Many churches are now using the World Wide Web to disseminate their message to large groups of people. As a result, messages that previously would have been confined to the walls of the church and only heard by like-minded individuals are now heard by both supporters and opponents of the message. Federal tax law prohibits a pastor from giving a message that promotes or opposes a candidate for political office. The IRS can revoke a charity or religious organization's tax exempt status for engaging in prohibited partisan politicking.

However, many pastors have been doing this for years without repercussions. Generally, the IRS investigates if someone files a complaint with them. With the messages being disseminated to a larger group of people on the web, the likelihood that the message will be heard by an individual who feels that message violates the IRS prohibition against electioneering increases.

According to the New York Times, Atlah World Ministries in Harlem is being investigated because a video of its Pastor, James David Manning, making derogatory comments about Barack Obama appeared on the church's website and on YouTube. In addition to the derogatory comments about Senator Obama, "Mr. Manning praised Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, the former president, for bringing economic vitality to Harlem, but called Mr. Obama the candidate of 'irresponsibility and unaccountability'." As a result of the YouTube video, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed a complaint with the IRS.

The IRS has also launched other high profile investigations as a result of information that came to light on the web. They are currently investigating Bill Keller, a Florida televangelist who preached that a presidential vote for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon, was "a vote for Satan." This sermon came to light because the sermon was posted on Keller's website. Also, Americans United filed a complaint against Cornerstone Church in Madison, Tennessee asserting that the Pastor violated federal tax law during a sermon in which the Pastor endorsed three School Board candidates from the pulpit. Americans United was made aware of the incident because the sermon was posted on the Church's website and, as a result, a local newspaper published the comments.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative organization, is fighting back against the IRS by arranging "Pulpit Free Sunday" on September 28, in which clergy members will violate IRS rules by preaching sermons that promote or oppose political candidates.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has helped to launch NoVoterLeftBehind.net, a project of Democrats for America's Future (DAF). The site is designed to monitor voter registration and to monitor the voting process during the November 2008 election. The goal is to bring attention to any irregularities that occur and to urge "every Democratic candidate to pledge not to concede a single race until every last vote is counted."

"This is about more -- far more -- than who wins the next election, as important as that is. If we can't guarantee the citizens of a democracy that their votes will be counted, every other liberty we hold dear is at risk," said Kennedy in a letter he sent to Democrats across the county.

In the Press Release, Barbara Roberts, former Oregon Governor and Secretary of State, said "from the voter registration process to Election Day challenges and beyond -- DAF will fight every last fight to the very end, insisting that every American is guaranteed a democracy's most sacred right: their vote."

Defend Oregon reports that Measure 64 could lead to a loss in funding or severe penalties for Oregon charities. Measure 64 on the ballot in the November general election would prohibit public employees from using voluntary payroll deductions to donate to nonprofits, charities, unions, and other organizations of their choice.

It prohibits money collected with the use of public resources from being used for political purposes, except elections, official voter pamphlets and most lobbying. "Political purpose" is defined as: candidates, political committee or party, initiative or referendum committee, and supporting/opposing candidates or ballot measures (including signature gathering for petitions ).

A new group the American Issues Project (AIP) has been caught in controversy over an ad linking candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) to former domestic terrorist William Ayers. As a 501(c)(4) organization it is allowed to air a political ad as long as the majority of its spending is nonpolitical, it cannot accept money from corporations, and it must identify the donors that finance its ads in reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The ad however, is being considered by some to be a violation of election law.

The ad "Know Enough" has images of Obama and Ayers, with a narrator asking, "Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

Those who are calling the ad illegal consider it to clearly be express advocacy; the ad concerns an election, takes a position on the character and fitness for office of the candidate, and raises no legislative issue. The Ayers ad mentions Obama's name and uses the word "elect." According to the Supreme Court decision in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, an ad can be regulated and considered express advocacy "only if the ad is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate."

