Trump and the Republican Party have long advocated for changes in federal law to allow churches to engage in political activities. The Johnson Amendment, enacted in 1954, limited the ability of churches and other religious institutions from issuing endorsements from the pulpit. Trump’s base includes evangelical churches that wanted this ban lifted. Trump didn’t have to change the law. He just had to appoint the Director of the Internal Revenue Service.
The I.R.S. said on Monday that churches and other houses of worship can endorse political candidates to their congregations, carving out an exemption in a decades-old ban on political activity by tax-exempt nonprofits.
The agency made that statement in a court filing intended to settle a lawsuit filed by two Texas churches and an association of Christian broadcasters.
The plaintiffs that sued the Internal Revenue Service had previously asked a federal court in Texas to create an even broader exemption — to rule that all nonprofits, religious and secular, were free to endorse candidates to their members. That would have erased a bedrock idea of American nonprofit law: that tax-exempt groups cannot be used as tools of any campaign.
Instead, the I.R.S. agreed to a narrower carveout — one that experts in nonprofit law said might sharply increase politicking in churches, even though it mainly seemed to formalize what already seemed to be the agency’s unspoken policy.
The agency said that if a house of worship endorsed a candidate to its congregants, the I.R.S. would view that not as campaigning but as a private matter, like “a family discussion concerning candidates.”
“Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted,” the agency said, in a motion filed jointly with the plaintiffs.
The ban on campaigning by nonprofits is named after former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who introduced it as a senator in 1954. President Trump has repeatedly called for its repeal.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane: The wound is closing up around its infection.
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Churches pay no taxes, they should not be able to do this kind of BS. This stinks.
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These so-called conservatives have turned our country upside down and retooled our democracy into a regressive nightmare. Today corporations are people. Money is free speech, and religions can be political. Guns also have more rights than women. It is all about giving more power to some groups and taking it away from others. None of this is helpful to a country that is supposed to be a government of, by and for the people.
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They aren’t conservatives. They are reactionaries/regressives who seek to take America back to a time and place that never existed except in their own little brains. Why do you call them conservative? That is their language and when you use the opposition’s language you are way behind the starting line.
You and I and most commentators here are truly conservative-wishing to preserve the goods of society while attempting to make the country more just, fair, equal, etc. . . .
And guns don’t have rights. Ay ay ay!!
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Duane,
I agree. These religious zealots are not “conservative.” They are reactionaries, as you said. They want to return to a place that never existed, where Christianity was the national religion, and almost everyone was white and Christian.
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An old saying, the difference between a cult and a religion is how many people are in it. Politicians should have to wear jackets like the race car drivers, so you can see who their sponsors are.
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Evangelical Fundamentalist [EF] churches [the almost all white KKK variety] were attacking Harris and supporting Trump from the pulpit before the election.
David Brooks, A New York Times columnist since 2003 and a PBS NewsHour contributor since 2001, was traveling the country covering the 2024, election at the local level. He visited southern states, too, and decided to stop at a few EF churches. He mentioned on PBS hearing the pastor behind the pulpit bashing Harris, calling her a whore.
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If religious organizations are going to get involved in politics, they should have to pay taxes!!
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OUTRAGEOUS. Another successful effort to break down the wall of separation between church and state.
Instead of giving them a break, they should revoke their tax exemptions for endorsing a candidate in church.
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The irony of this is that it will harm the church itself. Or perhaps Trump wants the church to die?
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The number of fractures within the USA continues to multiply, exponentially.
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Hi Diane: Not related to this thread, but the Billionnaire thread wouldn’t post my note.
In the NYTimes this morning is an article that talks about Randi G. and AFT’s relationship with the tech-people and AI.
OpenAI and Microsoft Bankroll New A.I. Training for Teachers
“The American Federation of Teachers said it would use the $23 million, including $500,000 from the A.I. start-up Anthropic, to create a national training center.”
The COMMENTS section was closed by the time I read the article, but I copied one comment (pasted below) that reflected my fears and thinking about (to be brief) JUST MORE MIGRATION towards PRIVATIZATION with its ability to get one foot in the door to DESTROY the whole idea of PUBLIC EDUCATION, one step at a time. One of those steps is to engage naive educators and teachers with really great bells and whistles, like Randi G.
I saw one article recently where someone from Sillycon Valley was talking about her dream of having all classrooms with no teachers, but with AI. To that I would say, how about funding SMALLER CLASSROOMS with excellent teachers who know what the heck they are doing and won’t continue to be naive about AI people wanting to get in the intellectual pants of everyone who still has a brain.
And of course there ARE some good things about AI. The question is not THAT, but rather who has the power, what are their political motivations, and are people like Randi G. paying attention to all of the red flags that are popping up in in several comments sections, not to mention real live reports with scads of evidence–like this one that is directly related to the idea that billionaires are , again, trying to run the show and throwing paper towels out to Randi etc. to help clean up the most recent oil spill.
