Chicago Sun Times: Donations [from churches] diverted to politicians

Oh, freakin' great:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-nonprofit10.html

Donations diverted to politicians

When a Roman Catholic parishioner asked Cardinal Francis George about political contributions, George sternly denied money was being routed from collection baskets to candidates.

"The Catholic Church gives no money to political candidates," he wrote to the parishioner in 2000. "I don't know who gave you the idea that any parish or any agency has contributed to any particular political campaign. . . . We don't do it."

But a new analysis by the Better Government Association shows that a handful of Catholic churches -- along with dozens in other denominations -- are among a slew of Illinois not-for-profits that have given to politicians despite federal law banning such contributions.

*******

"Eternal darkness. Well, that's just great."
-- Lunchlady Doris,
The Simpsons

-- under-the-table donations policy by churches, but it sure stinks up the place.

Where is the Emperor Julian when we need him?

Sheesh. What else are they doing?

-- by churches if evidence is found that they are shuffling cash to given political campaigns.

Just shut it down like a lightswitch.

At least in Illinois, the AG is doing something about this.

We need to shut this down wherever possible.

bad news anywhere it happens.

I suspect quite a few churches do it. Someone in control, who has very little ethics, doing something illegal. Think of all the hundreds of thousands of churches. Not everyone is going to be clean. Gads, look at Cardinal Law, that stinkin' pile of trash who turned a blind eye to the pedophilia.

Based on what I gleaned from the article, I can tell you that Illinois Law (if enforced) would most likely prohibit a lot of the stuff they are talking about. Certainly, the churches that are doing that should/could be stripped of exemption from both property taxes as well as Illinois sales taxes.

The case of Illinois State university is a bit more problematic to prove, but even so, it sounds to me like the Illinois Dept of Revenue could probably wade in on that one too (if they chose to.) The entire university system, however, is a lot more protected in its exemptions than the churches are...

There is no law in Illinois election code, that I know of, that prohibits the politicians from taking money from organizations like these. There IS, however, a reporting REQUIREMENT for candidates that would make some of this stuff a lot easier to document, should IL Dept. Of Revenue ever decide to check on it and do some enforcement.


Laura

hold meetings in the church auditorium but has nothing to do with the church. I'm sure they collect money for political candidates.

Robertson/Falwell, we know for sure their organization is a bank and political arm of the GOP. Not different from the NRA.

either party, it should not be tax exempt.