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January
18, 2010 
Sherman files challenge to $2.3 Billion
in
unconstitutional Illinois State grants
Grants to churches, parochial schools and
religious ministries
are main targets of challenge
Rob Sherman has filed his long-promised challenge to hundreds of blatantly unconstitutional State grants to houses of worship, parochial schools and religious ministries. These unconstitutional grants were snuck into last year's 996-page Capital Bill (infrastructure Bill), Public Act 96-39, which was supposed to be for such things as roads, bridges and public buildings. Governor Pat Quinn signed the Bill into law on July 13, 2009, without vetoing a single one of the unconstitutional Line Items, despite being asked, personally, by me to do so.
First hearing on challenge will be at State Capitol this Wednesday
I filed my challenge this past Friday, January 15, 2010, with the State Government Suggestion Award Board ("SGSAB") in the Capitol at Springfield, Illinois. The challenged grants total $2,308,893,500. The first hearing by the SGSAB on my challenges will be this Wednesday, January 20th, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 307 of the Capitol in Springfield, Illinois.
A federal lawsuit will be filed next week by Attorney Richard Whitney to ensure that no payments are made to theses grant recipients while the SGSAB does its work. Whitney, the Green Party candidate for Governor, is on a trial this week, so he is unavailable to file the lawsuit until next week. In a meeting with senior staff at Comptroller Dan Hynes' office in the Capitol on Friday, I was assured that no payments to these grant recipients were imminent, because the bonds to generate the money to pay the grants have not yet been sold, so next week would be sufficient for filing the lawsuit to put a hold on any payments to the challenged grant recipients.
Details of the Grants that have been challenged
Challenged were 155 Line Items that are clearly unconstitutional, plus another 21 Line Items that are potentially unconstitutional. In some of those 21 latter cases, Grant recipients are given authority to re-distribute Grant money, as they see fit and with little or no oversight. In a few other cases, the Grant recipient is so obscure, no information was available to confirm whether or not the Grant was for a constitutionally permitted purpose.
I had done research on the approximately 4000 Line Items in the Capital Bill on a part time basis during the second half of 2009, but the job was so massive, I worked full time and exclusively on the project for the past month.
My filing is likely the biggest challenge to state/church separation violations by government in the history of the world. The filing involves hundreds of defendant organizations, billions of dollars, many of the State's Constitutional officers, and hundreds of legislators. Some of the legislators engaged in appalling acts of gross conflict of interest, in that the legislator voted in favor of sending grant money to a religious organization for which the legislator, himself, is either the CEO, a member of the Board of Trustees or on the Finance Committee of the Grant recipient.
View lists of challenged grants
I have compiled four sets of lists that pertain to this matter.
List 1 contains 155 unconstitutional grants. List 1-A is in alphabetical order by Grant recipient and List 1-N is in the numerical order that the grants appeared in the Capital Bill.
List 2 contains 21 grants that are potentially unconstitutional, depending on how the money might be spent. List 2-A is in alphabetical order by Grant recipient and List 2-N is in the numerical order that the grants appeared in the Capital Bill.
List 3 contains an additional 112 Line Items worth $34,606,200 that has been identified as NOT being challenged, despite being offered by sectarian organizations, because these programs are being provided in a manner that is secular, non-discriminatory, does not show a preference for one religious denomination, and is open to the public. The purpose I have for providing this latter information is to demonstrate that grants are not being challenged on the basis that a religious organization is offering them, but rather on whether the program is secular, non-discriminatory, non-preferential and open to the public. I affirm that you can’t discriminate against a provider just because they are religious. Challenges are based on the programs, not providers. List 3-A is in alphabetical order by Grant recipient and List 3-N is in the numerical order that the grants appeared in the Capital Bill.
List 4 contains extensive details about each Grant. Those details include who the Grant recipient is, their address, their web site, the purpose of the Grant, why the Grant is unconstitutional, the constitutional provisions that the Grant violates, and relevant quotes from the Grant recipient's web site to demonstrate that the organization and/or program is ineligible to receive the grant. List 4 is in the numerical order that the Grants appeared in the Capital Bill.
Here's how you can help
Doing this work to save you, and other taxpayers like you, literally billions of dollars, is time-consuming and expensive. While you were at work, making lots of money, I was sitting in my office, doing unpaid research for months on the massive Capital Bill. My attorney for this case doesn't work for free. Nor do my attorneys on the Moment of Silence case that is on appeal, the Pilgrim Baptist million-dollar grant case that I won and the Driver's Ed fee scam case that is on appeal.
In the past two years, I've spent tens of thousands of dollars, solely out of my own pocket, on attorneys fees and other costs. Here's your chance to help shine a light on state/church separation violations, and get a unique reward or two.
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Subscribe to Rob Sherman News for $20 or more, or make a donation to Rob Sherman Advocacy of $20 or more, and I will send you this marvel of technology. When somebody asks you about your Rob Sherman News mini-crank flashlight, you can tell them that you're helping to shed a light on state/church separation violations by supporting Rob Sherman Advocacy and Rob Sherman News.
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Please e-mail a comment to me at rob@robsherman.com to let me know what you think, and I'll post your comments, below.
I look forward to your comments on this one. Let me know if you want billions of our tax dollars going to religious organizations, in clear violation of constitutional provisions against it.
Please tell your friends about this through your social media networks and word of mouth.
Send personal comments, comments unrelated to this story or notification of typos that you see in any of my posts to rob@robsherman.com.
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