More than 1,000 nonprofit leaders have signed a national letter addressed to President Trump strongly objecting to efforts by his administration to weaken the Johnson Amendment, a longstanding federal law that protects nonprofits from partisan politics by prohibiting 501(c)(3) organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates.
The letter responds directly to a proposed legal settlement involving the IRS and National Religious Broadcasters that, if approved by a federal judge, would undermine a federal law protecting charitable and religious nonprofits from partisan politics for more than 70 years.
The letter warns that exempting houses of worship from this longstanding protection, as the administration seeks to do, risks politicizing vital nonprofit institutions, eroding public trust, and threatening the independence and integrity of the entire nonprofit sector. The groups signing the letter represent thousands of local nonprofits that show up every day to help people in need. In every community, nonprofits — including houses of worship – feed, heal, shelter, and support their neighbors, no matter their politics. They are asking leaders to keep that trust strong.
“American democracy and our diverse religious communities benefit from healthy boundaries between government and religion,” Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance, said in a statement. “It’s essential that our houses of worship remain outside the partisan fray, unbeholden to any political figure or group. This decision could open the floodgates to dark money operations that would turn sacred spaces into fronts for shady political schemes. Instead of politicizing the pulpit, the administration should properly enforce the seven-decades-old law that allows tax-exempt houses of worship to advocate powerfully around moral and policy issues without pushing partisanship on their congregations.”