Keeping Charities Nonpartisan Act of 2026

The American Council urges every Marylander of conscience and every member of the General Assembly to defeat SB4, the so-called Keeping Charities Nonpartisan Act of 2026. This bill would embed in Maryland law a sweeping prohibition on political campaign activity by charitable organizations, backed by enforcement tools that depart significantly from the protections charities currently enjoy under Maryland's general charitable-regulation framework. We believe this bill threatens the independence, mission, and operational integrity of faith-based and community-serving nonprofits across the state, and we call on the legislature to let it fail.

Under SB4, any charitable organization incorporated under state law and authorized to receive tax-deductible donations under IRC Section 170 would be covered by a new state prohibition on participating in or intervening in a political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office, including through publication or distribution of statements (Facts 10, 12). Private foundations as defined under IRC Section 509 would also be brought within the scope of this new section (Fact 2). Critically, the bill freezes the interpretive standard for that prohibition at whatever the IRS's construction of Section 501(c)(3) was as of January 19, 2025 (Fact 13). That freeze is deeply troubling: it locks Maryland charities into a specific federal administrative interpretation at a specific political moment in time, insulating that standard from any future legal development, IRS guidance, or judicial clarification. Maryland law would be permanently anchored to a snapshot, regardless of how understanding of the law evolves.

The enforcement structure the bill creates compounds our concern. SB4 allows the Secretary of State or the Attorney General to issue a cease-and-desist order for a violation of the new prohibition without the finding that public health, safety, or welfare requires emergency action, a threshold that otherwise applies (Fact 3). At the same time, the bill carves this new prohibition entirely out of the standard settlement-agreement process and out of the Attorney General's authority to bring a circuit-court civil suit under the general charitable-regulation statute (Facts 5, 6). It also bars the Attorney General from referring violations of this specific prohibition to a State's Attorney for criminal prosecution (Fact 4). Taken together, these carve-outs mean that a charity facing a Section 6-623 accusation would not have access to the full range of procedural protections that apply to other alleged violations of Maryland charitable law. We believe that is fundamentally unfair.

The bill further requires that every covered charitable organization's registration statement include a statement that it does not and will not participate in or intervene in a political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office (Fact 7). Requiring such forward-looking declarations as a condition of registration places organizations in the position of making binding representations about future conduct under a standard whose application is frozen in time and whose enforcement pathway is not fully transparent from the bill text provided. That is a burden the Council believes is unjustified and potentially chilling to legitimate charitable speech and advocacy.

The American Council recognizes that charities should serve their communities rather than campaign for candidates. But duplicating a federal prohibition in state law, locking it to a fixed interpretive moment, removing standard enforcement safeguards, and compelling registration-statement pledges about future conduct is not a balanced or fair approach to that goal. Maryland's charitable sector, including many faith-based organizations that serve the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable, deserves better than this bill offers. We ask every legislator and every constituent to stand against SB4 and ensure it does not become law.