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Political Campaigning By Churches And Charities: Hazardous For 501(C)(3)S, Dangerous For Democracy, Donald B. Tobin
Political Campaigning By Churches And Charities: Hazardous For 501(C)(3)S, Dangerous For Democracy, Donald B. Tobin
Donald B. Tobin
Nonprofit section 501(c)(3) organizations are prohibited from participating or intervening in an election on behalf of a candidate for public office. Despite this prohibition, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations have become increasingly active in political campaigns. Many organizations are either ignoring the political campaign ban or are using "issue discussion" or "lobbying" as a means of promoting candidates and testing the limits of the prohibition. Current scholarship surrounding the political campaign ban argues that the ban is either unconstitutional or inappropriate as a matter of public policy. This article argues that the ban is both meritorious and constitutional. It argues that taxpayer …
What Is This "Lobbying" That We Are So Worried About?, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer
What Is This "Lobbying" That We Are So Worried About?, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer
Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer
Lobbying is both an essential part of our democratic process and a source of some of our greatest fears about dangers to that process. Yet when Congress, the public, and scholars consider loosening or, as is more often the case, tightening the restrictions on lobbying, they usually assume that everyone knows what activities are in fact lobbying. They therefore overlook the fact that multiple definitions of lobbying currently exist in the various federal laws addressing lobbying. This Article seeks to fill this gap by answering the question of how lobbying should be defined for purposes of the existing federal laws …