Churches in Idaho now have official guidance on how they can spend money backing – or supporting – ballot initiatives this fall without disclosing their donors.
That includes Proposition 1, which would restore abortion rights if passed.
An opinion issued last month from Attorney General Raúl Labrador said churches can use their general funds to advocate in ballot initiative races. But if they fundraise specifically to campaign on an issue, those donors would need to become public.
Labrador based his opinion in part on Idaho’s Free Exercise of Religion Protected Act, which bans the government from substantially burdening someone who’s practicing their religion.
“[Revealing a church’s donors] will substantially burden the churches' exercise of its religion as it may curtail their willingness to engage in their religiously motivated practice of opposing or supporting the Abortion Initiative,” according to the opinion.
“I think there’s a view from some, like, ‘Oh, there’s no disclosure,’ and that’s not the case,” said Secretary of State Phil McGrane in an interview on Tuesday.
The names of each church donating to pro- or anti-proposition campaigns would be listed, as would independent expenditures.
McGrane’s guidance tells churches that intend to spend more than $1,000 on these campaigns to file a statement with his office as a Nonbusiness Entity within 30 days.
They should also note the AG’s opinion on the form and list the church organization as the source of its contributions.
Sermons, teachings, announcements, discussions, or presentations during worship services, ministry activities, church meetings, or public gatherings.
McGrane’s guidance excludes churches from reporting the following activities as long as they don’t incur any additional costs for them:
- Sermons, teachings, announcements, discussions, or presentations during worship services, ministry activities, church meetings, or public gatherings.
- Regular compensation paid to clergy or staff when the compensation would have been paid regardless of the political speech and no additional compensation is provided.
- Ordinary use of buildings or facilities owned or regularly leased by the church for its own services, meetings, events, or speech.
- Use of existing websites, podcasts, email lists, social media accounts, equipment, and other established church communication channels without paid promotion or additional production costs.
“Political speech is the highest form of free speech,” said McGrane. “As I like to joke, our Founding Fathers sacrificed a lot to say bad things about King George and we’re still here today. So, us navigating through that fits into this space.”
He said including political messages in church bulletins are also fair game as long as a church doesn’t add a special insert. Otherwise, it would need to classify that as a campaign expense.
With the interest surrounding Proposition 1, McGrande said Idaho’s campaign finance laws are “really close to … breaking.”
He’s been pushing the legislature to modernize the system, which was enacted through a ballot measure more than 50 years ago.
“Our laws are just being stressed to a point where it’s being difficult for us to navigate and part of that is going back to the 1970s, the world has changed.”
