FL Sen. Daniel Webster + Bill Gothard, Tallahassee Democrat, 2-9-97
emano...@gmail.com
SHARE HIS INTEREST IN THE INSTITUTE IN BASIC LIFE PRINCIPLES
by Bill Cotterell, Tallahassee Democrat, February 9, 1997
House Speaker Daniel Webster and four aides he brought into the
legislative staff have ties to a Chicago-based religious foundation
that teaches ``moral purity'' and other biblical principles to
families, judges and lawmakers.
The Institute in Basic Life Principles operates ``character-building''
seminars for teen-agers in hundreds of large churches, and operates
family retreats for elected officials. It also runs a correspondence
law school in California whose credo is ``America's legacy of legal
education was rooted in an understanding of the moral absolutes based
in the Bible.''
``As our nation's law schools have deviated from those traditional
moorings, we have produced attorneys, judges and legislators who have
contributed to . . . a legal system which facilitates frivolous
lawsuits, condones lenience for crime, protects deviant sexual
behavior and contributes to sky-rocketing divorce rates,'' the Oak
Brook College of Law and Government Policy says on its home page on
the World Wide Web.
Webster, an Orlando Republican who wrote a personal testimony of his
Baptist faith in the Legislative Clerk's Manual, met or heard about
the new staffers through IBLP contacts. But he said he was not using
his religious affiliations as a recruiting network, or inquiring about
any staff applicant's personal moral beliefs or politics.
``If you look at the staff we've kept from the previous speakers, I
don't think anyone's done a litmus test, but I believe politically
it's all over the board,'' Webster said. ``We've kept far more
Democrats than they ever had Republicans - and that's despite
tremendous pressure to get rid of everybody.''
Webster said he was lucky to meet ``four people who I'll tell you are
top-notch employees'' who happen to share his interest in the family
and moral concerns of the IBLP.
One of his new aides is a former Oklahoma state senator who in that
state sponsored a ``pro-life tort bill'' that would have allowed women
who had abortions as minors to sue their doctors years later. The aide
- a lawyer and graduate of Southern Methodist and the University of
Tulsa, not the IBLP school - cheerfully admits that passage of such a
tort law would eliminate abortion for juveniles, except with parental
consent.
That has been a goal of religious conservatives since the Florida
Supreme Court struck down a parental-consent law in 1989.
Two other new Webster aides are a married couple who worked in the
unsuccessful Washington gubernatorial campaign of a conservative
Republican who said she would only hire ``godly'' employees.
And a fourth is a former Ohio legislative assistant whose resume says
she ``drafted welfare, education and states' rights legislation''
while working for two GOP lawmakers in that state. Her education
includes study with the Oak Brook College in Fresno, Calif., the
correspondence spinoff of the IBLP.
``Our purpose is not to promote religion,'' said Larry Guthrie of
McNaughton, Wis., an executive of the IBLP. ``But we do apply common-
sense biblical principles to building character.''
Institute associates who are on the new speaker's staff include:
Don Rubottom, 40, who served eight years in the Oklahoma Senate as a
Tulsa Republican. He met Webster at some IBLP retreats in the north
woods of Michigan. Rubottom, who makes $61,800 as a senior executive
assistant, said Webster told him at a retreat in 1994 that the Florida
GOP was closing in on a majority and, half-jokingly, suggested that
when he quit Oklahoma politics, he should call Tallahassee.
Matthew Mears, chief legislative researcher for the House Majority
Office, and his wife, Kathy Mears, the speaker's press secretary. He
was campaign manager for Ellen Craswell, the defeated GOP nominee for
governor of Washington last year, and she was Craswell's press
secretary. Previously, he had been West Coast regional coordinator of
seminars for the IBLP, and she taught programs for children -
including spending more than a year in Russia.
Matthew Mears, 28, whose job application said he was home-schooled in
Vermont and attended a community college in Iowa for 30 hours, is paid
$37,008 as chief legislative research specialist for the House GOP
office. Kathy Mears, 26, was hired as an administrative assistant at
$30,000 a year but functions as Webster's press spokeswoman.
Rachel Lee Weed, 31, whose resume said she worked as a legislative
aide and press secretary for two legislators in Ohio before coming to
Florida. Like Kathy Mears, she also ``taught children in character-
building seminars'' for IBLP. Weed was a temporary employee in
Webster's office when he was minority leader during last year's
legislative session. Her education includes studies at the Oak Brook
College.
