Faith fires drive to register voters

By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times staff reporter

The Rev. Leslie Braxton: Duty requires participation.

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"As people of faith, we consider it part of our religious duty to participate in public processes," said the Rev. Leslie Braxton, senior pastor at Seattle's Mount Zion Baptist Church, which is participating in a multicity campaign called "Let Justice Roll: Faith and Community Voices Against Poverty."

The local effort is part of a broader campaign, sponsored by the National Council of Churches USA and the Center for Community Change, that aims to draw public attention to poverty issues and to register voters. The first of its multicity events takes place today at Mount Zion, with a rally and speech by the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., senior minister of New York City's The Riverside Church.

The local statewide campaign includes the Washington Association of Churches, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, the NAACP, the Central Area Motivation Program and the A. Philip Randolph Institute, a national organization of black trade unionists. Organizers hope to register 10,000 to 15,000 voters in the four Washington counties with the largest number of black churches: King, Pierce, Snohomish and Spokane.

The local coalition has set goals of getting 100 percent of the members of the participating black churches registered to vote; registering the immediate family members of the churchgoers; getting church members to go door-to-door within a five-block radius of their churches to register neighbors; and making sure all who have registered vote.

The local effort also will focus on educating voters, particularly with the state primary this year restricting individuals to voting in their designated party only.

"Our primary is going to be different than we've ever seen before," said Charles Rolland, state political director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute and a former state Democratic Party chairman. "We're expecting a huge drop-off of people who participate, unless they're educated about it."

Rally, speech New Yorker to speak The first of the coalition's multicity events is at 7 p.m. today at Seattle's Mount Zion Baptist Church, 19th Avenue at Madison Street East, with a rally and speech by the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., senior minister of New York City's The Riverside Church.

Those registering voters will not tell people whom to vote for, Rolland said. But, he added, "Our community wants to decide what the issues and agenda is, rather than have it imposed on us. ... It's important to focus on what our agenda is and vote for those candidates who support our agenda."

The voter-registration campaign comes amid recent actions by political and religious leaders that have spawned intense debate over how big a role religion — and houses of worship — should play in politics.

For example:

• A House committee last week scotched a provision allowing churches to commit a set number of unintentional violations of the current law prohibiting them from engaging in partisan political activity or endorsing candidates before jeopardizing their tax-exempt status.

• Earlier this month, an e-mail from the George W. Bush campaign was made public, asking supporters in Pennsylvania to identify "friendly congregations" where "voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis." Campaign officials have said similar efforts are under way in other states.

• Last week, the Bush campaign asked pastors at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, for their help in registering voters.

• A few U.S. Roman Catholic bishops were accused of embroiling the church in partisan politics when they said they would deny Holy Communion to politicians who support abortion rights, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a Catholic. The nation's bishops voted last week to let individual bishops decide whether to give or deny Communion to such Catholic politicians.

The "Let Justice Roll" campaign, organizers emphasized, is nonpartisan, its campaign steadfastly focused on religion and politics mainly as they relate to poverty.

"The issue of religion is likely to be more important this year," said Forbes, of Riverside Church. "However, it has not always been the case that people have linked the poor and addressing the needs of the poor as a central expression of their Christian faith."

But some involved in the local voter-registration effort, which is also nonpartisan, are more blunt.

"We learned in 1994, with the Newt Gingrich revolution, that all across the country, conservatives swept into power by razor-thin margins, a few percentage points here or there," said Braxton, who added that he was giving his personal opinion, not speaking for Mount Zion. "The minority community could've provided the margin of victory."

And in the 2000 election, Braxton said, "If people of color would've turned out, we could've provided a more robust margin of victory so it wasn't close enough to steal."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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