Rubio unveils robust USCIRF reauthorization bill

WASHINGTON—Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Friday filed a bill to reauthorize the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for six years and clamp down on potential conflicts of interest among commissioners.

“As religious freedom continues to be threatened around the world, the commission’s defense of the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad is more important than ever,” said Rubio, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women’s Issues.

USCIRF reauthorization, once a formality, has become a contentious issue in recent years. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and some recent Democratic appointees to the commission have sought to make changes to its operations, including creating partisan staffs. Rubio’s bill would maintain the commission’s current direction for six years, much longer than the three-year reauthorization negotiated in 2012 and the nine-month extension passed last December. Rubio said USCIRF’s mandate is “too important to keep subjecting the commission to constant reauthorizations, which distract from the vital work they are charged with undertaking.”

Among other changes, the bill alters the definition of “countries of particular concern” to include non-state actors (such as ISIS and Boko Haram), encourages the State Department to grant commissioners and staff access to relevant classified information, and requires the State Department to train foreign service officers on the role of religious freedom and security.

The legislation also adds a conflict of interest policy that makes it unlawful for commissioners to permit any “person, entity, or special-interest group, including foreign governments and state-owned enterprises,” to inappropriately influence a commissioner. All commissioners are unpaid and by definition activists, but James Zogby, a commissioner since 2013, has come under recent scrutiny for his business dealings with the government of Saudi Arabia—one of the world’s worst religious liberty violators.

Katharine Gorka, president of the Council on Global Security, a group that advocates for persecuted minorities, said Rubio’s bill is important because it preserves USCIRF’s nonpartisan structure.

“Religious freedom is not a partisan issue,” Gorka said. “The proposed legislation helps protect the commission from partisan in-fighting and conflicts of interest.”

Gorka said her one concern is how the foreign service officer training will be carried out in practice. “You can be sure, if the Obama administration is doing the training, it will be focused solely on preserving the religious freedom of Muslims,” she said. “Ideas like that are well-intentioned, but easily misused. This administration is noted for not just its neglect but denial of persecuted Christians.”

The legislation appears to make an effort to compromise with Durbin—who has not released his own bill—on at least one issue: It creates an annual review process for the executive director position. The bill would not change the way the executive directors are hired and fired (with a supermajority vote).

“This bill would strengthen the commission and give its work greater relevance,” said Rubio, who also is running for the GOP presidential nomination. He urged fellow senators to “send a clear message to those who threaten religious freedom that the United States is committed to shining a light on these cases of injustice and to standing with those who desire nothing more than to worship and peacefully live out their faith as they choose.”

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., has filed a House reauthorization bill that mostly mirrors Rubio’s legislation.

USCIRF has already begun shutdown procedures ahead of its authorization sunset in September.