U.S. District Judge\u00a0J. Campbell Barker in the Eastern District of Texas, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2019, ruled Tuesday that the concerns presented by the churches fall outside the court\u2019s jurisdiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The decades-old requirement known as the Johnson Amendment prohibits nonprofits from intervening in candidates\u2019 political campaigns or risk losing their tax-exempt status.<\/p>\n
The two churches, along with National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America, argued that the Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional and sought a ruling prohibiting the IRS from enforcing it. The churches are First Baptist Church Waskom and Sand Springs Church in Athens.<\/p>\n
Michael Farris, general counsel for National Religious Broadcasters and lead counsel in this lawsuit, said the plaintiffs plan to file an appeal in the Fifth Circuit.<\/p>\n
In a July court filing, the IRS said it would allow houses of worship to endorse candidates when addressing congregants in \u201cgood faith,\u201d likening it to a \u201cfamily discussion.\u201d The agency said the interpretation was \u201cin keeping with the IRS\u2019s treatment of the Johnson Amendment in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Barker said the court couldn\u2019t approve the proposed settlement between the organizations and the IRS, what happens to that pitch now is unclear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The IRS did not respond to a request for comment from the Houston Chronicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The future of the IRS\u2019 new interpretation of the Johnson Amendment is confusing since it was proposed by the agency itself, said Michael Emerson, director and Chavanne Fellow in Religion and Public Policy\u00a0at Rice University\u2019s Baker Institute.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The amendment, which Congress approved in 1954 when Lyndon B. Johnson was a senator, has been criticized by Trump. The president promised in his first term to “destroy” the regulation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the unanswered questions, Emerson said Tuesday\u2019s decision is a win for separation of church and state advocates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wind has been at the sails of a movement of reducing the space between separation of church and state, so this is quite something,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Americans United for Separation of Church and State cheered the dismissal. The court had denied the group\u2019s motion to intervene as a defendant, but permitted it to file an amicus curiae brief.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re glad that the Johnson Amendment will remain a strong bulwark to stop religious extremists from exploiting houses of worship,\u201d said Americans United President and CEO Rachel Laser. \u201cTax-free giving to charities should fund charitable work, not partisan politics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. District Judge\u00a0J. Campbell Barker in the Eastern District of Texas, who was nominated by President Donald Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-229370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}