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Advocacy Blog
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
FEC Expanding to Regulate Issue Advocacy: New Article in Tax Analysts
Attorney Ezra Reese of Perkins Coie has done us all a favor by calling attention to little-known enforcement actions at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over the past year that expand its authority beyond federal campaigns and election activity.
Reese's article, The Other Agency: The Impact of Recent Fedral Law Enforcement on Nonprofit Political Activity appears in the November 2007 issue of Tax Analysts. It has a good summary of both Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and FEC rules and enforcement trends over the past few years.
The conclusions are ominous. Reese says,
The FEC now claims authority to regulte activity that previously was left only to the IRS. An organization may engage only in activity that is conservatively considered to be non-political under IRS guidance and still cross the FEC line separating issue advocacy from illegal corporate political expenditures.....It is far past time nonprofits view the FEC and its growing body of enforcement precedent as an equally important threat when engaging in grassroots issue advocacy.
This article underscores concerns raised by the FEC's proposal to require disclosure of individual donors by groups that air grassroots lobbying broadcasts that by definition are not electioneering. The FEC's expansive view of what constitutes advocacy for or against a candidate brings to mind Thorstein Veblen's theory of "trained incapacity"- when overspecialization creates an inability to understand the true nature of things. The FEC so far has failed to understand that public life and public policy debates are not just about elections. Sometimes issue advocacy is about issues.
Posted by Kay Guinane
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