Nonprofit Groups Fear A New House Bill Could Silence Them | EUROtoday

A panoply of civil liberties advocacy teams and different nonprofits are elevating alarms over a invoice that handed the House Thursday, saying it may very well be used to punish them for talking out below the incoming second Trump administration.

The invoice, which failed on the House flooring final week, squeaked by on a 219-184 vote, with greater than two dozen members not voting.

It now goes on to the Senate, the place its destiny is unclear. But if the turnaround by many Democrats within the House Thursday is any indication, it faces an uphill climb within the higher chamber.

A request for remark to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) workplace was not instantly returned.

“This is the kind of bill that the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities would’ve introduced back in its day,” stated Patrick Eddington, senior fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute, referring to a House panel infamous throughout the anti-Communist “Red Scare” days of the Fifties.

“By voting for H.R. 9495 today, the House of Representatives chose fear over freedom,” stated Kia Hamadanchy, senior federal coverage counsel on the American Civil Liberties Union, in a press release. The ACLU signed a public letter Monday opposing the invoice with nearly 300 different civil society teams, together with the Brennan Center for Justice, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Demand Progress.

The invoice has additionally raised worries amongst teams lively on the difficulty of Israel’s conflict in Gaza and associated aid efforts.

“We have seen bills like this in other countries, and we know what they do: silence criticism and put lifesaving humanitarian operations like Oxfam’s at risk,” stated Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, which has been lively in restoring clear water and sanitation to war-torn Gaza.

Robert McCaw, director of the federal government affairs division with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, echoed that time: “This bill was designed to silence and financially drain organizations that oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, the slaughter of Lebanese, and the broader erosion of human rights in the region,” he stated.

The invoice, from Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), would grant new powers to the Treasury Secretary, permitting them to designate nonprofit teams as “terrorist supporting organizations.” Such nonprofits may very well be topic to having their tax-exempt standing suspended if they’re discovered to have offered assist to teams formally listed by the federal government as terrorist organizations.

Under the invoice, nonprofits flagged by the federal government could be given 90 days’ discover and will keep away from suspension in the event that they take steps to cease offering assist to terrorist teams. They may additionally problem the designation with the IRS and in federal court docket.

In September, the invoice flew via the House Ways and Means Committee, passing on a bipartisan 38-0 vote. And it garnered vast bipartisan assist as lately as Nov. 12, profitable 256 votes within the House however falling shy of the two-thirds majority wanted to go below a process used for non-controversial payments. That vote noticed 52 Democrats vote in favor of the invoice.

But as phrase circulated concerning the invoice’s doable affect, strain mounted on lawmakers to reject it when it got here up once more Thursday, this time below regular guidelines requiring solely a majority of sure votes. The 219 votes it received was just one greater than wanted to go in a full House, and solely 15 Democrats backed it.

What modified since September? The anticipated occupant of the White House subsequent 12 months, for one factor.

Trump’s openness about seeing the levers of energy as a possible approach to settle scores, new in fashionable U.S. historical past in its sheer brazenness, spooked some Democrats. In June, Trump advised TV character Phil McGraw, “Sometimes revenge can be justified, Phil. I have to be honest. Sometimes it can.”

The dispute has left the events in an odd place: House Republicans, who decried a lift to Internal Revenue Service funding as a result of they stated it could result in authorities overreach and the hiring of hundreds of recent brokers, now assist a invoice that would radically increase Treasury’s energy. And House Democrats, who supported boosting IRS enforcement with a watch to higher enforcement, is now overwhelmingly against increasing Treasury’s powers as a result of worries over authorities energy.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the reasonable former House majority chief who voted for the invoice Nov. 12 and towards it Thursday, particularly cited Trump as a purpose why.

“There is legitimate reason in today’s world to expand the Treasury Secretary’s ability to police non-profits supporting terrorist organizations. This bill’s drafting, unfortunately, goes further,” he stated in a press release.

“After careful review, I believe additional protections are necessary for this bill to shield non-profits with no connection to terrorism from politically motivated punishment.”

Of the 17 Democrats who voted for the invoice when it was in committee, solely two — Reps. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) and Bradley Schneider (D-Ill.) — wound up voting for it once more Thursday.

Republicans defended the measure Thursday. Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) accused Democrats of partaking in “fearmongering scenarios” and “partisan antics” with their opposition. And Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) stated he couldn’t title particular examples of the place the brand new authority would have been helpful, however maintained it was wanted.

“We absolutely needed the power to be able to deter that type of activity from happening,” he stated.

The teams that cosigned the ACLU’s letter towards the invoice say the protections in it aren’t sufficient to stop abuse.

“The bill’s creation of an after-the-fact administrative or judicial appeals process not only comes too late, but it is also unlikely to remedy these fundamental deficiencies. Instead, it functionally shifts the burden of proof about whether a nonprofit provides material support from the government to the nonprofit,” they stated.