The IRS Gets One Right

On July 7, 2025, a Texas court delivered a judgment in favor of the rights of churches to speak about political campaigns without losing their tax-exempt status. The Plaintiffs were the National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America, and Churches (Sand Springs Church and First Baptist Church Waskom), and the Defendants were Billy Long, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 

The Plaintiff’s complaint addressed the “Johnson Amendment” which requires churches to refrain from participating or intervening in campaigns for public office as a condition for their non-profit, tax-exempt status. They argue that it violates their First Amendment rights to the freedom of speech and free exercise of religion, their Fifth Amendment rights to due process of law and equal protection under the law, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Here are the notable arguments:

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”. 

Bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services, do neither of those things, any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates.

For many houses of worship, the exercise of their religious beliefs includes teaching or instructing their congregations regarding all aspects of life, including guidance concerning the impact of faith on the choices inherent in electoral politics. Interpreting the Johnson Amendment to reach such communications would create serious tension with the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause: That broad interpretation would treat religions that do not speak directly to matters of electoral politics more favorably than religions that do so—favoring some religions over others based on their speech to their own congregations in connection with religious services through customary channels of worship and religious communication.