Below is the comment on the NYT site: from Just human with the hopes that this person will be okay with my reposting here:
Boulder, ColoradoJuly 8
@Natasha Singer The tech bros showed their true colors by siding with Trump. Have you heard a peep out of any of them in objection to defunding education, research, or libraries? I am an academic writer. Three of my books were “licensed” to AI by a publisher, without even informing me let alone allowing me to opt out. I got nothing. One of the books represented 15 years of research! I did all the original art and graphics. Somehow with all their billions they can’t put a dime into the content they ingest. Still, no amount of money would have enticed me to give them my work, to be mashed up with words stolen from other writers and spit out as AI slop. I do not want these horrible people telling me what to think, read, write or create. I don’t want to “rewrite with AI”! I don’t want AI assistance. I feel they are sending a clear message: what you have to say is not worthwhile. Let us tell you what to say and how to say it. My response: no thanks. We should be teaching our young people to use their own creativity and intelligence. I am using my voice to speak out in favor of active and collaborative learning, use of libraries and original sources we can cite, and independent, creative thinking.
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If I reflect on how frequently AI has prompted me to shout in frustration, “I want to speak to a real person!” then I recall how often when I finally get to one, typically, I have to go through several different people and repeat the issue over and over again before I finally reach someone with the expertise AND authority to be able to help me solve the problem. So I have a tremendous amount of fear for kids stuck in schools with AI and worry about who will get to talk to a real, knowledgeable and competent person (with power) when in need, while it seems so clear that the plan is to eliminate real teachers (and real schools) as much as possible –especially for common folks…
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In his latest blog I think Tultican clearly explains the plot against public education.
“The real reason for promoting SoR (science of reading) is the billionaire plan for resting control of education away from universities and ending democratic control of schools. The agenda is for all teacher education and training to be privatized. Organizations like TNTP and Relay Graduate School are sub-standard billionaire financed entities with political clout pushing aside public institutions.” https://tultican.com/
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Tom Tultican is a close observer of the latest fads. I trust his judgment.
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retired teacher: I completely agree! I’m retired now, too, but for the first 25 years of my career, I taught kids at both public and private schools and, after returning to college for more degrees, my professors at a public university talked me into working in Teacher Education and gave me my first job doing that –which I loved.
So then, for the last 25 years of my career, I taught at both public and private colleges and universities. In my experience, the worst schools by far were the for-profits, whether in higher education or lower education. That’s because whenever profits are the aim, the schools have business people in charge and money is their TOP priority. So both students and teachers get slighted terribly, IMHO, due to their grossly misguided values.
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In other news, from CNN today:
The new law allocates $75 billion for ICE through 2029 to order as many as 10,000 new agents and to build detention facilities for more than 100,000 additional people.
“It makes ICE a higher-funded law enforcement agency than the entire FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshals Service and Bureau of Prisons combined,” [Aaron] Reichlin-Melnick [of the American Immigration Council] explained.
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This budget is insanity and racism as national priorities.
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Yup
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This, combined with all the ways the suppression of American voters is being carried out by MAGAts today, including the elimination of legitimate immigrants (especially if they are people of color) is to ensure that primarily white males, including their billionaire backers, continue to hold the power of the presidency, Congress, government departments as well as the courts long after the malignant narcissist is gone –and the Constitution be damned! This is so scary that it’s quite literally sickening to me…
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Not worth getting upset about the Church has flouted the law for decades. Christian Fundamentalist mega churches passing around the collection box on Church property. Even as it may have been disguised a bit . Sometimes it wasn’t , Pastors endorsing Candidates right from the Pulpit . Your friend Kathrine Stewart detailed it in both her books.
Did anyone make the aggressive effort to end it. Maybe in the next Republic
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The right wants to use the pulpit as a tool to brainwash large numbers of people into supporting Christian Nationalism and fascism. Then, they should no longer be tax exempt.
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I am not saying you are wrong. Just that they have been doing it for some time with little consequence
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Agree, Joel, this has been going on blatantly at least since Moral Majority late ’70s, & probably long before. The thing that irks: IRS is legitimizing it in a “rule” — “even though it mainly seemed to formalize what already seemed to be the agency’s unspoken policy. ”
Well, now our taxing agency has decided to say the quiet part out loud, via policy. Which has gotten this taxpayer thinking once again about how much more tax revenue we might have if we didn’t give churches endorsing political candidates a free ride.
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Retired and Diane: My view is that teachers, educators, even well-meaning state and federal representatives, are being SEDUCED AGAIN by those who, despite what’s good about AI, are merely using it to carry the same flag as Betsy Devos, the Kochs, and the other privatizers/propagandizers.
For myself, I can imagine quite clearly writing and doing research for 15 years (as that blog writer did) and then having billionaire technofascists steal it away with NO regard for the writer’s place in the creation of their hoarded wealth. Even if Bill Gates “donates” his wealth to good causes, they still degrade themselves when they steal other peoples’ work without acknowledging, in concrete ways, (e.g., with money) writers’ participation in the capitalist project that they themselves so divinely worship.
Along the way, they are seducing now, only to set the stage for the rape and murder of democracy by privatizing so that (as Musk’s adventures with AI should warn us) will only be, for education, a projection of their own political, moral, social, and spiritual biases.
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To hell with all three Abrahamic faith belief systems.
And any and all other faith belief systems, except of course the only true faith belief system–Pastafarianism. All praise his noodly appendages. May they engulf you forever and ever RAMEN!
Maybe we could get the Muscovite to sponsor and pay for a search mission to Russell’s Teapot wherein the FSM (bless his noodly appendages) resides.
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