In response, Obama's general counsel wrote letters to television stations, asserting that the Ayers ad is illegal and false, and that its airing is subject to a FEC penalty. The letter states that Obama never called Ayers "respectable" and "mainstream." In addition a letter was sent to the Department of Justice (DOJ) requesting an investigation into the group's activities for possible violations of campaign finance law.

According to a Politico story, a spokesman for AIP Christian Pinkston said, "This is a sad ploy to circumvent the First Amendment by a campaign who has no arguments with the merits of our ad. It's the classic maneuver: If you can't win on the merits, file a lawsuit."

AIP submitted an independent expenditure report that indicates the group is spending nearly $3 million on television ads attacking Obama.

Press coverage of the Democratic National Convention spotlights the convention parties in light of the new lobbying and ethics law, and it will likely be the same during the Republican convention. Many are quick to criticize and declare that in regards to the conventions, the new ethics rules were a failed attempt to weaken the connection between lawmakers and lobbyists, and were merely superficial changes.

The House Ethics Committee for example decided that events honoring a group of members such as a particular caucus or state delegation were allowable. The new law also has an exemption for events that benefit a charity. So the proceeds of the Poker Players Alliance tournament will benefit Paralyzed Veterans of America.

According to CQ ($$), groups are on the look out for convention parties that violate the new ethics rules. "Lobbyists beware: Watchdog groups are making the rounds to monitor convention-goers' compliance with new ethics rules and call attention to events where corporate sponsors wine and dine members of Congress and their aides."

The Sunlight Foundation has launched its "Party Time" project that will track parties at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and fund raising activities by all lawmakers. The Sunlight Foundation also released a list of 400 parties and other functions scheduled for the two party conventions.

And Public Citizen has released a report finding that corporate donors and lobbyists have contributed more than $112 million toward the national conventions. "This flood of unlimited soft money from special interests, and the lavish parties and wining and dining it pays for at the conventions, runs counter to the federal election law and congressional ethics rules."

However, an editorial in the Washington Post is a bit more pragmatic; "the new lobbying law has meant a decided change for the better in the nature of convention partying." It would be unrealistic to think that the ethics law that was put in place last year would completely end such activities. "But the new rules have brought with them a new and welcome caution for those on both sides of the partying transaction. The era of big gift bags is over."

The Alliance for Justice has released a new fact sheet, 501(c)(3)s at National Party Conventions.

The National Action Network, along with the National Urban League, the Southern Christian Leadership Council and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), will lead a voter protection and voter registration initiative in seven states leading up to the November general election.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, President of the National Action Network, announced the "Not this Time" initiative yesterday at a Denver restaurant. The initiative is entitled "Not this Time" because its purpose is to prevent the voting mishaps that occurred during the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

According to the Associated Press, Sharpton said that "the civil rights organization National Action Network and others will begin in Florida, then travel to six other states to register voters and make sure people who think they're registered actually are." The six other states that the organizations will travel to are Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Alabama.

"We're going to send people into key states in mid-September to go into churches and community centers and have people give us their names to check their registration so that we don't wait until Election Day and find out they're not registered," Sharpton said.

If it weren't for its direct impact on national security, we could all enjoy a hardy guffaw at the $500 million mess that is supposed to tie the nation's intelligence data together. The anti-terror intelligence database, known as Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), is the subject of recent House Science and Technology Committee's Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee report. The report found that "Railhead," the $500 million project that was supposed to tie together the intelligence data of the nation's 16 separate intelligence agencies. Instead:

The Railhead program may actually degrade the ability to provide intelligence data for use in the consolidated terrorist watch list at the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center. It may cripple NCTC's [National Counterterroism Center] ability to share critical intelligence among U.S. government agencies. It will also potentially jeopardize the ability to provide vital search functions by counterterrorism analysts.

[...]

In fact, the new Railhead systems that NCTC hopes will replace the current TIDE~database by early next year may not provide critical search, access, sharing and other vital functions the current system does currently provide.

