Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Recent calls from the current US administration to repeal the Johnson Amendment illustrate a desire for less restrictive policy on political lobbying (e.g., promotion of political candidates) by nonprofit entities. These calls have emanated from evangelical Christian leaders. Repeal of the Johnson Amendment, however, would apply sector-wide, not just in religious nonprofits. A lifting of restrictions on lobbying would give nonprofits in all fields – environment, civil liberties, and many other causes – more freedom to advocate openly for political action addressing their interests. This study examines the current landscape of “Johnson Amendment Era” policy advocacy – research, dissemination, and narrative framing – in the targeted issue area of tax reform vis-à-vis economic inequality.

We first document partisan differences in U.S. think tanks and associated advocacy organizations actively engaged in tax policy by constructing a database of any think tanks conducting research and advocacy on issues involving wage regulations (such as minimum wages), consumer finance regulations, individual taxes, poverty relief programs, and so on. We measure these organizations’ geographic scope of analysis (state or federal), affiliation (government, private, university, etc.), ideological lean, revenues, assets, and the nature of their involvement in tax policy advocacy.

After separating out the think tanks that had ambiguous policy perspectives (“centrist”), we sorted remaining organizations by the policy prescriptions they favored; progressive/liberal or conservative/libertarian. We found that tax policy-focused left- and right-leaning organizations operate in similar numbers at the state and federal level, but feature some noteworthy differences: the right-leaning organizations’ issues had a clear, consistent focus on tax reduction (as opposed to the more diffuse economic policy agenda on the left), were more likely to affiliate with lobbying or political organizations, and had more robust funding (approximately three times) than left-leaning think tanks and advocacy organizations. Thus, left-leaning nonprofit think tanks and advocacy organizations seem to exhibit what Zunz (2012) [i] describes as a certain timidity in operations, being less likely to operate a sister organization engaged exclusively in political advocacy. This timidity, Zunz argues, was borne from the 1969 Tax Reform Act policy tightening, which contained a stern regulatory response to the social movement-building of large, left-leaning foundations.

Now that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 has passed, which contained a host of reforms that had been on right-leaning think tanks' and advocacy agendas for decades, a left vs. right analysis of tax reform advocacy and its funding stream is helpful for determining how the two sides differed in resources and operations just prior to enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This study also provides insight for other policy advocacy arenas that have similarly strong left vs. right divisions. Finally, the study provides a thorough, sector-specific view of policy advocacy in its current state. Given the controls currently in place, how would a Johnson Amendment repeal allow much more extensive policy advocacy?

[i] Zunz, Oliver (2012), Philanthropy in America: A History. Princeton University Press.