In 2018, the news spread from The New York Times and The Guardian to local media outlets around the country: Project Blitz, a project of the national Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, was aiming to enshrine a very particular vision of Christianity in state laws throughout the United States. That vision of Christianity-by-law was outlined in a 148-page playbook, complete with model legislation on everything from displaying “In God We Trust” in public buildings to allowing religion-based discrimination and “Establishing Public Policy Favoring Reliance on and Maintenance of Birth Gender.”
But while the resulting public outcry and work by organizations including Political Research Associates, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the Blitz Watch coalition have put a speed bump in front of Christian Dominionists’ efforts, Project Blitz is still going strong. According to a tape of an October conference call among Project Blitz organizers that was forwarded to Political Research Associates, the organization has simply gone underground.
In fact, according to an article about the call by Political Research Associates senior research analyst Frederick Clarkson, “their state legislative network now comprises some 950 legislators, organized into Prayer Caucuses in 38 states,” with plans to organize 42 state “prayer caucuses” by the end of this year. The group is also becoming more organized: According to Clarkson’s report on the call, 32 of the caucuses have state directors.
They are also bringing an alarming number of Democrats with them. “I think that what people need to understand is that the Christian right is here to stay, and there's nothing that's going to ultimately defeat them or discredit them. I think Project Blitz is an excellent example of that,” Clarkson told Daily Kos. Clarkson, who has covered the intersection of religion and politics for more than 30 years, originally broke the Project Blitz story in 2018. A national expert on the issue of American church/state politics, he has also written about the organization as a Daily Kos community member.
Project Blitz—which as of the October call was calling itself “Freedom For All”—has outlined a three-tier strategy for introducing Christian Dominionism into state laws. The first tier aims to introduce “easy win” legislation, like displaying “In God We Trust” in public buildings.
“The goal with that (first tier) is to sort of band the caucus together and build momentum for the more difficult bills,” said Alison Gill, national legal and policy director with American Atheists. In 2018, five U.S. states passed Project Blitz model bills mandating that “In God We Trust” be displayed in public schools.
“In God We Trust” bills are a “safe thing to pursue,” Clarkson explained, “because ‘In God We Trust’ is in fact the national motto. How can you be opposed to that? So it's an easy bill for them to take forward and to demagogue off of,” as well as being “a political step that allows them to focus the idea that government should be about (the conservative Christian) god.”
“It's a good organizing strategy,” Clarkson added. “At the end of the day, do Dominionists care about slogans on government walls? No. They want the whole government.”
Gill said the second tier is comprised of resolutions—for example, the Project Blitz 2018 playbook, a.k.a. “Report and Analysis on Religious Freedom Measures Impacting Prayer and Faith in America” offers sample proclamations including one “Recognizing the Importance of the Bible in History.”
“Those don’t have much legal impact, but they can affect the law in a variety of different ways,” Gill explained.
The third tier of the Project Blitz/Freedom For All strategy is comprised of “a whole variety of bills that have to do with religious exemption,” including model legislation allowing religion-based discrimination in foster care and schools.
As a rule, individual state Prayer Caucuses don’t make their membership lists public, so it can be difficult to compile a list of which legislators are involved in which state. However, in 2012 Michigan was an exception when the state’s then-newly formed Michigan Legislative Prayer Caucus announced itself to local media.
At the time of the announcement, the Michigan caucus had 38 members including 30 state representatives, seven state senators, and then-Lt. Gov. Brian Calley. While the caucus initially announced itself as a nonpartisan organization “with the purpose of promoting prayer and praying for wisdom and understanding,” a Daily Kos analysis of data from Ballotpedia and Vote Smart uncovered a different story.
In 2012, only four members were Democrats—none of whom are in office today. Further, the vast majority of caucus members (35) were endorsed by the anti-abortion organization Right to Life of Michigan.
Prayer Caucus members may have been thin on the ground in Michigan in 2012, but Clarkson told Daily Kos that, overall, “a lot of Democrats are completely on board with this (Project Blitz) too.” As examples, Clarkson cited “In God We Trust” bills in Florida and Louisiana, which were championed by Democrats in both states. Louisiana’s bill was introduced by a Democratic state senator and signed into law by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. The same Democratic Florida representative who introduced the state's "In God We Trust Bill," Kim Daniels, also recently introduced a bill that would require every school district in the state to offer courses on religion and the Bible.
In Ohio, former Democratic state Rep. Bill Patmon, who lost the Democratic primary for his district’s Senate seat last month, was listed by the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation as co-chair of that state’s prayer caucus. In 2014, Patmon was one of the sponsors of a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” in part, he said, to keep a portrait of Jesus hanging in a public school.
Last year, Patmon also co-sponsored the "The Student Religious Liberties Act," which critics say would forbid public school teachers from penalizing student’s grades for giving answers reflecting their religious beliefs—for example, about evolution. The bill passed Ohio’s state House last month with “Yea” votes from two Democrats, Gil Blair and Michael J. O’Brien.
In Michigan in 2015, former Democratic state senator and Prayer Caucus member Tupac Hunter introduced legislation that would have required Michigan’s secretary of state to create and offer license plates inscribed with the words “In God We Trust.”
Today it’s clear that in Michigan, the state’s Prayer Caucus is a political organization with a conservative Christian focus. Thirteen of Michigan’s 2012 Prayer Caucus members (all Republicans) were endorsed by both Right to Life of Michigan and Citizens for Traditional Values.
Among other actions, in 2018 Citizens for Traditional Values was one of the groups behind a move to change Michigan’s social studies curriculum to cut mentions of the Ku Klux Klan, virtually eliminate discussion of human-caused climate change, eliminate references to Roe v. Wade, and remove LGBTQ people from discussions of civil rights issues.
While many of the original Michigan prayer caucus members are no longer in office due to term limits or election losses, six of them are now state senators—including state Sen. Mike Shirkey, who is now the majority leader. Another remains in the state House. Shirkey has been endorsed by both Right to Life of Michigan and Citizens for Traditional Values.
No potentially Project Blitz-inspired legislation had been introduced in Michigan during the current term as of last month, but the state has seen its share of bills that may well have come straight from the Project Blitz playbook. In addition to former state Sen. Tupac Hunter’s “In God We Trust” license plate bill, 2015 was also the year Michigan’s Republican-controlled legislature and Republican governor passed an example of a Project Blitz third-tier law: legislation allowing foster care and adoption agencies to practice religion-based discrimination. In October, a George W. Bush-appointed federal judge upheld the law.
Thanks to the 2018 outcry, Project Blitz/Freedom For All has had diminished success with its model legislation. According to a spreadsheet of Blitz-related proposed bills provided to Daily Kos by Blitz Watch, 38 out of 82 bills introduced nationwide have failed or been vetoed. Ten have been passed, and 34 are still in the legislative pipeline.
Despite an uptick in public awareness, “Still, if you ask most lawmakers in states if they've heard of Project Blitz, more often than not they answer no,” said American Atheists’ Alison Gill.
Clarkson of Political Research Associates added that “legislators, reporters who cover state legislatures, and activists need to be very aware of the model bills that are out there, especially Project Blitz, because they have a comprehensive agenda. A lot of stuff is going to be coming (legislators’) way.”
“Project Blitz has been seriously set back because they changed their name [to “Freedom For All”] and they removed every reference [to Project Blitz] on their website,” he said. “But at the same time, they are dedicated, skilled organizers with a vast political capacity. Now is the time to press the advantage rather than to look the other way.”
Dawn Wolfe is a freelance writer and journalist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This post was written and reported through our Daily Kos freelance program.