Featured Facutly: Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer
If you ask Lloyd Mayer to name the most interesting topic he’s working on, the associate professor of law is quick to respond. “That’s an easy one,” says Mayer, a scholar who publishes widely on the legal issues facing nonprofit organizations. “The article I’m finishing now is on pastors talking about politics from the pulpit, and whether the tax law that prohibits them from talking about candidates is, in fact, constitutional or stands up under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”
U.S. law bans nonprofit organizations—including churches, foundations, and other charities—from engaging in political activity in order to keep their tax-exempt status. “The prohibition has been in place for more than 50 years now, and for most of that time, the IRS did not apply it to sermons,” says Mayer. “But in the past four years, they’ve launched a dedicated enforcement program and about half the charities they’ve gone after are churches. And at least a dozen of those in each election cycle are cases where a pastor made [political] statements from the pulpit during a service.”
“At the same time, at least two legal groups are saying, ‘If the IRS goes after you for something you’ve said from the pulpit, we will defend you for free.’ So it seems inevitable that there will be a collision in the courts on this issue,” says Mayer. Churches will base their defense both on the First Amendment and RFRA, a 1993 law that strictly limits the federal government’s ability to “burden” a person’s free exercise of religion.
Technology has also helped to fan the conflict, Mayer argues. “Before, the IRS didn’t have a lot of information about what groups were saying and doing. It was hard to get the information to go after a charity for talking about a candidate. But with the Internet, with everything being recorded these days, it’s much easier … Ten or twenty years ago, Rev. Jeremiah Wright could have said whatever he wanted in his service and it would have been just words on a page. But now you’ve got an incendiary YouTube video.”
Anyone who thinks tax law is dull should take a look at Mayer’s recent publications, which have also focused on the laws governing lobbying and political contributions. “I try to choose issues that are ripe for consideration by policymakers,” he says.
Before joining the Notre Dame faculty, Mayer spent nine years representing nonprofit clients at Caplin and Drysdale, a Washington D.C. law firm. He remains “of counsel” with the firm, advising several organizations on a part-time basis. “I’m grateful that I have this opportunity to do a little bit of hands-on work—enough to keep me up to date on what’s going on out there in the real world, while still giving me time to focus on my teaching and my research.”
To learn more about Lloyd Mayer, visit his faculty profile page.
