February 9, 2006 | Read Time: 1 minute
Lawmakers in Massachusetts have voted down a bill that would have required churches and other houses of worship to file annual financial reports with state authorities in the same manner as other charities. The organizations would also have had to file lists of real-estate holdings.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives defeated the proposal — SB 1074, also known as An Act Relative to Charities in Massachusetts — by a vote of 147 to 3. The State Senate passed the bill last year by a large margin, but the measure was part of other legislation and did not face an up-or-down vote on its own.
Lawmakers who voted against the bill said its provisions would improperly cross the constitutional line that separates church and state.
The bill was in part an effort to open the books of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in the wake of a clergy sexual-abuse scandal.
Supporters of the measure said its defeat shows that institutional religion remains a powerful political force in Massachusetts. Religious organizations of several faiths joined the archdiocese in lobbying against the measure.
