Congregations and Lobbying: Know the Law
IRS handbook for congregations
As Texas enters what promises to be an exciting and contentious election season, many congregations are wondering how to get involved in the public policy debate without straying into partisan waters or otherwise running afoul of the law.
Recent news articles about IRS investigations of churches for alleged political activity are making some congregations nervous—but there’s no need to worry as long as you follow some simple guidelines.
The “first commandment” of public policy involvement for congregations is THOU SHALT NOT ENGAGE IN PARTISAN POLITICAL ACTIVITY. Examples of partisan political activity for a congregation would include:
- letting candidates for office make stump speeches from the pulpit
- endorsing candidates from the pulpit
- giving the congregation’s membership list to a political party
- giving money from the congregation to a candidate
- forwarding campaign emails to the congregation’s email list
Partisan political activity is NOT the same thing as lobbying.
Lobbying means encouraging an elected official to support or oppose a particular piece of legislation. Congregations are allowed to engage in lobbying as long as lobbying remains an “insubstantial” part of their activities.
For instance, social action committees and leaders in congregations that belong to Texas Impact sometimes forward email action alerts from Texas Impact to all the members of the congregation. This kind of “grassroots” lobbying would never be a substantial part of a congregation’s activities compared to the core functions of worship, religious education, mission and evangelism.
Even though congregations are allowed to engage in lobbying activities such as forwarding email action alerts, social action leaders might decide that lobby messages are inappropriate for congregational communication because congregation members might disagree about an issue. In that case, social action leaders might decide to stick with “issue education.”
Issue education messages or programs include information about a public policy issue, and can include a general position about the issue, but do not take a position on specific legislative proposals. For example, an issue education email would say, “Ask lawmakers to improve children’s access to healthcare through programs such as Medicaid.” A lobby message would say, “Ask your representative to vote to increase funding for Medicaid.”
Finally, individual members of congregations are allowed to engage in both lobbying and partisan political activity all they want as long as they are acting as individuals and are in no way representing their congregations. So, a social action committee chair may forward emails from a political campaign to their personal email contacts—including contacts who belong to the same congregation—as long as it’s clear the emails are coming from them as an individual, and not in their capacity as social action committee chair.
