15 Democrats Voted To Give Trump Nonprofit-Killing Powers

The Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act would allow the secretary of the treasury, a Cabinet position appointed by the president, to revoke a nonprofit organization’s tax-exempt status by labeling it as “terrorist-supporting.” It passed by a vote of 219–184, mostly along party lines.

With the incoming Trump administration broadly vowing to take vengeance against “enemies within,” the successful passage of this bill would place a wide array of organizations vital to Democratic organizing and policymaking in the president-elect’s direct line of fire. It is supremely puzzling, then, that this bill received bipartisan support.

University of Texas students protest Israel's war in Gaza and the arrest of students at a demonstration the previous day at a rally on campus.

Last week, the same bill failed to advance out of the House because it failed to garner the two-thirds majority needed to pass during a suspension of the lower chamber’s rules. It was subsequently sent back to committee and retooled for a simple majority vote. While 52 Democrats voted for the bill previously, enormous pressure was applied to get those who backed the bill last week to come out against it on Thursday. This time, 15 of them voted along with every single Republican for the bill, which would have a chilling effect on free speech.

The bill’s original intention was to aid in the clamping down on pro-Palestinian protesters, particularly those on college campuses—a dubious undertaking given both the First Amendment rights enjoyed by all under the Constitution as well as a slew of other statutes that already make it illegal to provide material support to terrorist organizations.

However, the reelection of Trump casts this measure in a new light. His promise to turn the civil service into an engine of personal vengeance should be sufficient evidence that he’d likely abuse the powers granted under H.R. 9495, potentially allowing the president to target fairly well-known liberal organizations, such as the Center for American Progress, with punishing sanctions that would prevent such outfits from raising or banking money—penalties which, under the proposed law, such sanctioned organizations would be barred from pursuing legal recourse to plead their case. Moreover, in addition to activist groups, many universities and news outlets are nonprofit organizations.