Arroyo Grande church sent election questionnaires to candidates. It’s the fourth in SLO County
Another Arroyo Grande church sent political questionnaire to candidates in San Luis Obispo County, probing their stances on hot-button issues such as gender identity, LGBTQ+ rights and abortion.
Equippers Church Central Coast is now the fourth local church to do so that The Tribune is aware of, raising questions about where the line is drawn on the kinds of political activity permitted by religious nonprofits.
In this case, the church contacted candidates for at least seven local city council and school board races across the county — the largest outreach effort yet.
The Tribune previously reported on the three other churches, Harvest Church and Grace Bible Church in Arroyo Grande and Calvary Chapel in Paso Robles, which have all distributed nearly identical surveys through affiliated ministry groups.
Internal Revenue Service tax law prohibits charities and churches from engaging in political campaign activity, defining a tax-exempt nonprofit as an organization “which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
But it’s unclear if the churches are breaking the law because of nuances in what questions are asked and how.
At the request of The Tribune, University of Notre Dame Law School Professor Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, who specializes in the regulation of political activity by religious nonprofits, analyzed the surveys sent by Harvest Church and Grace Bible concluded that they “push the envelope on the campaign intervention prohibition” and require deeper examination by the IRS.
Mayer also looked at the survey that Equippers sent to its school board candidates for The Tribune, which asks slightly different questions than its city council questionnaires.
“The questionnaire raises some yellow flags for me,” Mayer wrote in an email to The Tribune, but emphasized, as he did for the other surveys, that any determination of campaign intervention would require a deeper dive by the IRS.
Who have the surveys been sent to?
Since early September, the four churches — three in Arroyo Grande and one in Paso Robles — have sent political questionnaires to candidates for multiple local races across the county. The Tribune reached out to every candidate whose email is listed on the county’s official candidate list for contested races to ask if they have received questionnaires from any of these groups.
All of the churches save for Equippers sent their questionnaires through affiliated ministry groups, at least two of which maintain little to no digital footprint.
One of those groups is Culture Impact, affiliated with Harvest Church in Arroyo Grande. The group sent questionnaires at least to city council candidates in Arroyo Grande, San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach and Grover Beach, according to some candidates for those races who responded to The Tribune’s requests for confirmation.
The other low-profile ministry group is Pulse of the Central Coast, tied to Grace Bible Church in Arroyo Grande. The group sent surveys to some candidates for Lucia Mar school board and San Luis Obispo City Council, at minimum.
The third church was Calvary Chapel in Paso Robles, operating through the more public Real Impact ministry group. It sent questionnaires to candidates for Paso Robles school board, Atascadero school board, San Luis Obispo City Council and Paso Robles City Council, according to some of the candidates for those races.
Equippers Church Central Coast was the latest example of a nonprofit religious organization trying to walk the line of legal political engagement.
Equippers is an international church with locations all over the world. But there is only one location in the United States, in Arroyo Grande.
The new Arroyo Grande church cast the widest net, sending its surveys to some city council candidates in San Luis Obispo, Arroyo Grande, Pismo Beach, Grover Beach and Paso Robles as well as some candidates for Lucia Mar and San Luis Coastal school board.
What did the latest church survey ask candidates?
The Equippers school board questionnaire asked nearly identical questions as the other churches’ surveys, probing candidates positions on “allowing students to access restrooms, locker rooms, and showers based on gender identity or expression,” “allowing biological boys to participate in girls’ sports teams,” “removing books and materials that contain pervasive vulgarity or explicit sexual content from school libraries,” and “requiring schools to notify parents if their child identifies with a gender different from their biological sex.”
The questionnaire sent to city council candidates asked some different questions, probing candidates stances’ on policy issues such as requiring voter photo identification at the polls, Proposition 47, sanctuary city/state policies, allowing cannabis dispensaries in city limits, allowing prayers at public meetings, deciding what flags should be displayed on city property, asking how to address the budget deficit and if “the U.S. border needs more robust measures to enhance border security.”
It also asked candidates’ interpretation of the Second Amendment and what regulations on firearms they support.
Similar to the school board questionnaire, it also asked three questions about candidates’ stances on the definition of marriage, abortion, and all-gender bathrooms.
SLO council candidate condemns churches’ candidate surveys
John Drake, who is running for a seat on SLO City Council, is the only candidate The Tribune is aware of who received questionnaires from all four churches.
Like many others, the questionnaires struck him as “pretty biased,” but he found it especially strange that churches in Arroyo Grande were reaching out to candidates for races outside of the city.
“I have no connection to (Arroyo Grande) when it comes to this election,” Drake told The Tribune. “Why do churches in (Arroyo Grande) need to know what the hell I’m up to?”
Having received questionnaires from all four churches, Drake was able to compare the language across them and said they were nearly identical.
“It was 100% organized, and I don’t like that,” he said.
While any determination on the legality of the questionnaires would remain up to the IRS, Drake said he doesn’t support the churches’ activity.
“Fundamentally, I do not really support churches being involved in any way as as an organization in elections, even if they’re nonpartisan,” Drake said. “I just don’t support it.”
Drake identifies as Protestant but also believes in the separation of church and state, he said.
Drake said he believes in the rights of churches to make social commentary as permitted by the law, but that “they’ve sort of muddied the waters” by talking about political issues instead of social ones.
“The minute churches are trying to put their foot in that door, I think that really threatens everything we are as a nation,” Drake said. “I feel like these churches should know better at this point.”
What’s happening with the survey results?
It is unclear if Harvest Church and Grace Bible have distributed their voter guides yet or how they plan to do so. Candidates who received Calvary Chapel’s survey were told their responses would be published as a voter guide for the church and northern SLO County community, but no guides appear to have been published online yet.
Equippers appears to be the only church that has published its voter guides on its website, including for four local city council and mayoral races, two local school boards, as well as every state Legislature and federal race in California, including the presidential race.
The Tribune reached out to Equippers for a comment but did not immediately receive a response.