Weed is paid $30,264 as an executive secretary in the House staff-
development office.
Sherry Churchill, Webster's 12-year personal aide and key assistant in
the speaker's office, said all employees - new or holdovers - were
screened through the House administration committee. She said some
applicants with IBLP ties were not hired.
Tapping church roots could be significant
For 122 years, Democrats have shuttled their own lawyers, analysts and
administrators between committees and the executive suite every two to
four years. Webster has kept about 90 percent of the Democratic
professional staff in committees, but he followed tradition by taking
his main aides with him from the House Minority Office to the
speaker's suite.
But where the depth of the Democrats' staff usually has come from top
law firms, lobbying groups or academia, Webster has tapped his church
roots.
That could be significant in the 60-day legislative session starting
March 4. Organizations like the Christian Coalition - long ignored by
the Democrats - expect their best year ever, with Republicans now
controlling the House and Senate.
It's also unsettling for the political left, which has long been
accustomed to bottling up ``pro-family'' bills in committee or
sustaining vetoes if any abortion restrictions or school-prayer
language was amended into legislative packages. Jewish members are
watching Webster closely after an invocation by his hometown minister
at the legislative organizational session last Nov. 19, in which Jesus
was mentioned.
Rep. Jack Tobin, D-Margate, who objected to the invocation, said
Webster knows he's being watched - not only by Jewish members,
nonbelievers and Democrats, but by others who are hyper-sensitive to
any blurring of church-state separation.
``I believe Dan Webster is an honorable man,'' Tobin said. ``It sounds
to me like he's surrounding himself with people he's comfortable with,
but if he makes their agenda his, (that) remains to be seen.''
Kathy Mears, the press aide, and Rubottom, the lawyer from Tulsa, said
Webster wanted to see ideas come from individual House members - of
both parties - rather than impose any sort of agenda on the House from
the rostrum.
``He wants to be a servant-type person,'' Rubottom said, ``perhaps in
the biblical tradition of Daniel.''
Guthrie, the IBLP director, said the Oak Brook College was ``not
accredited but licensed in California as a correspondence school.'' He
said it had a 60-percent success rate in preparing students,
particularly home-schoolers, for preliminary bar exams.
IBLP teaches morally pure life
The IBLP was founded in Oak Brook, Ill., in 1964, by Bill Gothard, who
is still its president, to work with youth gangs and other teen-agers
needing guidance. The seven principles of its character courses
include submitting to legal authority, taking responsibility for
actions, and ``accepting things we cannot change.''
Guthrie said the IBLP also teaches ``moral purity - maintaining a
morally pure life'' free of drugs, sexual promiscuity or other
misconduct.
Guthrie said the institute also produces teaching materials for
parents who home-school their children, as Webster and his wife do for
their six children.
``I'm here to make the speaker look average,'' joked Rubottom, who,
with his wife, home-school their eight children, aged one to 15 years.
The nondenominational IBLP boasts 2.5 million graduates of its church-
hosted seminars on ``basic youth conflicts.'' It also operates a youth
mission in Moscow.
Besides advocating home schooling, Guthrie said the IBLP vigorously
opposes abortion. He said the institute was not committed on school
prayer.
A bill, backed by the Christian Coalition in Florida and already
introduced, would require a 24-hour waiting period before abortions.
There also might be an attempt this year to override Gov. Lawton
Chiles' veto of a school-prayer bill - or, more likely, to pass a new
bill.
On another hot-button issue, Webster has endorsed a ``defense of
marriage act.'' It would deny in Florida recognition of homosexual
unions, if Hawaii legalizes gay weddings.
Kathy Mears said she and her husband heard of Webster through
Craswell, the former Washington gubernatorial nominee, who had met him
at IBLP functions. The Mearses contacted Webster while visiting
relatives in Florida after the election and, although he initially
said he would be his own press secretary, the speaker hired them both.
Kathy Mears said the IBLP believes strongly in church-state
separation.
She said Craswell's campaign remark about ``hiring only godly people''
was widely misunderstood and misquoted ``to mean she'd only hire
Christian people.'' But she said Craswell believes that ``godly''
people included anyone who is hard-working, honest and reliable.
Kathy Mears said Webster, and the IBLP, share that view.
``I was drawn here not so much for the purpose of what bills are going
to be coming up, or what things are going to happen in the
Legislature,'' she said. ``I was drawn to the opportunity to learn
from people who have integrity and wisdom, like the people I've
learned from.''
Copyright (c) 1997 Tallahassee Democrat