The Bush administration's initiative to provide federal funds to faith-based organizations that deliver a broad range of social services is about to be debated in Congress, and the White House is launching a major effort to mobilize political support for the plan in the House, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Last week, the U.S. Catholic bishops and the Salvation Army endorsed the House bill introduced by Republican J.C. Watts of Oklahoma. Supporters of the bill are hoping for a vote in the House before the Fourth of July and perhaps as early as June 27.

One of the central issues legislators must decide is whether taxpayer funding of faith-based programs amounts to public financing of religion — a question made more complicated by the provision in the House bill that says a faith-based group that receives federal funding may "require that its employees adhere to the religious practices of the organization."

"It's basically up to the administration to get it together if they want it passed," said F. James "Jim" Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI), Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. Sensenbrenner has warned Vice President Cheney that the more controversial elements of the plan could cause a split along party lines. "I told him there were legal problems involved and I didn't think the administration had done its homework in broadening its base so that it had broad bipartisan support."

Sharing those concerns is the most prominent Democratic advocate for a greater role for faith-based charities, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT). The former vice presidential candidate supports a plan that uses tax breaks to help charities, but Lieberman spokesman Dan Gerstein said the senator views employment discrimination as a serious question and sees the House plan as dead on arrival in a Senate now controlled by Democrats.

"I think he's going to pull out all the stops," said Michael Joyce, director of Americans for Community and Faith-based Enterprise, a new Washington group that is lobbying for passage of the plan, of the president. Joyce told the Journal Sentinel that the president recently told a group of conservative activists that his faith-based initiative is "the one [thing] that more than anything else will, I believe, distinguish my presidency."