IRS says religious institutions may endorse candidates

Rabbis and other clergy members in the United States may endorse candidates from the pulpit without jeopardizing their house of worship’s tax-exempt status, the Internal Revenue Service has decreed.

The policy change reverses a ban on endorsing or opposing candidates by religious organizations known as the Johnson Amendment, enacted in the 1950s. The IRS made the change in the course of settling a lawsuit brought by two churches and a Christian broadcasting network in Texas that sought to undo the ban for all nonprofit entities.

The IRS said endorsements by houses of worship to their congregat...