Catholics Need Not Apply

CATHOLICS NEED NOT APPLY

The US Senate is a place where legislation goes to die. The US House of Representatives has passed over 50 pieces of legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support and the US Senate has not acted on them.

The US Senate also has the duty to give their advise and consent on Judicial nominees.

There is a Judicial Emergency in that over 20% of the Federal Bench is vacant. The backlog of cases denies justice to everyone with cases before the Federal bench. People need to have confidence in the impartiality of the Justice System as well as speed of a solution. Some of the delays exceed two years. This means that the current judges are backed up and overworked. Justice delayed is justice denied as the saying goes.

The answer is to put more judges to work on the Federal Bench.

President Bush has done his best to get the process started. He submitted his first nominees sixteen months ago, on May 9, 2001. 122 people have been nominated by the president, 72 have been confirmed 48 have not had hearings and two have been rejected.

For comparison President Clinton's first nominees were three months later on, August 6, President Bush 41 was August 4 and President Reagan was July 9.

Each of the previous presidents had 100% of their first 11 nominees confirmed.

President Bush has had two nominees rejected, three were confirmed and 6 have not yet had a hearing. After 16 months.

Every Judicial nominee must go through extensive background checks and investigations. The American Bar Association reviews a lawyers background and makes it's recommendation as well.

During the first year of Bush ll only 43% of his nominees were confirmed. The facts are that during President Clinton's first year 57% were confirmed, Bush l had 62% President Reagan had 92% confirmed.

Only 45.3% of active judges today were named by Republican Presidents. 52.9% were named by Democrat Presidents in the past twenty years. Even though President Clinton and the Democrats only held office for eight of the past twenty years.

Last weeks vote on Justice Priscilla Owens was a classic 10-9 partisan party line vote.

Justice Priscilla Owen sits on the Texas Supreme Court. She won reelection with 84% of the vote. President Bush nominated her to the 5th Circuit Court in May of 2001, sixteen months ago. She was endorsed by the thirteen previous Texas State Bar Presidents. The American Bar Association gave her their unanimous endorsement with their highest rating of "well qualified."

The Democrat controlled Judiciary Committee and even Democrat Senator Joseph Biden - a former Judiciary Committee chairman - has called for all nominees to get a floor vote, saying that everyone nominated is entitled "to have a hearing and to have a shot to be heard on the floor and have a vote on the floor." By continuing their campaign of obstructing the confirmation of qualified judges Democrats have perpetuated the judicial crisis that is threatening the administration of justice.

Georgia Democratic US Senator Zell Miller had said that he would break the 50/50 tie and vote for Justice Owen's confirmation if her nomination made it to the floor. Typically if a nominee is going to be confirmed other Democrats would follow and she would probably have received a wider margin of support. The 10 Democrats on the Judiciary committee voted against letting her nomination go to the Senate floor.

The code words of judicial temperament, qualifications, etc., are just window dressing.

The real reason Justice Owens was rejected was not because she is not qualified. She is the first and only Judicial nominee to have a "well qualified" rating from the American Bar Association and be rejected.

Justice Owens was rejected because she decided an earlier case that said that teen age girls ought to notify their parents before they have an abortion. Texas law states that any surgery, even an ear piercing must have parental consent. Only abortions are reduced to notification. A parent in Texas can be notified that their daughter is going to have an abortion and they cannot prevent it. They are only given notice. They have no legal right to intervene.

Justice Owen was deemed to be "pro-life" and therefore, unqualified to sit on the Federal bench. US Senate members want to assure that there is no "litmus test for judges" but by their own words and actions they are saying that if you are "conservative" i.e. pro-life, you will not be allowed to sit on the Federal bench.

The irony here is that Senator Leahy who switched from Republican to Democrat and Senator Kennedy, call themselves Catholic but are ardently pro-abortion. Not just in favor of allowing a woman to "choose" to kill her baby but against any reasonable restriction and in favor of taxpayer funded abortion, on demand, right up until the moment of birth.

People reading this in New Jersey should care because if a Republican wins here in November and the Republicans take control of the Senate Justice Owens will be confirmed.

Larry Cirignano, Esq.
CatholicVote.org
PO Box 70695
Washington, DC 20024
609-781-0090 cell
202-318-0789 fax

Dear Catholic Vote Contributor:

Catholics are under attack. Legislation to lift the veil of secrecy at the confessional, mandate contraceptive coverage for Catholic employers, regulate and or defund Catholic schools, promote gay marriage and promote abortion has been introduced in Trenton.

