A project to mobilize faith-based voters to support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage may have illegally served Gov. Rick Perry's re-election campaign, according to a complaint filed Thursday with the Internal Revenue Service.The Texas Freedom Network, a religious watchdog group, asked the IRS to investigate a Houston-based foundation that allegedly violated its tax-exempt status by mobilizing Christian voters to support Perry.
The group says that several of Perry's top contributors funneled money through the Niemoller Foundation to the Texas Restoration Project, a group of 2,000 socially conservative pastors.
The Restoration Project held six "policy briefings" in 2005 centered on voter turnout for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Perry spoke at those meetings.
The complaint alleges the foundation operated outside laws that give tax-exempt status only to groups that do not participate in political campaigns.
"The Texas Restoration Project appears to have served as a partisan voter-mobilization tool for the Perry re-election campaign, with affiliated pastors encouraged to use their churches as partisan, political extensions of that campaign," TFN President Kathy Miller said in a letter to Linda Stiff, IRS acting commissioner.
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The tax records show the foundation spent about $1.26 million to fund the Texas Restoration Project.
The closed-door policy briefings occurred at a time when U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and state Comptroller Carole Strayhorn were considering challenging Perry in the March 2006 GOP primary.
Although neither Hutchison nor Strayhorn challenged Perry in the primary, Strayhorn ran as one of two independent candidates, along with Democratic nominee Chris Bell, in the November general election.
"That the governor of Texas was able to speak at each of six briefings -- including two on one day in Fort Worth and Dallas and two on one day in San Antonio and Houston -- clearly suggests careful co- ordination between Texas Restoration Project organizers and Gov. Perry's office and campaign," Miller said in the complaint.
Quinn said the governor's campaign and supporters sent out communications and had conference calls with pastors on the Restoration Project's list. The pastors were invited to Perry's inauguration in last year.