Charitable Nonprofits Defending Nonpartisanship and Public Trust

The Stanley Center joins the National Council of Nonprofits and over 1,000 charitable nonprofits in signing a letter addressed to President Trump that “strongly objects to efforts by the 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 undersigned 1,000+ organizations write to object to efforts by your administration to ignore long-standing federal law by attempting to exempt houses of worship and religious organizations from the Johnson Amendment, which clearly prohibits 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations from endorsing or opposing partisan political candidates for public office. These efforts undermine one of the most trusted sections of civil society – nonpartisan houses of worship and charitable nonprofits.

The prohibition on political campaign intervention by 501(c)(3) nonprofits is often called “the Johnson Amendment,” and it was adopted with broad bipartisan support in Congress and signed by a Republican president. For more than 70 years, it has ensured that all tax-exempt charitable nonprofits—including houses of worship—do not become conduits for partisan politics, protecting public trust in religious institutions and preserving the integrity of elections.

[. . .]

Weakening the Johnson Amendment would jeopardize the integrity of the entire nonprofit community. This proposed legal action is alarming, as it escalates a broader effort to dismantle the longstanding expectation that charitable organizations stay above the political fray in both practice and principle.

This is not a matter of religious freedom or speech. It is about fundamentally reshaping how political money flows through our system. If successful, it would open the door for political actors to use charitable nonprofits as conduits for anonymous campaign funding, benefiting from substantial tax write-offs while shifting the financial burden onto taxpayers who may disagree with the candidates or causes being supported. Charitable nonprofits are among the last institutions where people from all walks of life come together to tackle local challenges. Undermining the legal safeguards that preserve their neutrality could seriously erode public trust and compromise the sector’s ability to carry out its mission.

We urge the Trump Administration to immediately end its attempt to ignore the Johnson Amendment, reaffirm clear limits on partisan politicking in houses of worship, ensure impartial enforcement across sectors, and protect civil society.

Learn more and read the full sign-on letter.