This week the U.S. House is voting on H.R. 9495, a bill which includes a provision that would disempower nonprofits and pose a threat to critical organizations supporting communities nationwide. We urge Members of Congress to vote NO on H.R. 9495 given the inclusion of this provision.
This legislation threatens nonprofit workers at ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, Spotlight PA, American Civil Liberties Union affiliates, the Natural Resource Defense Council, Southern Poverty Law Center and more who are members of The NewsGuild-CWA.
And the legislation also threatens our union itself, because unions are also nonprofits.
Section 4 of the bill is particularly concerning. Titled “Termination of tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations,” this provision would give the Treasury Secretary near-unilateral power to strip the nonprofit status of any organization considered to be providing “material support or resources” to a terrorist organization. Such unilateral power could easily be abused by any future administration to target political opponents, shut down newsrooms and silence freedom of speech and affiliation in the United States.
It was narrowly defeated in an earlier vote on November 12 because it failed to clear a two-thirds majority vote in the House. House Republicans reintroduced the bill in a second attempt to pass it and changed the rules so only a simple majority is needed to pass it and move it to the Senate.
I’m asking you to contact your U.S. Representative TODAY and ask them to vote NO on H.R. 9495 and preserve our free speech and the free press.
Download and share this graphic on socials here:
