Voters have a right to know who is trying to influence their vote and who is working to influence our government.
Transparency about the sources of funding for our elections and candidates, and how that money is spent, is central to the free and fair functioning of our democracy.
That’s why we’re leading the charge to defend the Johnson Amendment, which ensures that public subsidies support charitable work, not partisan political advocacy.
Eliminating this safeguard would open the door to electioneering by groups exempt from financial reporting and disclosing their donors.
The Johnson Amendment, Explained
For decades, the Johnson Amendment has ensured that 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations — including houses of worship and religious organizations — remain nonpartisan in exchange for their tax-exempt status. Under this policy, houses of worship and religious organizations cannot endorse or oppose partisan political candidates for public office.
The Trump administration’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is attempting to carve out a sweeping exemption for religious organizations, allowing them to engage in partisan politics under the guise of religious expression — without losing their tax benefits.
If successful, this effort would have the unintended consequence of opening the floodgates to the creation of a new class of “super dark money groups,” groups organized as religious nonprofits that would operate as unregulated, tax-deductible vehicles for wealthy donors to secretly influence elections.
Additionally, these groups would be exempt from financial reporting and disclosing their donors, so they could do all this while hiding their donors from public view.
Learn more about “dark money” here.
Wealthy political donors could exploit this loophole to funnel unlimited money into elections. They could do so anonymously and with a tax write-off funded by American taxpayers as the cherry on top.
Why This Is a Problem
This would fundamentally alter the landscape of campaign finance, eroding transparency and public trust in our democratic institutions.
Rolling back limitations on political activities by houses of worship and religious organizations could offer wealthy special interests a way to not only influence elections anonymously, but also to get a charitable tax deduction for doing so.
We need strong, robustly enforced transparency laws to ensure that Americans know who is spending money to influence their vote, where that money is coming from, and any incentives behind political donations and spending.
The Johnson Amendment has been law for decades. Congress — the only branch with the power to change the law — has protected the important role it serves, and for good reason.
By seeking to write an exception for religious 501(c)(3)s into the Johnson Amendment via a court order, the Trump administration’s IRS is attempting to work around the authority of Congress and around the checks and balances that maintain our rule of law.
What Can We Do Now?
Since 2017, when President Trump first vowed to “destroy” the Johnson Amendment, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has been at the forefront of the legal and policy fight to preserve it.
In the summer of 2025, we joined a coalition letter to President Trump opposing this dangerous overreach.
We also filed a legal brief in National Religious Broadcasters Association v. Long with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to highlight just how much is at stake if the door is opened for even more dark money in our elections.
Our mission is clear: Ensure that voters know who is spending money to influence their vote — and to stop the creation of new, untraceable channels of political influence.
With your support, we can protect the safeguards that prevent wealthy special interests from secretly influencing our elections.