Multiple groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that a district court wrongly dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Johnson Amendment’s ban on political campaign speech for tax-exempt organizations. (National Religious Broadcasters v. Bessent, No. 26-40237, amicus briefs filed 7/14/2026)
In March, Judge J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas dismissed a lawsuit brought by National Religious Broadcasters and other religious groups, ruling the court was barred from approving a proposed settlement (827 F.Supp.3d 967). The plaintiffs and the government had jointly asked the court to approve a settlement that would have narrowed the Johnson Amendment’s application to houses of worship. However, Judge Barker ruled that the Tax Anti-Injunction Act (AIA), which bars suits aimed at restraining tax collection, stripped the court of jurisdiction.
AIA is a ‘claims-processing rule,’ not jurisdictional
The National Religious Broadcasters plaintiffs have appealed the decision to the 5th Circuit. And on July 14, a trio of amicus briefs urged the 5th Circuit to reject the district court’s ruling as a misreading of the Tax Anti-Injunction Act.
An amicus brief filed by the Home School Legal Defense Association, Texas Values, and others argues that the AIA is a “claims-processing rule” and not a jurisdictional rule that speaks to a court’s power to hear a case. The groups contend that the AIA’s “text, structure, and context make clear that the statute was never intended to foreclose any and all actions to enjoin a tax prior to enforcement.”
A separate amicus brief led by America’s Future argues that the AIA was intended to “ensure that the taxpayer must pay the tax assessed before he may avail himself of a judicial remedy.” However, the IRS has not assessed or attempted to collect a tax on the National Religious Broadcasters plaintiffs, America’s Future points out.
“The district court here is misusing the AIA to prevent a taxpayer from obtaining judicial protection from government threats to withdraw an exemption to which the taxpayer is entitled,” America’s Future writes.
The briefs also point to recent Supreme Court precedent that has narrowed the scope of what is considered jurisdictional. They argue that the AIA’s text, which states “no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person,” is a directive aimed at litigants, not a command divesting the court of power.
Challenge focuses on speech, not taxes
Another argument — advanced in an amicus brief submitted by the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), along with Representatives Jeff Crank (R-CO) and Mark Harris (R-NC) — is that the lawsuit’s primary goal is to protect speech, not to avoid taxes.
Citing the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in CIC Services, LLC v. IRS, 593 U.S. 209, the ACLJ brief explains that the “objective aim” of the suit is to challenge an “upstream rule of conduct” — the Johnson Amendment’s restriction on speech. The brief contends that under CIC Services, the AIA “does not bar every suit that may have downstream tax consequences.”
Briefs attack Johnson Amendment’s origins, constitutionality
Beyond the jurisdictional questions, the amicus briefs also attack the Johnson Amendment on its merits. America’s Future claims the amendment was pushed through in 1954 by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson “without hearings or meaningful floor debate” as political retaliation against nonprofits that had criticized him.
The briefs also argue that the law violates the First Amendment. The National Religious Broadcasters plaintiffs must engage in “self-censorship” due to a “credible threat of Johnson Amendment enforcement,” writes ACLJ.
According to ACLJ, the Johnson Amendment imposes an unconstitutional condition on religious organizations by forcing them to choose between exercising their free speech and free exercise rights and retaining the “benefit” of tax-exempt status. And the Johnson Amendment “intrudes upon church autonomy by pressuring religious bodies to alter the content of their ministry,” ACLJ adds.
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