President Donald Trump took executive action yesterday to give churches and religious groups greater leeway to engage in politics without risking their tax exempt status. The order directs the Internal Revenue Service to use its discretion in the enforcement of the law known as the Johnson Amendment, a decades old provision of the tax code that bars many tax exempt organizations from directly endorsing candidates for office. But what does
this order really do well? The Americans Civil Liberties Union tweeted that we thought we'd have to sue Trump today, but it turned out the order signing was an elaborate photo op with no discernible policy outcome. Our guest is Douglas Lacock. He's a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. Doug, what does this order do As far as destroying the Johnson Amendment, which Trump has vowed
to do, the c U Rights doesn't do anything. Um. The issue in the Johnson Amendment is Canada taxa exempt organization. It's not just churches. Can a tax exempt organization endorse the political candidate? And and the reality is if churches endorsed candidates with some frequency in the I R S. Job bones about it. It It tells him not to, but it never actually tries to enforce the law. I don't
think it has any confidence that it's constitutional. The sensor sermons, UH, if they spend money, they buy a full page ad, they can lose their tax exemption. There's one case like that. UM nothing in its executive border says that UM churches can endorse candidates. It says they should be treated the same way as other secular nonprofits, which they uh pretty much already are. So there's nothing there's nothing new here. So well, so what would it take though to really
change the Johnson Amendment? And if you're gonna do it, would it you know, would it just be focused on churches or where you felt isn't? Well, if you're gonna do it, you ought to focus on all not for profits because if you do it only for churches thing you get an argument that it's a preference from religion and it's an establishment close violation. UM. You know, there's a bill in Congress to repeal it, which would be a mistake. UM. In general, political contributions are not tax
deductible political contributions that churches are. So if churches could spend money on politics. That would be a huge, huge loophole. UM. But there's also a bill to say, look, apply to Johnson Amendment only when the church spends money on politics, and don't apply it to things like a sermon that are in the ordinary course of the church's activity and don't cost any money. Um. That's pretty much what the
i R S and force and policy has been. And and I don't think that bill is gonna pass, but but it could and and and that would codify the the existing practice. But it takes congressional action to change the Johnson Amendment. UM. The most the present could do by executive border is UM tell the I R s to use enforcement discretion not to enforce it. And they've
been doing that for years, Doug. What does the order do, if anything, As far as the contraception mandate, which is the provision of the Obamacare Act that requires health plans and insurers to provide contraception to women, Well, it does. It does very little there either. It it UM instructs the secretaries of the three relevant Cabinet agencies to consider issuing amended regulations UH to address conscience based objections. UM. So hobby Hobby already exempts employers who don't want to
pay for contraception. UM. The only thing left is the employers who don't want their second insurance companies to pay for it either. That's what the Little Sisters of the Poor case was about. UM. And maybe the three cabinet agencies will do something about that. UM. Maybe the administration will settle those cases on terms favorable to the religious employers. But this executive order doesn't do anything. And and of course the President doesn't need an executive order to ask
his cabinet officers to consider something. And that's all this says they should consider it. So and about the thirty seconds we have left in it, you know, some people say that, uh, some conservative religious groups were unhappy with this order because it didn't do that much. What is it they'd like to see President Trump do. Well. They would like to see a sweeping declaration to protect conscience on all the hot button social issues, particularly discrimination against
case and transgender for federal contractors and federal employees. UM. The wedding vendor case is the Forest and the Bakers. Those are all state law cases. The President can't do anything about those. But the draft back in February. Uh, seemed to say, and nobody working for the federal government has to serve anybody has a religious objection to and and there's not a hint of that in this executive quarter.
Thanks for being on Bloomberg Law. That's Douglas Laycockey is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. Coming up on Bloomberg Law. It's perhaps their most popular song, and the Eagles are protecting it and their trademark, suing a hotel for calling itself the Hotel California