Report Urges Allowing Sermons to Endorse Political Candidates

In January 2011, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's ranking member, Sen. Chuck Grassley, released a staff review of the activities of media-based ministries, focusing on the financial accountability of tax-exempt religious organizations. The Staff Memo also recommended that the IRS sponsor an Advisory Committee made up of representatives of churches and other organizations.  In response, the Evangelical Council for Financial Responsibility set up a Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations.  (See prior posting.) The Commission issued an initial report in December 2012. (See prior posting.) In a press release issued Wednesday, the Commission announced the release of its final report. The report, Government Regulation of Political Speech by Religious and Other 501(c)(3) Organizations concludes that the status quo is untenable and makes a number of recommendations for change.  Among the recommendations is the following:

The Commission believes that a communication related to one or more political candidates or campaigns that is made in the ordinary course of a 501(c)(3) organization’s regular and customary religious, charitable, educational, scientific, or other exempt purpose activities should not constitute a prohibited activity under Section 501(c)(3), so long as the organization does not incur more than de minimis incremental costs with respect to the communication.... The exception should expressly include sermons and other communications delivered as part of a religious organization’s regular and customary worship services, provided that no more than de minimis incremental costs are incurred for communications directly related to one or more political candidates or campaigns.

USA Today has additional coverage.  [Thanks to Steven H. Sholk for the lead.]

UPDATE: In an Aug. 15 statement, Independent Sector took issue with the Commission's recommendations, saying: "Allowing the endorsement of political candidates, as this report calls for, is tantamount to allowing political agents to use the public’s goodwill towards the charitable sector as a vehicle to advance, through financial contributions, their own partisan political will."