The Christian Coalition is well known for the political pressure it exerts. We will list here some of the stands it takes on legislation voted on in 2001. It is against campaign finance reform, against human cloning, against abortion, and against benefits to domestic partners. It is for the recent tax cuts (see earlier explanations under 'seniors' and 'business'). It is also for government funding for religious organizations providing community services, for school vouchers, and for legislation that removed the marriage penalty in tax law and raised the child tax credit from $500 to $1000.

Two other large religious organizations also rate members of Congress. One of them is Network, a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby. According to its literature, Network "educates, lobbies and organizes to influence the formation of federal legislation to promote economic and social justice." Network rates elected officials on issues that reflect Christian attitudes toward providing for the poor, working for a more equitable society, seeking social justice and the common good and striving for world peace and environmental sustainability.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) -- a Quaker group -- also rates Congress. In 2001 the FCNL was against school vouchers, against large tax cuts that mainly benefit the very rich, against medical savings accounts that would, in the opinion of FCNL, benefit pharmaceutical companies at the expense of seniors and begin a slide toward the privatization of Medicare, against military recruitment on school grounds, against the U.S. embargo on Cuba, against oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, and against increased funding for the Andean Regional Counter-Narcotics Initiative (the War on Drugs in Columbia). FCNL was for increased education spending, for after school programs, for a Medicare prescription drug benefit, for Head Start funding, for additional military base closures, for global health funding, for the International Criminal Court, for paying the U.S. debt to the UN, and for normal trade relations with China, among many other issues.