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It is not an everyday occurrence for Laura Murphy, Washington Director of the ACLU and Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptists' public policy arm or Barry Lynn, Director of Americans United and John Castellani, Director of Teen Challenge, International, to announce public agreement on anything, much less the urgent need to expand the capacity and funding of faith-based organizations (FBOs) to overcome poverty in America. When that happens it is an occasion for celebration.

On January 15, I participated in a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington to release an important new document, "Finding Common Ground," prepared by a national working group chaired by former Democratic Senator Harris Wofford.

Early in the summer of 2001, it became clear that the Democratic majority in the Senate would not accept the House's bill expanding Charitable Choice and implementing a variety of faith-based initiatives. So Republican Senator Santorum asked the Democrat he defeated to chair an exceedingly diverse group of national leaders to see if they could find some common ground on the whole faith-based initiatives. I was privileged to serve on this Working Group over the last six months along with leaders from groups as diverse as the ACLU, Teen Challenge, The National Council of Churches, the Southern Baptist Convention, Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA), People for the American Way, the NAACP, the American Muslim Council, Americans United, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

Both Republican Senator Santorum and Democratic Senator Lieberman have encouraged this project and indicated that they hope this spring to co-sponsor and pass legislation reflecting some of our key recommendations.

• This bipartisan, consensus document calls for a number of things ESA has been promoting:
  
  
• a major increase in funding for faith-based anti-poverty programs
  
  
• capacity building (including new intermediaries) to strengthen faith-based organizations (FBOs)
  
  
• sophisticated, empirical studies to evaluate the comparative success rate of a variety of faith-based and secular social service providers in areas like drug rehabilitation
  
  

One key section of the study calls for greater understanding of the variety of FBOs and includes an elaborate typology of FBOs developed by ESA policy analyst Heidi Rolland Unruh and myself. In fact, several members of the Working Group told me this typology was one of the most important accomplishments of the process.

This highly diverse group did not reach agreement on many crucial issues. We worked by consensus; therefore any single member could veto any proposal. Several members of the Working Group have and continue to vigorously oppose Charitable Choice legislation, especially its hiring exemption which allows faith-based groups receiving federal funds to continue to exercise their right to hire staff who share their religious beliefs (I prepared a paper for the Working Group on this topic). Working by consensus, we simply had to say nothing together on issues of that sort.

Some commentators, especially opponents of Charitable Choice, are implying that the 29 recommendations of our Working Group represent all that is politically doable until after the elections this fall. I think that involves a fundamental misconception. Our group worked by consensus. Any single person could block any proposal. Therefore our recommendations represent the minimum, not the maximum, that is politically possible. In the Congress, proposals require a majority (60% in the Senate), but certainly not a 100% vote. It is simply nonsense to suggest that the minimal, unanimous recommendations of this exceedingly diverse group represent all that Senators Santorum and Lieberman can persuade a majority of the Senate to pass.

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January (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46