Elections have consequences. The House of Representatives, which will remain under Republican control next year along with the Senate and the White House, is already considering a new bill, the so-called End Terrorism Financing and US Hostage Law Tax Penalties (or H.R. 9495), which would give the U.S. Treasury Secretary the power to strip nonprofits of their tax exemption if they are classified as a “terrorist supporting” organization – essentially allowing the Trump administration to arbitrarily target nonprofits seen as political enemies.
The bill, introduced by Republican Representative Claudia Tenney of a district in Western and Upstate New York that borders Lake Ontario, has been described as troubling by Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, because it does not provide safeguards to prevent that it is misused to harass people. or intimidate organizations for exercising their rights. “In any other context, this legislation would be seen for what it is: a play from the authoritarian leader’s playbook,” he said in a speech. statement.
A coalition of more than 150 civil and human rights organizations did this wrote a letter to House Majority Leader Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), explaining that the bill would reject due process. “It gives the Secretary of the Treasury virtually unfettered discretion to designate a U.S. nonprofit as a ‘terrorist supporting organization’ and strip it of its tax exemption if the Secretary finds that the nonprofit has provided material support to a terrorist group, even if the ‘support’ is not intentional or related to actual violence,” the letter said.
The coalition includes organizations as diverse as the American Civil Liberties Union, American Federation of Teachers, American Library Association, Arab American Institute, Asian Law Caucus, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Greenpeace USA, Human Rights Watch, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, Oxfam America, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Southern Poverty Law Center, the Sikh Coalition and dozens of others.
While the bill was rejected by a vote last week This included almost all Republicans, with the exception of one, Thomas Massie (R-KY). 52 Democrats broke with their caucus and voted in support of the Republican bill. The last attempt did not pass because the bill required a two-thirds majority, but the new vote scheduled for WednesdayOnly a simple majority is needed for the vote on November 20.
This is a disturbing state of affairs, especially for the arts, where nonprofits are prominent players in the form of museums, alternative art spaces, galleries and even some publications, not to mention higher education institutions. Will this bill, if passed, stifle artistic expression? My guess is yes. Is this a troubling omen for the increasingly extreme measures we will see as Republicans control all three chambers of the US government? I think you know the answer.