The issues that have put the system at risk are myriad, but the report describes two that totally dumfound me.

1) The new system's technology is incompatible with what the rest of federal government uses (indeed, with what most of the world's businesses use). Rather than use a technology known as a "database," the contractor hired to build the new system wants to use something not dissimilar from masses of Microsoft Word documents.

2) The system can't perform basic data searches using combinations of text. An analyst can, for instance, search for data containing the word "anthrax," but she wouldn't be able to search for data containing the words "anthrax" or "plague." In other words, this $500 million clunker is already technologically behind most free internet search engines, like Google.

The subcommittee are also incredulous, and wonder, as they directly ask in the report, if the contractor's close personal relationship with the government's project manager has anything to do with this cockamamie approach to fulfilling one of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Wall Street Journal: Flaws Found In Watch List For Terrorists

Yes, Hans von Spakovsky has been hired to work with the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. This is interesting considering his record of supporting voting restrictions. He eventually withdrew his nomination to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) because of such strong opposition. According to the Washington Post; "During Senate confirmation hearings to determine whether von Spakovsky would sit on the FEC, former civil service employees at Justice submitted a letter condemning his actions on voting rights. The letter said von Spakovsky acted as a de facto voting section chief from 2003 to 2005, 'furthering partisan interests.' [. . .] Von Spakovsky steered the department to adopt 'voting rights policies not seen before, pushing to curb minor instances of election fraud by imposing sweeping restrictions that would make it harder, not easier, for Democratic-leaning poor and minority voters to cast ballots."

Wal-Mart is being charged with engaging in illegal electioneering by warning its employees against voting for Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). Watch this YouTube video and witness a complaint being filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Wal-Mart. According to the Wall Street Journal ($$), "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies - including Wal-Mart."

"Wal-Mart may be walking a fine legal line by holding meetings with its store department heads that link politics with a strong antiunion message. Federal election rules permit companies to advocate for specific political candidates to its executives, stockholders and salaried managers, but not to hourly employees."

The Department of Health and Human Services is going forward with a controversial proposal that would require government grantees that provide health care services to certify they do not discriminate against providers who oppose abortion. From the Associated Press:

The proposed rule, which applies to institutions receiving government money, would require as many as 584,000 employers ranging from major hospitals to doctors' offices and nursing homes to certify in writing that they are complying with several federal laws that protect the conscience rights of health care workers. Violations could lead to a loss of government funding and legal action to recoup federal money already paid.

Abortion rights supporters served notice that they intend to challenge the new rule.

"Women's ability to manage their own health care is at risk of being compromised by politics and ideology," Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

HHS claims the rule is needed "to ensure that Department funds do not support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law."

The administration is trying to hurry the rule through the usual regulatory process. The rule appears to have bypassed the required White House review period during which the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs gets its say on a rule before approving it for public viewing. (This is not to say the White House wasn't involved in the early stages of the rule's drafting.) [Correction: New information shows OIRA did review the rule, but approved it in only a few hours. Read more here.]

The rule will only be opened to public comment for 30 days, further indicating that time is of the essence for Bush administration officials hoping to finalize the rule in the next few months. A typical public comment period lasts 60 days.

Furthermore, the rule is in blatant violation of a White House policy announced in May that told agencies the Bush administration would "resist the historical tendency of administrations to increase regulatory activity in their final months." The policy, which takes the form of a memo to Department heads from White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, instructed agencies to propose "no later than June 1, 2008" any regulation the agency wishes to finalize during Bush's tenure. The HHS rule announced today misses that deadline by more than 80 days.

On Friday Aug. 15 the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) coordinated a day long event with the US Department of Treasury entitled, "Charitable Principles of Good Governance and Anti-Terrorist Financing." The event was held at the Treasury Department intentionally two weeks before the beginning of Ramadan, where issues could be addressed regarding donating to charitable causes.

