Democrats Must Do Everything They Can to Block the Dangerous Nonprofit Bill

President-elect Donald Trump won’t return to office until January 20, but Congress is already moving forward with the most expansive and dangerous terrorism bill in a generation, which would give Trump significant philanthropy and community organizing. It would be empowered to close down legitimate civil society organizations that engage in , human rights, and humanitarian work.

Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed HR 9495 would authorize the Treasury Department to unilaterally brand nonprofits as “terrorist sponsors” and terminate their charity tax exemption without giving nonprofits due process or access to evidence. This is a proposed amendment to the tax law. The stigma brought about by such a designation would almost certainly be enough to scare away banks, and would probably deprive these groups of their ability to fully function.

No matter who’s president, efforts to crush nonprofits are dangerous, and most House Democrats seem to have woken up to the risks of this bill in recent weeks. As of last week, 52 Democrats had voted to support the bill, but by the time a follow-up vote was held Thursday, only 15 had voted yes. But it was still enough for Republicans to get the votes they needed to pass. From now on, the demands from everyone watching this process should become clearer. Senate Democrats would have to promise not to support the bill because even one Democratic vote is too many.

It’s not difficult to understand the reason behind this sudden attack on nonprofit organizations. The bill’s proponents: there’s no secret Regarding their desire to smear certain nonprofits involved in campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza as operating at the behest of Hamas, there is no evidence for this claim. Supporters of Israel in Congress and elsewhere have similarly made clear their aim to crush the Palestinian human rights movement in the United States. Just last month, the Heritage Foundation released Project Esther, a policy blueprint to attack supporters of Palestinian rights in the higher education and commercial sectors, which is essentially an anti-Palestinian Project 2025. .

But the danger extends far beyond a single issue. Earlier this year, two Republican House committee chairs sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying that students from the Students for Justice in Palestine group (which is not even a registered nonprofit), the Open Society Foundations, and others like the bill. requested information on 20 organizations, including some of the biggest liberal groups. Melinda Gates Foundation.

Such persecution would exacerbate an already difficult legal situation for nonprofit and political organizations. As civil liberties advocates argue, pointed outProviding “material support” to groups on the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list has been a federal crime since the 1990s. Far beyond blocking funds, material support laws penalize many forms of speech and advocacy normally protected by the First Amendment. And the government also asserts the power, under the sanctions law’s broad powers, to freeze the assets of U.S.-based organizations without due process, part of a broader crackdown targeting Palestinians since 9/11. as a result of the closure of multiple American Islamic charities. Especially the Chicago area.

The danger of the new proposals is that they disguise broader powers to shut down civil society organizations as a gradual change. Federal agencies maintain a large list of terrorist organizations through a designation process that has long been criticized as opaque, unreviewable, and discriminatory against Muslims. Because these mechanisms have applied almost exclusively to foreign groups, courts have largely upheld them on the basis that the executive branch is in a relatively advantageous position. free hand in dealing with international threats.

Thus, despite the significant expansion of government surveillance and police powers since 9/11, many of the laws targeting foreign terrorist organizations had no domestic equivalents. The material support law is an exception that proves this rule. The law allows penalties for U.S. citizens, but only for aid organizations on the FTO list. The primary legal reason for this is the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of association. The main political reason is a backlash from right-wing politicians sympathetic to white supremacist groups and progressive liberals.

This bill creates yet another list of terrorists without due process, which is parasitic on the existing list. The bill would almost necessarily exclude white supremacists by tying the designation of U.S. nonprofit organizations to the existing terrorist list, which targets only foreign groups whose members are predominantly Muslim. This would create a regime of domestic terror.

It is surprising that the coalition needed to overcome skepticism from left and right alike about banning domestic organizations on the grounds of terrorism is being facilitated by bipartisan hostility to Palestinian liberation on Capitol Hill. It’s not something you should do. There is long history Here’s the thing at work: Nearly every major development in anti-terrorism law in the decades before 9/11 was motivated in large part by bipartisan opposition to the Palestinian national liberation movement and its allies. . The term “terrorism” first appeared in a 1969 federal law restricting humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees. The 1996 Material Assistance Act was enacted as a result of intense lobbying by pro-Israel groups seeking to suppress the activities of the Palestinian diaspora. It didn’t take long for these laws to be used more widely against Muslim communities, leading to violations of the civil liberties of all Americans. Similarly, it is all too easy to imagine how the “terrorist supporting organization” list could expand and form the basis for broader sanctions and domestic repression, especially under the second Trump administration. .

Democrats hold the Senate majority until January, and the filibuster will remain in place after that. If they don’t do everything in their power to stop this bill from passing, it will be just the latest betrayal in a self-defeating embrace of years of hard-nosed right-wing policies, and perhaps a sign of worse things to come. .