'Dangerous for Democracy': Trump IRS Says Nonprofit Churches Can Make Political Endorsements

"This is another dark day for our democracy."

That's what American Humanist Association (AHA) executive director Fish Stark said in a Tuesday statement responding to a move from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to allow houses of worship to endorse political candidates.

When former President Lyndon B. Johnson was a senator, he introduced a provision of the U.S. tax code that bans organizations from participating or intervening in campaigns for public office as a condition for keeping their nonprofit, tax-exempt status.

The National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America and two Christian churches—Sand Springs Church and First Baptist Church Waskom—wanted a federal court in Texas to strike down the Johnson Amendment. Instead, according to a Monday filing from the plaintiffs and Internal Revenue Service intended to settle the case, the IRS created a formal exception for houses of worship.

Noting the definitions of participate and intervene, the filing states that "bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services, do neither of those things, any more than does 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 document continues.

While the court could reject the plan laid out by the Trump IRS and plaintiffs in this case, observers responded to the settlement document by declaring the 1954 Johnson Amendment "essentially overturned" and "effectively DEAD."

Like many critics of the decision, the court filing acknowledges that its new interpretation "is in keeping with the IRS' treatment of the Johnson Amendment in practice," as the agency "generally has not enforced the Johnson Amendment against houses of worship for speech concerning electoral politics in the context of worship services."

Also highlighting that "it's been clear that many churches were both collecting tax deductions while engaging in partisan politics, so this merely formalizes the practice," Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, wrote on social media, "Holy shit, a real masks-off moment."

"There is already a problem of political operations pretending to be churches," he added, citing 2022 ProPublica reporting. "The divide between church and state is already falling. The divide between church and political group will disappear."

Christa Brown—whose memoir Baptistland tells the story of abuse she endured in her Texas childhood church—said that "churches were already doing this but now it's going to get a lot worse. Bad for the country, dangerous for democracy, and terrible for the separation of church and state. Inevitably, heaps of dark money will now get funneled through churches to influence elections."

AHA's Stark issued a similar warning, saying that "the Johnson Amendment, though weakened over the years by lax enforcement, is the small but mighty dam standing in the way of a torrent of dark money influencing our elections. Now that the Trump administration has opened the door to pastors and houses of worship explicitly backing candidates for office, all bets are off."

"There will be little to stop billionaires from funneling money through churches to buy our elections—and they will get a tax write-off for doing it, all subsidized by American taxpayers," Stark continued. "Weakening the Johnson Amendment to consolidate political power has long been a priority for Christian nationalists—and now they have the megaphone they've been waiting for for decades."

Americans United for Separation of Church and State president and CEO Rachel Laser said Tuesday that "the Trump administration's radical reinterpretation of the Johnson Amendment is a brazen attack on church-state separation that threatens our democracy by favoring houses of worship over other nonprofits and inserting them into partisan politics. It's President Trump and his Christian nationalist allies' signature move: exploiting religion to boost their own political power."

"For more than 70 years, the Johnson Amendment has reflected the will of the American people, the majority of whom want to protect the integrity of our elections and shield our houses of worship from the corrupting influences of partisan politicking," Laser added, urging the court "to reject the administration's latest gambit to rewrite the law through the judicial system."

Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, also criticized the "deeply concerning" court filing for "furthering an assault on the bedrock principle that charitable organizations must remain nonpartisan in law, fact, and purpose in order to serve their missions and communities."

"This action—long sought by President Trump—is not about religion or free speech, but about radically altering campaign finance laws," Yentel argued. "The decree could open the floodgates for political operatives to funnel money to their preferred candidates while receiving generous tax breaks at the expense of taxpayers who may not share those views."

Some political leaders also weighed in. Congressman Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said that "this is really bad. The merger of tax-exempt conservative churches with the MAGA Republican Party is complete. It started with endless rightwing attacks on the IRS, leading to partisan political operations like Family Research Council posing as 'churches,' and now this. American taxpayers are now subsidizing both partisan (mainly GOP) politics and religion."

California state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-25) concluded that "if churches can make political endorsements and make political donations, they can pay taxes."