Director, Nonprofit Speech Rights
Kay Guinane joined OMB Watch in August, 2000 where she is Director, Nonprofit Speech Rights. She is responsible for monitoring and analyzing federal legislative and regulatory actions that affect nonprofit advocacy rights and advocacy efforts to protect them. She also oversees research and civic education project and conducts trainings on advocacy and related laws.
Ms. Guinane is a co-author of numerous reports on advocacy rights, including Safeguarding Charity in the War on Terror, Death by a Thousand Cuts: Attacks on Nonprofit Advocacy I and II, published by OMB Watch. She is a co-author of E-Advocacy: The Law of Lobbying and Election-Related Activity on the Net (with Elizabeth Kingsley, Gail Harmon and John Pomeranz), published by the Alliance for Justice in 2000. She is the author of Group Buying Power: Meaningful Choices for Energy Consumers, published by the American Public Power Association in 1997.
Prior to coming to OMB Watch Ms. Guinane represented a wide variety of nonprofit organizations, both as an advocate on issues and an advisor on tax and nonprofit law. In Kentucky she represented community based organizations and labor groups in the coalfields and in Louisville between 1977 and 1995. After coming to Washington in 1995 she worked on low income energy issues at Environmental Action and the National Consumer Law Center, and in 1998 she joined the Alliance for Justice as Nonprofit Advocacy Counsel, where she provided technical assistance and conducted workshops for nonprofits on their advocacy rights.
Ms. Guinane graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYAB) School of Law in February, 1976. She received a B.A. in Political Science (with honors) from SUNYAB in 1972. She is a member of the bar in Kentucky, Maryland and the District of Columbia.