Favored Smith Charity Overlooks Rules While Working Against Women

Today, Mississippi voters will end the 2018 election cycle when they send either Cindy Hyde-Smith or Mike Espy to the US Senate. Many have weighed in on the surprisingly hot race—including Father Frank Pavone, the controversial leader of the anti-abortion group Priests for Life.

There’s just one problem. Last week, when Pavone urged Mississippians to vote “with federal courts in mind,” Priests for Life had just let its registration lapse with the Secretary of State, something that’s happened before.

I’d be nit-picking if this was a one-time thing. But it’s not, and over the years deficits and fines have caused multiple Catholic bishops to wash their hands of Pavone, despite his growing influence. IRS filings show Priests for Life raised more than $13 million in 2016, mostly in small contributions.

Priests for Life takes the fight against abortion into the public square, using provocative tactics such as Pavone’s 2016 “get out the vote” video for Donald Trump that featured a fetus on an altar. Pavone and the group have gained clout under Trump, with help from Marie Smith, the wife of Fourth District Congressman Chris Smith, who just won re-election in the tightest race he has seen since 1982.

On the heels of several policy wins, as Priests for Life gears up for the 2020 presidential contest, the group is currently out of compliance with consumer protection statutes in several states, including its home base of Florida. This has occurred after Priests for Life paid more than $10,000 in fines between 2007 and 2015 in Mississippi, Utah, Florida and Pennsylvania.

At this writing, Priest for Life is “non-compliant” in New Jersey, where one of their 10-page solicitations landed in my mailbox this spring. While the mailer and “survey” had the names of all three federal officeholders in the Fourth District on the cover, it sought donations to elect anti-abortion Senate candidates nationwide and pronounced Trump the most pro-life president ever. Pavone takes frequent shots at Democrats, despite the group’s 501(c)3 status.

Priests for Life is not strictly Marie Smith’s domain. In 2012, Chris Smith praised Priests for Life from the floor of the House of Representatives, without mentioning that his wife has been a senior official with the group since 2010. It’s now clear that Chris Smith supported Pavone on the House floor despite the priest’s discipline from church leaders, and after Pennsylvania levied a $6,000 fine because Priests for Life did not disclose a marketing contract.

Setbacks for Women Under Trump. The polls were not closed 24 hours November 7, 2018, when the Trump administration delivered an item Priests for Life had sought for years: eroding the HHS mandate that required employers to cover birth control. Priests for Life has been among the groups advocating for the State Department to tell its diplomats to stop supporting reproductive rights programs overseas, which right wing groups say promote abortion. Foreign Policy reported this policy change just before Election Day. (Marie Smith has been particularly active in this realm, and she is drafting Priest for Life’s official statement for the 52nd UN Commission on Population and Development.)

Being non-complaint with New Jersey consumer affairs laws may not be Priest for Life’s biggest problem. Records in Florida, where Priests for Life relocated in 2017, show consumer protection officials there turned down their license renewal to solicit funds in early 2018. The letter suggests regulators were interested in fundraising within Florida and beyond. They asked for more recent financial filings than the 2016 IRS Form 990, which Priests for Life did not submit until January 2018.

A Priests for Life subsidiary, Gospel of Life Ministries, has not submitted an IRS 990 since 2015; Marie Smith listed this entity as an income source on her husband’s House ethics forms in 2017.

In their January 23, 2018, correspondence with Priests for Life, Florida officials threatened legal action if the group did not provide the right documentation within 30 days. “Soliciting contributions in Florida, or from a physical location in Florida, without being properly registered is a violation of Chapter 496, Florida Statutes,” the notice states. There’s no correspondence after that.

So, what should I make of Priests for Life sending their solicitation to my New Jersey mailbox this spring? I’ve written Florida officials to find out.

But wait, there’s more.

While Priests for Life is based on Florida, the mailer included an envelope to send the “survey” to an address in Virginia. As of November 15, 2018, their registration had expired in that state, too.