We had a couple of really tricky votes this week, and I know I heard from a lot of you on these–thank you for reaching out. Here’s an explainer of one of the more controversial ones:
H.R.9495 Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act
This vote was tricky for many reasons. Thanks to those of you who reached out. There was also a lot of misinformation shared about the bill, so I want to break this down.
First, you can find the exact, full text of the bill here to read for yourself. I’m all about pushing past the spin and figuring out what’s at the heart of a bill. This bill has two main components:
1. Eliminating tax responsibilities for political prisoners while they are imprisoned or held hostage abroad.
2. Ensuring that tax-payer dollars are not used to support terrorist organizations by rescinding the tax-exempt status of organizations that support terrorism.
The first part of this is really straightforward. This is happening, and it’s horrible. It happened to Michigan political prisoner Paul Whelan when he was imprisoned in Russia. We should fix this. While I think the fastest, best way to fix this is through a standalone bill (which we are also urging), Republicans have tied this bill to another more controversial part–rescinding the tax status of organizations accused of supporting terrorism.
I’m pretty sure we can all agree that taxpayers should not be subsidizing organizations that support terrorism. But that’s not what makes this bill tricky. Concerns have been raised that the definition of terrorism, specifically provisions outlawing material support to terrorist organizations, could be given an abusively expansive definition and potentially weaponized by the incoming president against political enemies. We’ve seen extremists abuse the definition of terrorism in the past — especially in the context of immigration — so there’s a foundation for the concern.
However, in this context, it’s unclear how the future president might conjure a definition of terrorism where one did not exist, even in part. To the extent that those who object are saying the president would just make one up if he’s going to violate the law that excessively, he does not need this particular bill to do that.
There are a number of different and better ways to address these issues, such as bifurcating the two issues that are lumped into this bill, adding additional processes and redress for organizations that feel they have been unfairly accused and targeted, and we are working on getting those. But, alas, we are not in charge, and Republicans have put up this bill for a vote. I was not asked to vote on the perfect solution or even a future hypothetical. I was asked to vote on this bill–which would eliminate tax liabilities for political prisoners like Michigander Paul Whelan and would also make it so that our hard-earned tax dollars are not being used to offset liabilities for organizations that do legitimately support terrorist organizations. I voted yes on the bill, as did 5 out of the 6 returning members of Congress from Michigan.
The bill did not pass on suspension, but the Republicans moved quickly to get this through rules and will put it back up for a vote again next week. I intend to vote the same way again. I am here to listen to your concerns. If you’d like to register an opinion about this bill–either for or against–ahead of the renewed vote next week, you can simply respond to this e-mail. There have been a lot of national organizations raising public concerns about this bill, but hearing from my constituents on this matters most.
Additionally, if you are in any way connected to a non-profit organization and you have concerns that this bill will jeopardize your status, I want to hear specifically from you. And, in the event the bills pass, this Congress or next Congress, and you are connected to a non-profit that does face targeting because of this, we are here to help redress the problem. Our contact information is here.
You can see all my votes here.