Because of the Priest Sex Scandal our enemies have been emboldened. Catholics need a stronger better organized voice and the US Bishops have challenged lay Catholics to get involved.

The Knights of Columbus met in California this week and they were challenged by their leaders to get involved, register to vote and defend the church's teachings and positions on the issues before the legislatures. It is not enough to only vote, we need to actively participate in the legislative process.

There are 340 Councils in New Jersey and 56,000 Knights but they are limited in what they can do because of IRS tax regulations. They can do all of the nonpartisan things the church can and should do. They cannot mention specific legislators names and support or oppose them.

We as lay Catholics can and should.

60% of all Catholics did not vote in the last election. Weekly Mass attendees, Church going Catholics, voted overwhelmingly for the pro-life candidate but too many of them did not vote.

Over 250,000 Catholics voted for Bob Franks in 2000 and did not vote in 2001. I assume they would have voted for Schundler but we will never know because they did not come to the polls, they only vote in Presidential years.

New Jersey has 698 parishes. I have been asked what it would cost to get Catholics to vote. Obviously we need candidates who can motivate voters and speak to our issues.

Conversely we need voters who will demand and support politicians who support our issues.

We need to identify Catholics who go to church, get them to register to vote, educate them on the issues and motivate them to go vote.

Each church has a Sunday bulletin. We need to collect the bulletins, identify names and phone numbers of active Catholics, match them to voter rolls and develop a phone/mailing list. Parish lists are no good because they include the hatch, match and dispatch Catholics who only go to church on holidays and for their own funerals. We need church going Catholics. They vote different from the self proclaimed "Catholics."

DATA ENTRY OF NAMES AND PHONE NUMBERS @ $.12 A NAME
MATCH WITH A VOTER LIST. ALL NON-Registered VOTERS SHOULD GET A LETTER, COPY OF THE BISHOP'S LETTER, LIST OF ELECTED OFFICIAL'S CONTACT INFORMATION AND A VOTER REGISTRATION FORM.

We need to get people from each parish to approach their pastor about holding a voter registration drive. The phone book changes by 20% every year. All of the kids who turn 18, people who move, people who get married and new citizens need to register. Even if they are registered they may have changed their address.

We know that half of the Catholics, (686,000) are not registered to vote. A third of them go to church weekly. (228,0000)

I would suggest that Saturday, September 21, and Sunday, September 22, 2002, be Voter Registration Sunday. This allows for rain date and follow up the following Sunday, September 29, and the deadline is the following Friday, October 5th.

We need volunteer teams to assist the parishioners. They need:
Voter registration forms. Different for each County.
A card table
Folding chairs
Pens
Signs (Optional)
T Shirts (Optional)

They need to make copies of each form and they need to mail in the voter registrations. The names need to go into a data base and they need to get voter information, education materials about the issues and the candidate's positions and absentee ballot applications.

Each new voter should get 5 pieces of mail. 3 newsletters, an absentee ballot application, a welcome letter with legislator's contact information. Each newsletter will solicit donations and subscriptions and direct people to the web site.

Each table should also have CatholicVote literature and sign up sheets to get e-mail address'.

2 T-Shirts @ $5 = $10
1 Sign $ 1
Literature 100@.10 = $10
Total $21 per church x 698 = $14,658

Average 10 new voters per mass times 5 masses = 50 new voters x 698= 34,900 new voters.

Each of the 75 Catholic High Schools needs to be visited. A mock election with a questionnaire for the candidates on Catholic issues will generate a lot of calls to the candidates from students doing research about the issues. Great press opportunities for winning the mock elections. This gets to the parents.

Diocese High Schools Number of Students Seniors
Newark 37 15,622 3905
Paterson 10 3,954 988
Metuchen 6 3,738 934
Trenton 11 3,445 861
Camden 11 5,943 1935
Total 75 32,702 8623

Rewards besides the T-shirts for the most registered voters such as lunch with Ambassador Flynn will be arranged.

Follow up letters to all of the new voters at $.50 with an absentee ballot application and a copy of the Bishops letter and a list of their legislator's contact information for their refrigerator.

Students frequently get credit for volunteer time. They have to be asked to participate and they need to be educated about the political process.

Cost is whatever we hand out and the expenses of time and travel.

A mailing to all 700 parishes with info about the unregistered voters, list of legislator's contact information, UCCB/IRS regulations on voter registration etc.

