Texas Rep. Nate Schatzline recently stood before a gathering of conservative activists just outside Fort Worth, recapping legislative wins and previewing what’s next at the Capitol. On this day, however, he was speaking not only as a lawmaker but also as a pastor.
A week earlier, the Internal Revenue Service decided to allow religious leaders to endorse political candidates from the pulpit, effectively upending a provision in decades- old tax law barring such activity. Schatzline, a longtime pastor at Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth, was excited. The IRS affirmed “what we already knew,” he said at the July 14 meeting: The government can’t stop the church from getting civically engaged.
“There is absolutely no reason that a politician should be more vocal about social issues than your pastor, and so I need pastors to stand up,” Schatzline told the crowd made up of members of True Texas Project, a Tarrant County-based organization that is a key part of a powerful political network pushing lawmakers to adopt its hardline opposition to immigration and LGBTQ+ rights and to advance conservative education policies.
