Blog # 2 10/05/12
Since we are in the middle of a national election campaign, this
week I want to speak briefly about how some nonprofits are beginning to function
like political action committees (PACs).
Unfortunately, since the Supreme Court declared in its Citizen’s
United decision that individuals and corporations can make unlimited
contributions to political campaigns, 501c-4 “social welfare”
nonprofits are being formed with the primary intent of influencing the outcome
of elections. Furthermore, these
organizations are being used to “launder” political campaign contributions and to
circumvent the donor disclosure requirements that are contained in our
country's campaign finance laws. You see, unlike highly regulated PACs
that can fund campaigns, 501c-4 organizations are under no legal obligation to
disclose the names and amounts of their donors.
The secret funding of political activities is not a good thing for our
democracy—the Supreme Court says so right in its Citizen’s United decision--
and having nonprofit organizations conducting these anti-democratic activities
cannot be a good thing for the image of the nonprofit sector. Therefore, nonprofit leaders and the public should
be advocating strongly for the vigorous enforcement of existing rules that
prohibit 501c-4s from being formed primarily for purposes of influencing
elections, and also for a change in IRS rules and regulations to explicitly
prohibit nonprofits from using undisclosed contributions to fund election
campaigns.
Recent media articles about the corrosive impact of secret
campaign contributions on the democratic process and the inability of the IRS
to monitor and restrict the activities of 501c-4 organizations can be found
at:
and
Thoughts?
Jeff Greim
Jeff Greim
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