(The Center Square) — Maine’s nonprofit organizations are criticizing members of the state’s congressional delegation for supporting a House bill that would allow the federal government to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits deemed to be supporting terrorism.
The legislation, which recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives, would authorize the Treasury Department to unilaterally remove the tax-exempt status of nonprofits it claims support terrorism.
Backers of the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act call the measure a “common sense” proposal aimed at blocking U.S.-based nonprofit groups from raising funds for terrorist organizations.
Members of Maine’s congressional delegation were divided over the House bill. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, voted with the Republican majority in favor of the legislation, and Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, voted against it.
The Maine Association of Nonprofits had urged Golden and other lawmakers to reject the plan, arguing that it would give the Treasury Secretary “excessive authority” to label nonprofits as “terrorist-supporting” without requiring evidence, risking arbitrary decisions and undermines constitutional protections by forcing nonprofits to prove their innocence within 90 days.
“We are concerned that this bill would go far beyond appropriate accountability, and has an unacceptable risk of unintended consequences for the nonprofit community,” Mary Alice Scott, the group’s spokeswoman, said in a statement.
Critics also say the proposal, which would apply to a range of nonprofits, including membership organizations, unions and private foundations, is redundant because it is already against U.S. law to support designated terrorist groups.
Pengree, who had supported a previous version of the bill, attributed her opposition to the latest version of the bill to pledges by President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office in January 2025, to use the federal government to target his enemies.
“I voted against this terrible, Pandora’s Box of a bill,” Pingree said in a recent statement. “Because the president shouldn’t be allowed to unilaterally decide the fate of any organization — including our nonprofits.”
But Golden has pushed back on Democratic opposition to the bill as “Trump derangement syndrome” and defended his support for it. He said the legislation can’t be “weaponized” to target nonprofits.
“This is what I call the reemergence of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ where suddenly people are opposing perfectly sane policies on the grounds that somehow it is going to be weaponized in ways that are not possible,” Golden told the Bangor Daily News.
The measure has yet to be taken up by the U.S. Senate, which is currently controlled by Democrats. But its backers have suggested the proposal will be revived in the next session beginning in January when Republicans will have control over the House and Senate, as well as the White House.
