophy over which issues the conservative Christian organization should embrace.

Rev. Joel C. Hunter, currently the senior pastor of the Northland Church in Longwood, Florida, was to assume the presidency in January. But Hunter said CCA leaders resisted his calls to expand their issue base, saying the organization wouldn't allow him to expand its agenda beyond opposing abortion and same-sex marriage. Hunter also said he wanted to focus on rebuilding the CCA's once powerful grassroots, an appeal he says board members rejected. "After initial willingness to consider these changes, the board of the CCA decided, 'that is fine, but that is not who we are,'" Hunter said.