IRS Allows Churches to Endorse Candidates: Will Much Actually Change?
(ANALYSIS) A 1954 law barring churches and pastors from endorsing or opposing candidates for public office will no longer be enforced, the Internal Revenue Service said last Monday.
The surprise announcement came in a response to a 2024 lawsuit brought by the National Religious Broadcasters, Intercessors for America and two churches in east Texas. That action challenged the constitutionality of the “Johnson Amendment,” sponsored by then-freshman U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson to quash a secular nonprofit’s opposition to his reelection bid.
“For too long, churches have been instructed to remain silent on pressing matters of conscience and conviction during election season or risk their 501(c)(3) status,” NRB president and chief executive Troy A. Miller said when the lawsuit was filed last August.
“We believe that all nonprofits should have the constitutional right to freely express their point of view on candidates, elections, and issues on the ballot. Our challenge to the Johnson Amendment is about securing the future of free expression for all Americans, particularly those standing in the pulpit.”
Neither the NRB nor the IRS immediately responded to requests for comment from The Roys Report (TRR) on the proposed IRS change. The New York Times initially reported the story.
“When a house of worship in good faith speaks to its congregation, through its customary channels of communication on matters of faith in connection with religious services, concerning electoral politics viewed through the lens of religious faith, it neither ‘participate(s)’ nor ‘intervene(s)’ in a ‘political campaign,’ within the ordinary meaning of those words,” a consent judgment agreed to by a Justice Department attorney stated.
The long-controversial Johnson Amendment was the Texan’s response to the formation of two tax-exempt nonprofits that opposed Johnson’s campaign. Before Johnson, aided by Rep. John W. McCormack, D-Mass., proposed his amendment, such nonprofits were only banned from lobbying activities.
Although the secular groups were Johnson’s initial target, churches, synagogues and other religious organizations soon got in the IRS’s crosshairs, since these nonprofits also generally receive exemption under Section 501(c)3.
The Johnson Amendment — which critics say was intended to gag the free expression that clerics had exercised for 178 years before its enactment — was at best selectively enforced during its roughly seven-decade run.
The Church at Pierce Creek, near Binghamton, New York, lost its tax exemption after running newspaper ads in 1992 opposing Bill Clinton’s run for the White House. In 2004, All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, became the subject of a three-year IRS probe after a guest preacher invoked then-President George W. Bush, Democratic nominee Sen. John F. Kerry and Jesus in a “debate” during his sermon.
Though the agency determined the message “was an illegal intervention” in that year’s campaign, it never specified what was “illegal,” according to an NPR report.
In 2013, the Rev. Franklin Graham, who heads both Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, complained to then-President Barack Obama about being unfairly targeted.
IRS audits of both groups in 2012 followed their newspaper ads supporting a proposed North Carolina constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, and calling on Tar Heel State voters to elect candidates who support “biblical values,” he said.
During the same period, predominantly Black churches regularly hosted and either implicitly or explicitly endorsed candidates.
Pastors such as the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. of Chicago; Sen. Raphael Warnock, the Georgia Democrat who also pastors the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta; and Rev. Amos Brown of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, pastor to then-Vice President Kamala Harris, have each been alleged by critics to have violated the Johnson Amendment. None were investigated.
Change may not inspire mass action; critics blast IRS
Whether this change by the IRS — which a federal judge has yet to sign off on, although approval is expected — will see churches hanging campaign banners in the sanctuary remains an open question.
In 2024, the Southern Baptist-owned Lifeway Research reported 98% of Protestant pastors said they did not back a political candidate during the year’s elections. The research group said that number was the same in 2020 and 2016.
Away from the pulpit, 25% of pastors surveyed said they publicly endorsed a candidate last year, down from 32% in 2020 and slightly up from 22% in 2016.
The group also said, “According to the same 2024 Lifeway Research study, 3 in 10 U.S. adults (29%) believe pastors publicly endorsing candidates for public office during a church service is appropriate. Three in 5 (60%) disagree, including 42% who strongly disagree, and 11% aren’t sure.”
Meanwhile, the American Humanist Association (AHA) voiced its disapproval of the IRS move.
“This is another dark day for our democracy,” AHA director Fish Stark said in a statement. “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.”
But Kelly Shackelford — president, CEO, and chief counsel for First Liberty Institute, which said it successfully defended Grace Church St. Louis and New Way Church in Florida from IRS probes for “alleged political involvement” — applauded the change.
“First Amendment rights don’t end when a pastor, church member or even a political candidate steps on the platform of a church,” Shackleford said in a statement. “The IRS weaponized the Johnson Amendment to silence churches and pastors for decades. This is great news for religious organizations, churches, and religious liberty.”
This piece is republished with permission from The Roys Report.
Mark A. Kellner is a reporter based in Mesquite, Nevada. He most recently covered statewide elections for the New York Post and was for three years the faith and family reporter for The Washington Times. Mark is a graduate of the University of the Cumberlands and also attended Boston University’s College of Communication.