The provision, buried in a budget measure setting IRS funding for the upcoming year, amounts to a backdoor way around the so-called Johnson amendment, a half-century-old prohibition on nonprofits getting involved in political campaign activities. | Getty Images House votes to prevent IRS from punishing churches engaging in politics

The House voted Thursday to make it harder for the government to punish churches that get involved in politics.

In a 217-199 vote, lawmakers approved legislation barring the IRS from revoking the tax-exempt status of churches that back political candidates, unless it is specifically approved by the commissioner of the agency.


The provision, buried in a budget measure setting IRS funding for the upcoming year, amounts to a backdoor way around the so-called Johnson amendment, a half-century-old prohibition on nonprofits getting involved in political campaign activities.

Nonprofits denounced the measure, and noted it came only days after the Treasury Department announced it was dropping requirements that most charitable organizations disclose their big donors to the IRS.

"It's now impossible for Congress and the White House to deny their objective: to politicize the trusted charitable nonprofit community by authorizing unlimited, unfettered and untraceable political money to flow through the nonprofit sector to benefit partisan special interests," said Tim Delaney, head of the National Council of Nonprofits.

"Charitable nonprofits are not in the business of partisan politics and are not here to be used to hide or launder political money," Delaney said.

Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The move came as Senate Democrats forced a temporary postponement of a Finance Committee confirmation vote on President Donald Trump's pick to run the IRS, in protest of the Treasury decision to ease the donor-disclosure requirements. Democrats say that will abet the rise of so-called dark money political campaign donations, including from foreign contributors.

Later in the day, the panel approved Charles Rettig’s nomination to head the IRS on a party-line 14-13 vote.

Trump has promised to “totally destroy” the Johnson amendment, named after then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson, who pushed it through Congress in 1954. Republicans tried unsuccessfully last year to repeal the provision as part of their tax-code rewrite.

Targeting the prohibition through the budgetary process is sure to be controversial in the Senate. Republicans there did not include the proviso in their draft of the IRS' budget, and Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the tax committee, pledged Thursday to “use every tool at my disposal to prevent that from happening.”

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady argued that the ban “ought to be fully and permanently repealed.”

"We want our faith leaders to be able to exercise their free speech" without "having to look over their shoulder about what Washington might be intimidating them about," he told reporters.

Among those who’ve lobbied lawmakers on the issue are the Christian Coalition of America, Family Research Council and National Religious Broadcasters, disclosure forms show.

Brady also defended the relaxed disclosure requirements.

“That information was never needed by the IRS to do their job — unfortunately, it had opened up avenues for abuse where the IRS could target Americans based on their political beliefs,” he said.

Under the IRS’ previous rule, nonprofits had to report the names of people giving $5,000 or more. The new guidelines still require the groups to keep that information internally, and provide it to the agency in case of audit.

The House bill would grant the tax collector an additional $186 million next year, increasing its budget to $11.6 billion. That includes another $77 million to help the agency implement the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, H.R. 1 (115), the latest installation of money Congress has provided to execute Republicans’ tax overhaul.

The bill was wrapped into a broader funding measure setting the budgets for the Department of Interior, EPA and other programs for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

