US judge rejects IRS pact allowing churches to endorse political candidates
Source: Yahoo! News/Reuters
Tue, March 31, 2026 at 7:25 PM EDT
March 31 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday declined to approve a Trump administration-crafted settlement that would have allowed churches and other houses of worship to endorse political candidates to their congregations without risking losing their status as tax-exempt nonprofits.
U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in Tyler, Texas, ruled he lacked jurisdiction to hear the case and sign off on a consent judgment that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service had entered into with two Texas churches and the National Religious Broadcasters. Under the IRS' proposed pact, traditional religious communications would be deemed exempt from a decades-old provision in the U.S. tax code that bars nonprofits, religious and secular, from endorsing political candidates.
It entered into that agreement in July to resolve a lawsuit that NRB, an association of Christian broadcasters, filed ahead of the 2024 presidential election to challenge the 1954 tax code provision known as the Johnson Amendment, which was named for then-Senator Lyndon Johnson, who went on to become president.
But Barker, who was appointed by Trump during his first administration, sided with opponents of the agreement from the Americans United for Separation of Church and State in finding the Tax Anti-Injunction Act barred him from approving the deal.
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-judge-rejects-irs-pact-232559286.html
Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.232590/gov.uscourts.txed.232590.106.0.pdf
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These religious wack-jobs are relentless and will keep doing this until they're dead and buried. Thanks to the SC mainly. The Shit-Six. 
