« Montana Senate Race | Main | Quinnipiac Poll: Crap Or Hope? »
October 21, 2006
Romney Update
This morning's Trib looks at whether a grass roots efforts among Mormons means the same thing as the church offically endorsing and assisting in a campaign. They are looking into the legality of it:
The LDS Church could be treading dangerous legal territory as Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney prepares to draw on a nationwide network of Mormons to support and finance his expected 2008 bid for the White House.
Determining the line between a church legally advocating its position and illegally supporting a candidate is "a very, very tough issue," said Jerry Cohen, former chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service.
"You can go from one extreme: In order to retain [tax] exemptions the church cannot be participating in the election. In the other extreme, [the church is] not inhibited in taking positions that are religious positions and moral positions. They can speak out on that. But between those two lines there is not a very good dividing line."
I think it's going to be tough for the feds to link what members of the same faith do in their own homes to support a candidate they want, to an offical endorsement of said candidate by the officials of the church. It's one thing for the First Presidency to come out and publicly state the church as a whole is going to support candidate X. They wouldn't do that in a million years, as it would blow throw the lines spoken about above. It's something else when the members do it on their own, which is what I believe is happening here.
One thing is for certain, you will never see Romney standing at the pulpit of the Temple giving a televised campaign speech.
Posted by Jonathan at October 21, 2006 10:51 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.mangledcat.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/266
Comments
"One thing is for certain, you will never see Romney standing at the pulpit of the Temple giving a televised campaign speech".
Heh! Yeah, like some dems that we know that are so fond of Baptist pulpits. *cough* *cough* *wink* *wink*
Posted by: Guy at October 22, 2006 6:44 AM
nothing illegal took place because Romney isn't an official presidential candidate.
Posted by: Smart Dude at October 23, 2006 1:13 PM