Jeff and Chelsea are joined by friends and coalition partners Miriam Harmer and Brian Walsh to discuss our advocacy work for a bipartisan repeal of the new tax on nonprofits and, for the first time in American history, houses of worship.
Guest biography
Miriam Harmer is Director of Congressional Affairs at the Orthodox Union where she works to promote the OU’s interest in energy, education, Israel, and religious freedom issues. A veteran of four presidential campaigns, Miriam has spent much of her professional career with the United States House of Representatives and Senate. As a Hill staffer, Miriam was a Legislative Assistant for Representative Rob Bishop, Counsel for Senator Bob Bennett, and most recently a Legislative Counsel for Senator Mike Lee, where she advised him in his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prior to her time on the Hill, Miriam clerked in the office of Utah’s Attorney General and with the law firm of Oldaker, Biden & Belair.
Brian Walsh is a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and serves as Executive Director of the Faith & Giving Coalition, a multi-religious, multi-denominational initiative working to protect and promote faith-based and other charitable giving. Walsh previously served as Senior Legal Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and as executive director of an Ethics and Public Policy Center research program on freedom of religion and conscience. Walsh has testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives as well as the White House Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. His commentary has appeared in numerous publicans such as USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, and he has been interviewed on multiple networks including CNBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Walsh was a commercial litigation associate with the international law firm of Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., and with Willcox & Savage in Norfolk, Virginia. He served as a law clerk to Judge Pasco M. Bowman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Resources from the Conversation
- ERLC Supports Technical Fix of Tax Law on Church Parking Taxation
- Russell Moore’s article in the Wall Street Journal | Stop the Tax on Houses of Worship
- Orthodox Union Advocacy Center
- ERLC | Capitol Conversation Podcast
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Chelsea Sobolik
Chelsea Sobolik serves as the Director of Public Policy with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in the Washington, D.C. office. Previously, she worked on Capitol Hill on pro-life policies, domestic and international religious freedom, adoption, and foster care issues. Chelsea has been published at the Wall Street Journal, USA … Read More
Jeff Pickering
Jeff Pickering is the director of the Initiative on Faith & Public Life, a project of the American Enterprise Institute. AEI is a leading public policy think tank in Washington, DC and the initiative exists to equip Christian college students for faithful engagement in public life. Jeff moved to Washington … Read More