Money can’t buy love, and as Georgia’s Karen Handel proved, it can’t buy elections either! After months of anticipation and see-saw polling, the GOP pulled off an impressive victory Tuesday night in one of the hardest-fought races since Trump’s. With Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff exchanging the lead on and off heading into Tuesday’s vote, Democrats held out hope that this might be one seat they could snatch away from Republican control. Their hopes were dashed in Handel’s 52-48 win, which not only kept the GOP’s 38-year streak alive in Tom Price’s seat but dealt the Left its fourth loss in as many tries since November.

For most people, the biggest story in this race wasn’t the candidates, but the contributions. Millions poured in from out-of-state groups and donors, making the campaign the most expensive in congressional history. As much as $55 million streamed into the Peach State from places like Hollywood, more than double the national average. But despite the influx of cash, Ossoff couldn’t seem to overcome the strong current of conservatism in Georgia’s 6th. “One lesson seems obvious from the suburban Atlanta district,” Newsmax’s John Gizzi points out, “emphasizing a strong conservative agenda on both economic and cultural issues is crucial to rallying the Republican base. Former Georgia Secretary of State Handel did just that to defeat Democrat and former congressional staffer Jon Ossoff.”

In National Review, Alexandra Desanctis argues that Tuesday’s real loser wasn’t Ossoff, but Planned Parenthood. “By tacking a $735,000 price tag onto Ossoff’s failed effort, Planned Parenthood has revealed its own futility at influencing elections. That failure underscores another important point. Planned Parenthood consistently argues that, if it were to be stripped of its federal funding, millions of women would lose ‘vital health care.’” Like most of us, she thinks this is just further evidence that Planned Parenthood doesn’t need the money it keeps begging Congress for! If its political arm can afford to spend almost a million dollars on a single race, surely it can survive without an excess of taxpayer funding.

Of course, there’s a reason Planned Parenthood wanted to send Handel packing. Five years ago, Karen was the vice president at Susan G. Komen Foundation who quietly cut ties with Cecile Richards’s group in favor of clinics that actually offer mammograms. Within hours, threats flooded in from Planned Parenthood affiliates, corporate donors, and even members of Congress. Richards’s friends in the media all piled on, as well as her pals in the White House. After a 72-hour national firestorm, Planned Parenthood’s financial partnership was reinstated, and the following year, Karen resigned. She wrote about the political thuggery in a book called “Planned Bullyhood.” But if Richards’s group was hoping for payback as Ossoff’s second largest donor, it got anything but.

For the Democratic Party, it was yet another rebuke of the far-Left agenda it insists has traction. On the contrary, seven months removed from the presidential election, voters are still embracing the values that made Trump president. Much to their disappointment, this race wasn’t a rejection of the young administration — but an affirmation of it. Despite the media’s false narrative, very few Americans have presidential buyer’s remorse. Even at Tuesday night’s victory party, voters were chanting “Trump! Trump! Trump!” Now, suddenly, the liberal press is rushing to reframe a race that was supposed to be the be-all, end-all for the Democratic Party. As Mary Katharine Ham tweeted Tuesday night, “Update: Formerly vitally important election with national implications that can’t be overstated now scheduled to be irrelevant by 10 am.”

Unfortunately for Democrats, the night only got worse after Handel. In South Carolina, Ralph Norman, a conservative Republican whom FRC Action endorsed, won the seat vacated by new Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney. Norman, another champion of the pro-life cause, didn’t face nearly the opposition that Handel did, but stood strong in a tighter-than-expected outcome. We congratulate him and look forward to working with both of these newest members of the House!

Originally published here.

Clark Can’t: Rep. Tries Sanders’s Test on Schools

Liberals may believe in choice for abortion — but not much else. In one of the greatest ironies of the last 30 years, the Democratic Party has become the thing it once abhorred: ideological tyrants. The country is littered with examples, whether the Left is cracking down on Christian businesses or Catholic nunneries. The latest battleground is a familiar one: education. Under Barack Obama, liberals had a field day turning schools into incubators for the radical Left. From gender-free bathrooms to extremist sex ed, the only thing Democrats want to expel from the classroom is morals.

At Indiana’s Lighthouse Christian Academy, this fight landed at the school’s front door when a Massachusetts congresswoman took aim at the students’ code of conduct. At a hearing with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Rep. Katherine Clark (D) called the agency on the carpet for refusing to strip the school’s taxpayer funding simply for embracing a Christian worldview. At issue is the Academy’s policy that it has the right to refuse a student struggling with same-sex attractions. “You are the backstop for students and their right to access quality education,” Clark argued with DeVos. “Would you in this case say we are going to overrule and you cannot discriminate, whether it be on sexual orientation, race, or special needs in our voucher programs? Will that be a guarantee from you to our students?”

To her credit, DeVos made it clear that the point of a voucher program isn’t to demand conformity on certain values. “The bottom line is we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children’s schooling and education decisions,” the secretary replied. “Too many children today are trapped in schools that don’t work for them. We have to do something different than continuing a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach.”

Interestingly enough, Lighthouse Academy hasn’t turned away all students struggling with their sexuality, despite its disclaimer. As the Associated Press reports, alum Mary Wegener, now 24, says “some of her classmates at the school were gay and received love and care. [The school’s attorney Brian] Bailey confirmed that the school did admit some students who were ‘tempted by same-sex intimacy,’ saying ‘we teach our students to flee these sins.’” Wagner, the AP goes on, “sees both sides of the story, but says a religious school cannot function contrary to its core beliefs. ‘If they are going to be a Christian school, they can’t conform to everything else, because then that would be a private school that knocked out the Christian name.’”

Of course, the irony is that the Academy’s voucher program is fueled by state money — $665,000 to be exact. Obviously, liberals are hoping to continue the radical overreach of the Obama years, where the federal government’s long arm would often reach into states and dictate local policy. Once again, the Left is trying to take its fringe views and impose them on the entire nation, despite what the law says or voters want.

“For a real choice and thus real liberty to exist, the government may not impose its own orthodoxy and homogenize all schools to conform to politically correct attitudes and ideologies,” Bailey said in a statement. He’s right. No school or district should allow bureaucrats to redefine their beliefs as a condition of taxpayer funding. That’s the Bernie Sanders School of Governing, which insists that Christians should be expelled from public life and local partnerships for the “crime” of embracing the very faith this nation was founded upon. Unfortunately for him and Rep. Clark, this is exactly the religious test the Constitution was designed to prevent! If they object to Article VI and the First Amendment, take it up with the Framers! In the meantime, leave compassionate alternatives like Lighthouse Academy alone.

Originally published here.

The World According to Bernie Sanders

Over the last few weeks, more than 55,000 of you signed our petition calling on the U.S. Senate to reject the religious test that Sen. Bernie Sanders sought to impose on Trump nominee Russel Vought. It was a shocking moment to watch a United States senator declare that a belief in a central tenet of Christianity is enough to render a nominee unfit for public service. The senator even went so far as to say Vought is “really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.” Thankfully, your petitions are having an impact on Capitol Hill. Wednesday morning, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs voted 8-7 to advance Vought’s nomination to the floor of the Senate.

In advance of the full Senate vote, Family Research Council Action is launching a new ad calling on senators to denounce the Bernie Sanders’ religious test. The ad asks a simple question: “Are Christians unfit for public service?” Bernie Sanders seems to think so but the U.S. Constitution says otherwise. (Article VI, Section 3.) Watch the ad below and then share it on your social media. The U.S. Senate needs to be reminded that the Constitution says “no religious test”!

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.