Posted on 12/15/2006 6:03:14 PM PST by Jim Robinson
House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) has pledged to take up a lobbying reform proposal that would impose new regulations on speech by grassroots organizations, while providing a loophole in the rules for large corporations and labor unions.
The legislation would make changes to the legal definition of “grassroots lobbying” and require any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact their elected representatives to file a report with detailed information about their organization to the government on a quarterly basis.
The report would include identifying the organization’s expenditures, the issues focused on and the members of Congress and other federal officials who are the subject of the advocacy efforts. A separate report would be required for each policy issue the group is active on.
“Right now, grassroots groups don’t have to report at all if they are communicating with the public,” said Dick Dingman of the Free Speech Coalition, Inc. “This is an effort that would become a major attack on the 1st Amendment.”
Under the bill, communications aimed at an organization’s members, employees, officers or shareholders would be exempt from the reporting requirement. That would effectively exempt most corporations, trade associations and unions from the reporting requirements—but not most conservative grassroots groups, which frequently are less formally organized.
Larger, well-funded organizations are also currently eligible for a “low-dollar lobbyist exemption” that Pelosi’s bill does not give to grassroots organizations. If an organization retains a lobbyist to contact lawmakers directly at a cost of $2,500 per quarter or less, or employs a full-time lobbyist at a cost of $10,000 per quarter or less, the organization does not have to report to the government.
Public Citizen, a liberal “government watchdog,” is taking credit for helping Pelosi craft the legislation and expects the final draft of the bill to closely resemble Pelosi’s Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2006, which contains these provisions.
Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, said the changes would help “streamline” how grassroots organizations are regulated by the IRS and other laws. Public Citizen would like Congress to adopt the IRS’s definition of “lobbying,” which includes communication that encourages the general public to contact a member of Congress on pending legislation or public policy.
“The IRS has a definition that requires all organizations, including non-profits, to file as a part of our tax returns,” Holman said. “When it comes to the election code and the lobbying disclosure act, they have no definition of grassroots lobbying. It’s excluded from everything. The IRS has a definition of grassroots lobbying, but their information is not publicly reported. It’s just our tax returns to the IRS.”
Suzanne Coffman, director of communication for Guidestar.org, which makes IRS 990 forms available on the Internet, said any secular, non-profit organization that has more than $25,000 in income per year is required by law to make the last three years worth of tax forms available upon request. “We get them directly from the IRS, and we have more than two million 990s online” said Coffman. “For non-charitable organizations, like private charities or private foundations, we have fewer because the IRS began scanning those only in April 2005. They focused on charitable organizations, which make up the bulk of exempt organizations, because those are the ones that accept tax-deductible contributions. The need for accountability is much higher with them than with other types of organizations which are sort of subsidized by the taxpayer because they federally are tax exempt, but not like a charity is.”
Public Citizen’s public IRS 990 disclosure forms show that it raised more than $3 million in 2005. That year, the group spent $297, 431 on mail and $178,182 on consulting and professional fees.
A coalition of grassroots organizers, including David Keene of the American Conservative Union, Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America and Terrence Scanlon of the Capitol Research Center, have written an open letter calling on Public Citizen to renounce its efforts, which they called “flawed to the point of hypocrisy.”
“This bill would apply to those who have no Washington-based lobbyists, who provide no money or gifts to members of Congress, and who merely seek to speak, associate and petition the government,” it said. “Regulating the speech, publishing, association and petitioning rights of citizens is not targeted at corruption in Washington, as Public Citizen and its supporters would believe. Instead, it is targeted directly at the 1st-Amendment rights of citizens and their voluntary associations.”
The Lobbying Transparency and Accountability Act, which made some of these changes, was actually approved by both the House and the Senate in the 109th Congress, but failed to make it through a conference committee.
To help dramatize the bill this time around, Pelosi is planning to assign sponsorship of various amendments to incoming freshman, which they will promote in their maiden House floor speeches.
Current law prevents former members of Congress and senior staff as well as senior executive staff from lobbying for one year. Pelosi’s proposal would extend that to two years and completely ban members and staff from accepting gifts, meals and privately sponsored travel.
Miss Carpenter is Assistant Editor for HUMAN EVENTS. She is the author of "The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy's Dossier on Hillary Rodham Clinton," published by Regnery (a HUMAN EVENTS sister company).
Santorum didn't lose his base (though some of us weren't happy with him), he lost the large group of voters who don't vote along party lines.
And here in PA, those votes are hugely important.
good point...
self-ping
A certain 1631 printing of the Authorised Version of the Bible omitted the word "not" from Exodus 20:14, thus rendering the seventh commandment to read "Thou shalt commit adultery". The publishers were each fined 300 Pounds (about $60,000 today).
Maybe if the screecher-elect can have a year's salary forfeited each time she so grossly misreads the Constitution...
Exactly right, and we saw it play out vividly right her during the primary in Utah this year. But, when only 20% show up for a primary election we will never be able to effect possitive change... and I don't care what the ACU is, perhaps we need to start using primaries to creat term limits unless he/she is absolutely outstanding in every manner, eventually DC corrupts even the best of the people we sent up there.
If you could turn back the clock and they had both supported Toomey, I wonder what would have happened, this November? Of course we will never know, but we can live and learn.
Repeating myself.
There is no such thing as a VIRTUAL PROTEST.
We must make people understand the importance of the primaries. No more "well, I've been there for years and a new guy won't have the influence I do" excuses from the incumbents. We need to hold these people accountable for what they do or don't do during their whole term.
It will take some time but once we get the ball rolling we'll make our elected officials understand that they really are there working for us.
We may have lost Santorum's seat anyway but at least we wouldn't have Specter sabotaging everything the White House is trying to do.
I hate Nancy Pelosi.
Do you mean McCain, or Feingold?
PA is the best example for what we've been talking about; and am I sorry Chaffee lost in RI? Absolutely not, just disappointed we didn't kick him to the curb ourselves and at least run an honest Republican against the democratic candidate. May have lost anyway, but WE would have sent a message to Chaffee, who has been bragging about leaving the GOP since the election, that WE didn't want him in the party because he didn't represent our values.
Take away free speech from Americans, invent rights for illegals and terrorists. Sounds like the Democratic platform to me.
Indeed! Thanks for posting that link. I especially like this article:
I was off-line most of the weekend, and didn't see this thread until today. This legislation seems tailor-made to target organizations such as FR, which (1) has informal membership rules and (2) encourages members to be politically active. The legislation definitely targets the little guy, and seems intended to scare people away from political expression via the threat of lawsuits or criminal prosecution. In other words, this legislation strikes at the very heart of the 1st Amendment.
One would think this course of action would be self-evident. But apparently, some don't get it.
They are probably libertarian - 'conservative' fiscally, but liberal in everything else.
That would be my guess also.
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