The House-passed version of the tax reform bill included repeal of the Johnson amendment, which prohibits nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations from endorsing specific candidates. Named after then-Senator Lyndon Johnson (TX-D), the amendment was adopted as part of 1954 tax reform legislation. It added a clause to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) definition of 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations that excludes any public charity, private foundation, or religious congregation “which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” Advocates of Johnson amendment repeal,…

On November 20, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that Haitians living and working in the United States since an earthquake ravaged their country 2010 will have to leave or be deported by July 2019. About 60,000 Haitians currently benefit from the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. The DHS announcement followed an October decision by the Trump Administration that ended the protection for 2,500 Nicaraguans. The protection is offered to U.S. resident and undocumented immigrants when war, natural disaster, or other “extraordinary” conditions temporarily make return to their native…

Members of Congress have weighed in on the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court that concerns a Colorado baker who refused because of his religious beliefs to make a cake to celebrate the marriage of a same-sex couple. To be determined in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission is whether creative businesses can refuse certain services due to their First Amendment rights of free speech and free exercise of religion in light of public accommodation laws. Dozens of civil rights, religious, legal, and other groups have filed briefs to argue on both sides of the…