Liberal suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the taxation of speech

In the course of exempting religious, educational, and charitable organisations from federal income tax, section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code requires them to refrain from campaign speech and much speech to influence legislation.

These speech restrictions have seemed merely technical adjustments, which prevent the political use of a tax subsidy.

But the cultural and legal realities are more disturbing.

Tracing the history of American liberalism, including theological liberalism and its expression in nativism, Philip Hamburger shows the centrality of turbulent popular anxieties about the Catholic Church and other potentially orthodox institutions.

He argues persuasively that such theopolitical fears about the political speech of churches and related organisations underlay the adoption, in 1934 and 1954, of section 501(c)(3)'s speech limits.