OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Vice President Kamala Harris has stepped into the Virginia governor’s election and she is playing the race card.
Harris recorded a video to be shown exclusively at 300 black churches across the state urging parishioners to vote for Democrat former Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
The Democrat is caught in a surprisingly close race with Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin who is doing remarkably well in polling in the state that has been reliably blue in recent times, CNN reported.
“More than 300 Black churches across VA will hear from @KamalaHarris btwn Sun. and November 2 in video message that will air during morning services as part of outreach effort aimed to boost @TerryMcAuliffe, CNN reporter Eva McKend said on Twitter.
NEW — More than 300 Black churches across VA will hear from @KamalaHarris btwn Sun. and November 2 in video message that will air during morning services as part of outreach effort aimed to boost @TerryMcAuliffe.#VAGOV
Video first obtained by CNNhttps://t.co/vaefXtWqUe pic.twitter.com/l8re0KUkN1
— Eva McKend (@evamckend) October 16, 2021
“VP Harris implores congregants to vote following church service. The McAuliffe campaign has embraced ‘Souls to the Polls,’ block-party style events featuring top campaign surrogates after church near polling locations, to drive turnout,” she said.
MORE:
VP Harris implores congregants to vote following church service. The McAuliffe campaign has embraced "Souls to the Polls," block-party style events featuring top campaign surrogates after church near polling locations, to drive turnout.#VAGOVhttps://t.co/vaefXtWqUe pic.twitter.com/yGuIL6e7Fz
— Eva McKend (@evamckend) October 16, 2021
This is the first year that voters in Virginia have been allowed to vote on Sundays which many believe will help their “souls to the polls” efforts.
CNN Reported:
More than 300 Black churches across Virginia will hear from Vice President Kamala Harris between Sunday and election day in a video message that will air during morning services as part of an outreach effort aimed to boost McAuliffe.
In the video, first obtained by CNN, Harris said her time growing up in Oakland’s 23rd Avenue Church of God taught her it was a “sacred responsibility” to “lift up the voices of our community.”
“I believe that my friend Terry McAuliffe is the leader Virginia needs at this moment,” says Harris, before praising McAuliffe’s “long-track record of getting things done for the people of Virginia.”
Harris implores congregants to vote following church service. The McAuliffe campaign has embraced “Souls to the Polls,” block-party style events featuring top campaign surrogates after church near polling locations, to drive voter turnout.
What is particularly of note is that this video somehow skirts around the IRS rule on Charities, Churches and Politics.
The ban on political campaign activity by charities and churches was created by Congress more than a half century ago. The Internal Revenue Service administers the tax laws written by Congress and has enforcement authority over tax-exempt organizations. Here is some background information on the political campaign activity ban and the latest IRS enforcement statistics regarding its administration of this congressional ban.
In 1954, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity. To the extent Congress has revisited the ban over the years, it has in fact strengthened the ban. The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates.
Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one “which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
But unless Harris is paying people they do not appear to be to interested in what she has to say.
Harris was widely mocked online for a video of her with school-age children grinning, and apparently thrilled to see her, talking about space exploration and NASA.
But these were not simply any kids who were hyped about talking to the vice president about space exploration. A new report revealed that they were carefully selected paid child actors who were picked after they submitted a monologue and three questions they would ask a world leader, Fox News reported.
The YouTube Original Series, entitled “Get Curious with Vice President Harris,” is aimed at getting children interested in space and included an appearance by NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough from the International Space Station. But the children featured in the first installment of the series were child actors, including 13-year-old Trevor Bernardino.
In one scene, Harris tells the children that they are “going to learn so much,” adding that they will “literally see the craters on the moon with your own eyes. With your own eyes. I’m telling you.”
The kid actors appear to be genuinely excited, and Harris seems to be revealing something to them that they don’t already know. The kids are relentlessly ebullient throughout the video.
Bernardino, a Carmel, California teen who was one of five child actors in the video, told KSBW TV that he submitted a monologue and was interviewed for a role in the series.
