Michele Bachmann speech at church could cause tax troubles

An event last night at Living Word Christian Center, a large suburban church in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, featuring Republican congressional candidate Michele Bachmann could cost the church its nonprofit tax status as the event appeared to endorse Bachmann for office.

A personal endorsement from the pastor of the church, as well as Bachmann’s own statements in her speech, appear to have violated regulations pertaining to partisan politicking by churches. Bachmann is in a tight race with Patty Wetterling, a race that’s at the top of most election analysts lists in terms of importance and competitiveness.

Churches that are tax exempt and file as a 501(c)3 organization are subject to most of the same rules that all other 501(c)3 nonprofits are subject to concerning political involvement: you must not show support for a candidate or political party. Just bringing a candidate for election to speak is risky business for nonprofits and churches. The best way to avoid the appearance of endorsement is to invite all candidates to the event or series of events. Equal time should be paid to all candidates to ensure implicit or explicit endorsement doesn’t occur. Bachmann’s opponents told me that they were not aware of any invites from Living Word having been sent to their campaigns.

If a church or nonprofit does only invite one candidate to speak, the individual speaks only in a non-candidate capacity, and should not be referred to as a candidate for office. According to IRS guidelines:

The church or religious organization must ensure that: Neither the individual nor any representative of the church makes any mention of his or her candidacy or the election, and no campaign activity occurs in connection with the candidate’s attendance. In addition, the church or religious organization should clearly indicate the capacity in which the candidate is appearing and should not mention the individual’s political candidacy or the upcoming election in the communications announcing the candidate’s attendance at the event.

Unfortunately for Living Word, Hammond not only introduces her as a candidate for public office, but also endorses her:

Pastor Mac Hammond: Amen. Now be seated again for a moment please. I have somebody special I want to introduce you to tonight. State Senator Michele Bachmann is with us and I’m going to ask her to come in in just a moment, and of course many of you know Michele, know of her pursuit of the United States Senate seat vacated by Mark Kennedy or Congressional seat vacated by Mark Kennedy’s run for a United States Senate seat. Keeping all this straight gets to be challenging. But ya know we can’t publicly endorse as a church and would not for any candidate but I can tell you personally that I’m going to vote for Michele Bachmann, because I’ve come to know her, what she stands for, and I want her to share her testimony with you tonight. Would you give her a warm welcome as she comes to share? Thank you Michele.

Michele Bachmann breaks that rule in her speech as well, when she discusses her campaign in some detail:

God then called me to run for the United States Congress, and I thought “What in the world will that be for?”  and my husband said “You need to do this,” and I wasn’t so sure, and we took 3 days and we fasted and we prayed and we said, “Lord. Is this what you want? Is this your will?” and after long about the afternoon of day two, he made that calling sure. And its been now 22 months that I’ve been running for United States Congress. Who in their right mind would spend 2 years to run for a job that lasts 2 years? You’d have to be absolutely a fool to do that. You are now looking at a fool for Christ. This is a fool for Christ. And in the midst of him making this calling sure, what has occurred now in this particular race is that this Congressional seat out of 435 in the country has become, it has been one of the top five races in the country, and in the last week this has become one of the top three races in the country, and you may have seen how God has in his own will, and his own plan, has focused like a laser beam after this scandal that came up about a week or so ago. He has focused like a laser beam in his reasoning on this race. The reason why this is one of the top three races is because this race will probably decide which way Congress goes this fall. We could talk more about what that means for this nation, what this means for defeating radical Islam, what this means for what the future of the family is going to be, what this is going to mean for the future of the freedom of religious expression.

Hammond’s statement while he is preaching to his congregation, in his role as pastor, would seem to be an explicit endorsement by the church. Despite his statement asserting that the church cannot endorse, the IRS views use of church equipment to endorse a candidate as church endorsement. In fact, the IRS explicitly forbids partisan comments at a church function:

For their organizations to remain tax exempt under IRC section 501(c)(3), religious leaders cannot make partisan comments in official organization publications or at official church functions. To avoid potential attribution of their comments outside of church functions and publications, religious leaders who speak or write in their individual capacity are encouraged to clearly indicate that their comments are personal and not intended to represent the views of the organization. The following are examples of situations involving endorsements by religious leaders.

Living Word Christian Center clearly held a partisan event to promote Michele Bachmann. Several potential tax law violations occurred while a tax attorney and candidate for Congress talked about being a tax attorney. The church should be aware of these laws; the IRS has a booklet especially designed to help churches avoid tax problems during elections times. All the quotes I cited from the IRS come from this booklet.

Still, Pastor Mac Hammond attempts to defend the event:

I said important that we put men and women of God in office in our government. I don’t want any more letters about church and politics don’t mix. If that’s your opinion then you need to get saved, because the bible makes clear that we are to have an effect on the world in which we live.