Cost $700

Newsletter
Mailing a newsletter to 5000 Catholic activists and 15,000 for hand distribution =$5000
August, September, October = $15,000

Newspaper Advertising

I know newspapers are not a preferred way of advertising but much like Roll Call and The Hill The Catholic newspapers have a great influence over their select community. An add in the newspaper has a greater impact and a better chance of being read than a piece of mail.

Catholic Newspapers are by subscription and come out every two weeks except in Paterson where it comes out weekly. They are read by the faithful. Priests, nuns, Catholic school teachers, parents and students. Newark's Advocate goes to every family who gives money by envelope and to subscribers. Additional copies are distributed free in the back of churches. A little over 200,000 people get the Catholic newspapers. a full page ad in all 5 papers costs about $7500.

I believe this is the best way to initiate outreach to the Catholic community. Education about the need to register, voter education about the issues, and candidate comparisons as well as legislative scorecards are all fair game.

If it is in the paper (a trusted source of information) it will get people's attention.
It will also have the Bishop's implicit support for voter registration.

Information needs to be early in order to get to people before they make up their minds. Voter registration must be in September. Voter education needs to be in the first issue in October. The second issue in October Comes out in the third week and will have a deadline of October 21.

Issues besides the Right to Life are Embryo Research, Cloning, School Choice, Welfare reform, gay marriage, and the death penalty. Catholics do not agree with all of the church's teaching but the educational aspect must include issues.

Diocese/Counties Paid Circulation Full Page
Newark Advocate 130,000 $2535
Marge McCue 973-497-4201
Bergen 44K, Essex 25K, Union 33K, Hudson 23K
1,319,558 Catholics

Paterson Beacon
32,500 $1260
973-279-8845x 14 Steve Hadasko
Passaic, Morris, Sussex
403,207 Catholics

Metuchen The Catholic Spirit 12,000
732-562-1990 x1407 Cathy O'Neil
Middlesex, Somerset, Warren, Hunterdon
495,322 Catholics

Trenton The Monitor
Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth, Ocean
609-406-7400x
703,531 Catholics

Camden The Catholic Star Herald 32K $1372.70
Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumbeland, Gloucester and Salem
856-756-7900x 6366 Dennis Ezekiel
418,713 Catholics

An alternative is to insert the newsletter in the newspaper @$55 per thousand plus printing.

WEB

We are adding VoteNet to our web site. This will allow us to have a zip code lookup of legislators and up to date information on Federal and State legislator's contact information, legislation tracking including cosponsors and committee votes.

We will be able to educate voters about pending legislative votes and provide them with the tools to become activists. Letters to be Emailed or faxed can be pre written and phone scripts provided.

This is the best way to motivate and communicate with activists.
Initial cost is $15,000 but there is no postage or printing and the pass along viral effect is significant.

if we build an organization with at least two people per parish we can have a tremendous impact. That's 1400 people.

A weekly newsletter will be able to sent via email. Legislative alerts can be sent at any time as well as crowd building or newspaper clip distribution.

Cost for webmaster and data entry $2000 per month.

Phone Contact
An automated phone call to each parish and to all of the active Catholics with phone numbers can get a message out to a select group of people over a wide geographic area in a short period of time for a very reasonable cost.
7000 x $.12 = $840

Total budget:

Data Collection and entry: $ 5,000
Mailing to parishes Re voter registration $ 700
Voter registration: $14,658
Newsletter: 3 moths @$5000= $15,000
Newspaper Advertising: $ 7,500
Web $15,000
Phone Outreach: 7000x$.12= $ 840

Total: $58,698

A contribution towards overhead and expenses also needs to be factored in.

Some of this is fluff. Some areas are probably not worth trying. Certainly areas such as the 67 churches in the 5th CD, where there is a clear choice between a pro-lifer and a pro-abortionist are worth our time. But that is only this election. We need to take the long term view and build a network for supporting issues instead of candidates. If the issue support is there, organized and vocal, the elected political "leaders" will follow.

Next year's legislative races will give us a whole new set of opportunities and targets. We need an ongoing effort.

I'd like to get your thoughts and input.

I'll be away until August 20th but I'll be checking my email. I'd like to have a meeting with you and any of your friends to talk about what we can do to promote Catholic values in the legislatures.

I need help. Help with organization. Help with writing the newsletter. Help with getting the mailings out the door. Help with fundraising.

You have been my core group of supporters. Will you help me now?

Larry Cirignano, Esq.
http://www.CatholicVote.org
PO Box 118
Far Hills, NJ 07931
609-781-0090 cell
202-318-0789 fax

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.