Taking the fight to the states
Office of Public Witness hosts a ‘What’s Next?’ webinar on how Presbyterians can shift their focus following passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill
LOUISVILLE — Some of the summer fellows at the PC(USA)’s Office of Public Witness put together a helpful webinar Thursday on how Presbyterians can continue to engage their lawmakers even after passage of President Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which will cut health care, food assistance and other benefits to people in need.
“What’s Next? Shifting the Faithful Fight to State Budgets” featured people fighting for people on the margins in three states:
- The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Copeland, executive director of the North Carolina Council of Churches
- Peter Chen, senior analyst at New Jersey Policy Perspective
- Bee Moorhead, executive director of Texas Impact and a PC(USA) ruling elder.
OPW fellows Isabella Shutt and Thomas Curie, together with the PC(USA)’s advocacy director, the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, and the Rev. Christina Cosby, OPW’s representative for domestic and environmental policy concerns, also participated in Thursday’s 67-minute webinar.
Copeland opened with a startling statistic: only 6% of registered voters in North Carolina have ever contacted an elected official — even one they voted for. “Our organizations bear some responsibility for that. We’ve got to equip people to reach out,” she said. “That’s why I’m honored to be part of this conversation tonight.”
She said her own policy advocacy is grounded in the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament gospels. “We as Christians hear God’s call for the vulnerable over and over,” Copeland said. Widows, for example, are mentioned 80 times in the Bible. “We are called to protect the vulnerable,” she said, “without passing judgment on why they are vulnerable.”
One impact of the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill will be that the onus for protecting vulnerable people will fall on the states, according to Copeland. “I believe Christians have a ready-made response. We can start with the healing stories in Scripture,” featuring Jesus as “the original health care provider.”
“When we are sick, the gift of community is tangibly missing from our lives. The one who is healed is restored to community,” she noted. “Healing is a crucial part of God’s plan for human flourishing.”
“If our money is not caring for the vulnerable,” Copeland said, “we are sinning against the call of the gospel.”
Chen told webinar participants that changes to federal programs, such as work requirements for the Medicaid program, often begin in states. “The relatively low engagement in state government means a small number of folks can make a big difference,” Chen said.
In the Garden State, New Jersey Policy Perspective and its partners advocated to the governor and state legislators to create a new state-level child tax credit when a federal version was not extended. “The interesting shift there was we could connect with state legislators in a way that’s hard to do at the federal level,” Chen said. State lawmakers “are more likely to respond because they have fewer constituents.”
While federal education funding has been in the news in recent weeks, Chen reminded those on the call that 90% of education funding comes from state and local taxpayers. Educational programs are driven by state and local policies.
He called Medicaid work requirements “onerous,” but “there is flexibility for how states will run those programs. Faith-based leaders are incredibly important in this work.”
“We have worked with a variety of faith groups” on fair budgeting and fair taxation policies, he said. Last year, New Jersey Policy Perspective and its partners were successful in getting legislators to levy a tax on corporations that earn more than $10 million in annual profits in New Jersey. The revenue went to New Jersey Transit, which was in a budget crisis. “Absent that funding, New Jersey Transit was in trouble,” Chen said. “Faith groups helped make the argument that was a net good.”
Moorhead addressed listeners directly.
“Your story — the thing that makes you uniquely helpful in the public policy process — has less to do with statistics and data and bill analysis. What you as a person of faith, clergy or lay person can do — your story is the story of how public policy manifests in the world.”
The impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill “will be felt in hyper local ways by people in particular circumstances,” she said. Presbyterians and other people of faith may see an uptick in activity at their local food pantry. “People will start missing payments and be in distress,” she said. “Collect those stories. They are important to elected officials and to state agencies.”
State government officials “are not excited to kick children off Medicaid,” she said. “They want the system to work well and they need help to make that happen.”
She pointed out that in September 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a letter to the nation’s clergy, asking church leaders to report back on how the new Social Security programs were going in their community. “Tell me where you feel our Government can better serve our people. We can solve our many problems, but no one man or single group can do it,” the president wrote. “We shall have to work together for the common end of better spiritual and material conditions for the American people.”
“This is not a question about, do you feel bad for people who have bad things happen to them,” Moorhead said. “They are going to come to you. The government has assigned your tithes and offerings to be the backstop for the cuts they’ve made.”
“It’s not that we don’t want to serve and to do the right thing, but we aren’t your backstop,” she said. “We are here to work alongside you, not instead of you.”
Cosby closed the webinar with a prayer. “As you call us to do justice,” she told the Almighty, “you do not call us to go alone. You call us to go in community, listening to stories and sharing those stories with legislators in every sector of government.”
Join the next edition of the Presbyterian Advocacy Hour, which will focus on organizing. The webinar begins at noon Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 23. Register here.
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