The Spectator Online runs a piece about a couple of recent non-profit related issues

If the New York Times and NPR have their way, Christians may soon long for the days of hungry lions and syphilitic Roman emperors. The Scylla and Charybdis of respectable opinion have all but begged the Internal Revenue Service to open up a large-scale investigation of all churches that take stands on moral issues which bleed over into political action, or allow members of their congregation to register voters. Well, the conservative ones anyway.

And, from a couple of weeks ago, Ted Olsen at CT very helpfully unpacks what these restrictions really say

Quoting first from another article (in italics)

The risk for churches is the loss of their federal tax-exempt status as nonprofits. … Federal laws prohibit tax-exempt churches from supporting or opposing candidates for office. … The laws do allow some lobbying on legislative matters, which include ballot measure signature drives. Lobbying cannot exceed an “insubstantial” share of the church’s overall activities. The law doesn’t define the term. One court said churches can devote less than 5 percent of their activities to lobbying without jeopardizing their status, though another court said more than 20 percent would endanger it.

Thanks to Mayer for including those numbers, which are far too often left out of media reports that generalize about tax regulations on churches’ political involvement. But tax law is a complicated thing, and the numbers aren’t as cut and dried as they may first appear. For starters, a church doesn’t only exist on Sunday mornings. Let’s say the average congregation has three full-time staff (it may be more, but there are an awful lot of small churches out there). Does Oregon have many small congregations where the staff are spending six hours a week pushing for this amendment (and other legislation) as part of their jobs?