In opening remarks, Assistant Treasury Secretary for Terrorist Financing Patrick O'Brien said; "The broader exploitation of charities operating in high-risk regions raises serious questions and challenges for the United States, the international community, and charities operating in high-risk areas. Going forward, some key challenges include: adoption of best practices, utilizing alternative relief measures, and improving private sector relief efforts."

O'Brien heavily promoted the use of Treasury's Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines: Voluntary Best Practices for U.S.-Based Charities, which groups including OMB Watch, have strongly opposed. An article in BNA Money and Politics ($$) refers back to a July 2007 House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight hearing in which Council on Foundations President Steve Gunderson said that "Treasury has not identified a single case of inadvertent diversion of funds from a legitimate U.S. charity to a terrorist organization."

Meanwhile, Muslim Advocates announced an initiative with the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance to help American-Muslim charitable organizations strengthen donor confidence in Muslim charities and protect them from any unfair scrutiny. Seven Muslim charities have so far volunteered for a review process designed by the bureau to validate their finances and transparency. According to a Muslim Advocates press release, they will provide a staff attorney and accountant, free assistance, identify information needed for meaningful review by the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, and offer expert advice on how to meet the Alliance Standards for Charity Accountability. "Since 2001, Muslim charities have been under intense scrutiny as the federal government has focused extensively on the community's charitable institutions and their donors. Charities increasingly need guidance on how to meet these new challenges but frequently have limited resources or expertise to do so."

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal Foundation (ACLU-NCLF) filed a lawsuit yesterday against the North Carolina Board of Elections due to the Board of Elections policy banning lobbyist from contributing any money to candidates for the state legislative, as well as many other state candidates, during the year in which the individual is a registered lobbyist.

The ACLU-NCLF asserts that the ban violates the first and fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantee freedom of association and free speech. According to the ACLU's press release, "[t]his year-round, zero-dollar ban applies without regard to whether the would-be recipient of the contributions is, ever has been, or will be the object" of [the individual's] lobbying efforts."

The ACLU-NCLF's Legal Director, Katy Parker, acknowledges that the State has a legitimate interest in preventing corruption and that "preventing lobbyists from wielding undue influence is a legitimate means of preserving the integrity of the electoral process. However, such restrictions must allow for the fact that everyone in America has the right to free speech and free association, especially when it comes to people expressing their political beliefs. By imposing a year-round, zero-dollar total ban, North Carolina's extreme prohibition goes far beyond what is reasonable or necessary to prevent actual or apparent corruption in government and far beyond the types of limits on lobbyists' contributions that have been upheld by any court in the United States."

A federal judge ruled that requiring groups to pledge their opposition to prostitution in order to participate in the federal government's international HIV/AIDS program continues to violate the First Amendment. This lawsuit challenges the requirement that public health groups receiving U.S. funds under the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act pledge their opposition to prostitution in order to continue to receive funding.

A Brennan Center press release states; "Under this 'pledge requirement,' recipients of U.S. funds are forced to censor even their privately funded speech regarding the most effective ways to engage high-risk groups in HIV prevention. In May 2006, Judge Victor Marrero of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the requirement violates the First Amendment rights of two plaintiff organizations, Alliance for Open Society International and Pathfinder International, by restricting their privately funded speech and forcing them to adopt the government's viewpoint. Today's ruling extends that injunction to the members of InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.-based humanitarian organizations, and to the U.S.-based members of Global Health Council, a preeminent public health membership group."

The court disagreed with the government's argument that government issued guidelines allow recipients to speak freely with their private funds. The guidelines require organizations to set up legally and physically separate affiliates, which the court ruled were too burdensome. Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services is currently involved in a comment period on a final regulation which is almost identical to the guidelines the court ruled unconstitutional. In May OMB Watch submitted comments opposing these separation requirements.

An updated version of the IRS' Tax Guide for Churches and Religious Organizations is now available. To see Publication 1828, click here.