Since GOP gubernatorial nominee Victor Marx announced his candidacy last fall, he has appeared regularly as a guest at church services across the state.
Marx is a minister, not a politician – a point he makes frequently. He’s made guest appearances during church services for years and has made his faith central to the campaign. So it’s not surprising to see him preaching while trying to court voters.
But his frequent use of religious spaces during campaigning sets Marx apart from most politicians. He told the Denver Gazette in April that he had spoken to over 12,000 people in 10 churches.
Tax-exempt churches are technically bound to strict rules on partisan engagement by the Johnson Amendment, named for its principal sponsor, then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson. The IRS website states that churches and other religious institutions "are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."
The Johnson Amendment has come under attack in recent years by conservative Christians, with President Donald Trump threatening to "totally destroy" it.
For now, the law stays in place. This means churches can host candidates as long as those individuals speak in a personal capacity or in their role as a current elected official, but not in their capacity as a candidate.
Politicians do, however, often appear at churches while campaigning. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spoke at packed churches in Selma, Alabama, in 2007 to commemorate the 1965 March for Civil Rights. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that they were both actively campaigning for the Oval Office.
Marx’s preaching, though, is a bit different from typical campaign trail church appearances.
Before Marx takes the stage, many of the churches play a video introducing him. The video closely resembles a campaign ad, even if it stops short of explicitly identifying itself as one.
The video is set to cinematic music that accompanies a rapid-fire series of clips and images. Most of them depict U.S. armed forces, Marx’s days in the military, his martial arts background, his wife, extremists in the Middle East, his preaching, and women and children in other countries.
There’s also a quick flash of Marx with his hand on a man’s shoulder in front of a white backdrop with the “Victor Marx for Governor” logo repeated across it.
Some of these churches have also identified Marx as a candidate during services or on social media.
Most churches are registered 501(c)(3)s. This means that they can advocate for or against issues like abortion or healthcare, but they cannot give monetary or in-kind contributions to partisan political candidates.
We consulted an expert to find out if these instances are violations of federal tax law. Professor Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer of Notre Dame is an expert on the federal and state regulation of nonprofits. He told us: “Any use of church assets like a space, the access to the audience, any use of church resources to support a particular candidate, which clearly is a violation of the prohibition on political campaign intervention.”
Many Americans across the political spectrum and of a variety of religions use their faith to guide how they vote. So why does it matter if churches– which provide spiritual guidance to congregants– give politicians a boost?
Professor Mayer says, “If you or I give money to a campaign, we don't get to deduct that contribution. We can do it, of course, but it has to be after-tax income, income that we've already paid tax on. If we give a donation to a church, though, if we itemize our deductions, we can deduct our contribution to the church and that's what goes to buy the sanctuary and the space and pay for the heat and light and the people writing the social media posts and so forth.”
This creates a loophole around the rule that campaign contributions cannot be deducted.
The Campaign Legal Center, a pro-democracy organization, says allowing religious nonprofits to donate to campaigns means they “could accept unlimited, tax-deductible donations to fund electioneering without disclosing donors, making them a new class of existing groups that donors can funnel unlimited, secret money through, commonly known as ‘dark money.’”
That said, Marx is far from the only candidate whose appearances have crossed the line. That’s because the IRS almost never enforces the rule. The Texas Tribune and ProPublica reported in 2022 that “the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen.”
The Texas Tribune and ProPublica found 20 instances of churches violating the Johnson Amendment over the span of two years, which tax law experts confirmed. “The number of potential violations found by the news outlets is greater than the total number of churches the IRS has investigated for intervening in political campaigns in the past decade,” the report says.
One way for churches to be used legally for campaign activities is for candidates to rent them at market value and with equal opportunity for all candidates. The Marx campaign has been hosting overt rallies, outside of Marx’s service appearances, which is allowed if he pays the church market value for its use.
We can only find a payment to one of at least five churches where he’s held a rally, whistle stop, or fundraiser. We could not find payments for four rallies held in May and August in his campaign expenditures. A pastor at Fellowship Church in Grand Junction, where one of the August rallies was held, said he would try to find the invoice, but he hasn’t gotten back to us yet. He also said he reached out to Phil Weiser’s campaign with the same offer given to Marx, and that he hopes Weiser takes him up on it. The Weiser campaign also hasn’t gotten back to us about any contact they’ve had with the churches Marx has campaigned at.
The Marx campaign has not yet responded to KVNF’s requests for comment.
