Johnson Amendment's political origins exposed as IRS stops enforcing it

H.L

Hunt was a Dallas oilman who founded Facts Forum in 1951 as an anti-communist media operation

Facts Forum produced radio and television broadcasts and published a newsletter with a growing circulation The Committee for Constitutional Government was founded by newspaper magnate Frank Gannett in 1935 and had become increasingly focused on anti-communist activism by the 1950s Both organizations saw Johnson as too soft on communism and backed Dougherty.

Johnson won reelection in 1954 and his amendment became law with essentially no debate on the floor of the Senate. The provision was added to a larger tax bill with minimal scrutiny. The legislative history contains little evidence of Johnson presenting it as a principled church-state protection—it was a targeted political tool that happened to survive in the tax code for 71 years.

In the 71 years since 1954, the IRS revoked only one church's tax-exempt status for political activity. The Church at Pierce Creek in New York (operating as Branch Ministries) placed full-page anti-Clinton ads in USA Today and the Washington Times on October 30, 1992—four days before the presidential election. The IRS notified the church on November 20, 1992 and formally revoked its exempt status on January 19, 1995.

The D.C

Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the IRS's revocation of the Church at Pierce Creek's status in 1999 in Branch Ministries v

Rossotti The court ruled that while the church was free to engage in political speech, it could not do so while claiming the benefits of tax-exempt status The ruling confirmed that the Johnson Amendment was constitutionally valid but left open the question of whether the IRS would choose to enforce it.

The IRS launched inquiries into only 16 churches in the entire decade from 2011 to 2022, according to ProPublica research. Polls consistently showed that 77% of Americans—including 62% of white evangelicals—opposed churches endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, yet the law against it was barely enforced. The gap between the law on the books and actual enforcement was enormous.

On July 7, 2025, the IRS filed a federal court document as part of settling a lawsuit brought by National Religious Broadcasters and several churches. The document stated that pastors can endorse political candidates from the pulpit without losing their church's tax-exempt status. This created a new asymmetry: houses of worship received the exemption, while secular 501(c)(3) organizations—charities, hospitals, universities—remain prohibited from endorsing candidates.

The exemption created for houses of worship raises First Amendment questions in both directions

Supporters argue religious freedom protections justify treating churches differently from secular organizations

Critics argue the new asymmetry means secular nonprofits face a speech restriction that religious organizations do not—creating a system where a church can endorse a candidate but a charity hospital cannot Constitutional scholars disagree about whether the asymmetry itself creates an Establishment Clause problem.