WASHINGTON—Two lone media cameras greeted Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., when he stepped into a House caucus room one week after suspending his presidential campaign. Corinthian pilasters and high ceilings dwarfed the intimate gathering, and the horde of reporters following him until a week prior was nowhere to be seen. The only vestiges of Rubio’s presidential campaign were his evident fatigue and hoarse voice, as he stepped forward to accept an International Religious Freedom Roundtable award for religious freedom work the one-term Florida senator has done largely out of the limelight.

“Today I dedicate this award to all of you and the work that lies ahead,” Rubio said.

Much of the audience was composed of IRF Roundtable participants—a diverse coalition that includes Open Doors USA and American Atheists—many of whom fought alongside Rubio to strengthen and reauthorize the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) last year. “We owe our existence to him,” said Robert P. George, chairman of the commission that provides independent recommendations to the president, secretary of state, and Congress.

The USCIRF victory allowed the international religious freedom community to put their limited time and resources into other efforts, including the State Department’s recent genocide declaration (see sidebar). Now advocates are turning their attention to a reform bill Rubio wants to help push through Congress during his final months in office.

‘We have a moral and, quite frankly, a national security obligation to make sure we’re a voice on behalf of [religious liberty] around the world.’ —Marco Rubio

“It’s a priority for us,” Rubio told me in an interview at his Capitol Hill office. “We can’t impose religious liberty, but we have a moral and, quite frankly, a national security obligation to make sure we’re a voice on behalf of it around the world.”

President Barack Obama’s disengagement on religious freedom issues, especially in his first term, left many advocates bewildered. His administration allowed the ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom post to remain vacant for Obama’s first 27 months in office and declined to name “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) in annual State Department reports.

The last 18 months have seen a series of positive actions at the State Department, including CPC designations, key posts filled, and effective advocacy from the Office of International Religious Freedom under Ambassador-at-Large David Saperstein. But religious freedom groups want to avoid the neglect of the past and enhance the State Department’s mandate in the future.

Last year Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., filed the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act. It would mandate religious freedom training for foreign service officers, require annual CPC designations (including for nonstate actors such as Boko Haram and ISIS), and elevate the bureaucratic standing of the State Department’s IRF office, increasing staff and resources to address what many see as a proliferating global crisis.

The legislation has 113 bipartisan co-sponsors and no serious opposition within Congress, but the State Department objects to giving the IRF office a higher bureaucratic status. That’s no surprise: The State Department opposed the 1998 law that created the office in the first place.

Republicans, Democrats, and State officials are negotiating a potential compromise, but supporters in Congress may ultimately have to decide whether the bill is worth moving forward with the looming threat of a presidential veto.

Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University, said the provisions are worth the fight, since the agency often ignores recommendations it isn’t required to follow.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee will likely vote on the Smith bill in April, and Rubio plans the same month to introduce in the Senate a companion bill to the House legislation. His decision to run for president prevented him from waging a simultaneous reelection campaign for the Senate, technically making Rubio a 44-year-old lame duck, but few think he is finished with politics. Supporters of the bill believe his involvement could give it much-needed momentum in the midst of a presidential election year.

“I think he can make a difference,” said USCIRF Commissioner Katrina Lantos Swett, a Democrat. “He still pulls a lot of weight.”

Rubio’s clout has led many to predict he may end up on the Republican ticket as a vice presidential candidate. Fellow Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has reportedly considered such a move, but Rubio tamped down those expectations.

“I’m not gonna be vice president,” he said with a laugh. “Whoever the next vice president is, I hope [international religious freedom] will be something they care about deeply.”

Called like it is

On March 17 Secretary of State John Kerry finally acknowledged what religious freedom advocates and religious leaders had been saying for months: The Islamic State is committing genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and Shiite Muslims in Iraq and Syria.

The State Department’s genocide declaration came three days after the U.S. House unanimously passed its own genocide resolution and six weeks after the European Parliament did the same. U.S. clergy and religious leaders had been urging the genocide designation since last year. The designation is significant not only for symbolic reasons but because it legally requires U.S. action to investigate and prosecute the Islamic State atrocities, which have included targeted rape, enslavement, and beheadings.

The Obama administration seemed reluctant to apply the genocide label: Kerry did so on March 17 under pressure of a deadline set by Congress.

Kerry promised the United States would increase its efforts to hold the perpetrators accountable. But sorting out crimes of genocide may prove difficult nearly two years after ISIS militants cleared minority populations from their homelands.

Ambassador-at-Large David Saperstein told me the U.S. government has begun training local defense forces from minority communities, working to ensure refugees can reclaim their property and businesses, and preserving evidence such as eyewitness testimony and mass graves.

“We have to really focus on what we can do to help these communities, both in strengthening the work we’re already doing with refugees and displaced populations and in making it possible for them to return home,” said Saperstein, who played a key role in convincing the administration to act. “We want to reconcile people, not just divide them along sectarian lines.” —J.C.D.