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Episode #16 of the Nonprofit Law Podcast continues the month-long series on election season and nonprofits with a look at voter guides. Check out the shownotes and resources at nplawcast.com!

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The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

[Charles] Hurth is the registered agent for Take Initiative America, a tax-exempt group formed Sept. 10, 2007, according to the organization’s incorporation documents. A day later, the group made its hefty donation to fund petition-gathering that would get the so-called Presidential Election Reform Act on the June ballot.

The donation was the only reported contribution to the ballot-measure campaign, according to financial documents released earlier this week.

The proposed ballot measure would change the winner-take-all election rules for the 55 electoral votes in Democratic-leaning California. It would allocate the electoral votes based on the popular vote winner in each individual congressional district – providing an unexpected windfall for Republicans.

Leading Democratic presidential candidates and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean have charged that the effort is a Republican dirty trick to change the election rules in the middle of the 2008 presidential campaign.

But Hurth’s utter lack of connections to politics in California has raised cries of foul play and suggestions that a major GOP presidential candidate could be behind the matter.

Democrats say Hurth violated the spirit if not the letter of California campaign finance laws because he would not disclose the source of his group’s funding.

“Under the law, you’re prohibited from making a contribution through an intermediary without disclosing the true donor,” said San Francisco attorney James Harrison, representing Californians for Fair Elections, a Democratic group opposing the measure. “That’s considered money laundering.”

Jonathan Wilcox, the spokesman for the Missouri-based Take Initiative America group, said Hurth’s organization is a nonpartisan, grassroots effort working for election reform. But he insisted, “We have a national network of donors … and we will comply with all disclosure laws.”

Roman Porter, spokesman for the state Fair Political Practices Commission, when asked Wednesday about the Democrats’ charges, said. “We’re aware of the concern regarding this situation, and we’re reviewing it.”

This is another example of where a nonprofit appears to be following all disclosure laws, but is still being asked to do more. You may recall that there were calls for Sen. Edwards to disclose funders from a nonprofit he was heavily involved in before his presidential run. It will be interesting to see if there is a movement that spawns from these types of activities to change disclosure rules for nonprofits that engage in certain election activities.

UPDATE: Apparently the folks behind the initiative aren’t doing so well.

CNN has the scoop on a very public flip-flop:

“The part that has not worked out and really was a mistake were the attempts to place limitations on campaign ads in certain parts of the process,” the former ‘Law & Order’ actor said. “The Supreme Court has got better things to do then to hear a hundred different cases on a hundred different kinds of ads,” he said of a process he feels has spawned a large amount of bureaucracy, diverted resources, and put “unfair limitations” on people. “I don’t think that part of it was a good idea.”

Thompson was a major supporter of McCain-Feingold, and if memmory serves did not have this opinion on the electioneering communications regime that the Supreme Court tossed earlier this year. No comment, other than to say two words… political expediency.

UPDATE… apparently Thompson once asked the bill to be called McCain-Feingold-Thompson. Not anymore, I guess…

Episode #15 of the Nonprofit Law Podcast is up and at ‘em… this week I begin a month-long series on election season and nonprofits with a basic overview of the rules. Check out the shownotes and resources at nplawcast.com!

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Hat tip to AFJ’s Advocacy Digest:

A district court judge agreed on Thursday that the Federal Election Commission can continue to police outside 527s on a case-by-case basis, pushing the issue back to Members of Congress, who already face a heaping post-recess legislative plate. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday ruled in favor of the FEC, dismissing a case brought by Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and former Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.). The suit attempted to compel the agency to issue rules for outside political groups such as the conservative Swift Vets and POWs for Truth and the liberal America Coming Together.

Roll Call reports more here. I’ll be out of the country for the next week, so things might be a little quiet here on the blog. I’ll post the next edition of the podcast tomorrow… have a great Labor Day weekend!

Check out Beth Kingsley’s excellent article on WRTL in the latest edition of the Nonprofit Navigator:

The Supreme Court on Campaign Finance: Or, What does Wisconsin Right to Life really mean?

The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life (“WRTL”) has been portrayed variously as the death-knell for campaign finance reform, a victory for free speech, an incremental adjustment to the McCain-Feingold regulatory scheme, or opening a loophole in the campaign finance law big enough to drive a truck – or perhaps just a family-sized SUV – through. While scholars debate the effect on stare decisis and the implications for how this court will treat other campaign limitations, nonprofits and political operatives need to know what the case means in more practical terms. What are the rules for this election cycle?

Yesterday, the Federal Election Commission released a notice of proposed rulemaking on how it intends to handle the Supreme Court’s ruling in WRTL. The Commission has its response narrowed to two options… both allow communications to be paid with corporate or union funds if they are “susceptible of a reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a clearly identified Federal candidate.” Option one requires disclosure to the FEC if a communication mentions a candidate and falls within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of an election, and the other does not.

I suspect the usual opponents will square off on this during the comment period…

The Bradley Center has posted the forum on nonprofits and elections here. As always, this is a lively debate topic!

Bob Bauer has two entries on his blog reviewing Rick Hasen’s WRTL article… as one would expect, he finds flaws in his theoretical and practical analysis. And, as one would usually expect, i find the truth somewhere in the middle. I suspect we’ll see a lot of ads that fall within the Supreme Court’s newly created safe harbor addressing some kind of legislative issue that might also be seen to have campaign impacts. How prevalent these ads become remains to be seen… ultimately the ads will have to achieve their desired effect on the ad consumer. If they work in the way the ad producers want, you can bet you’ll see more of them. In other words, the focus groups (i.e. John and Jane Doe turning dials in some windowless conference room in Des Moines and Manchester) will ultimately decide how many ads that have electoral impact see the light of day.

Rick Hassen posted his latest paper on the Supreme Court and election law, Beyond Incoherence: The Roberts Court’s Deregulatory Turn in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life. Based on the title, I suspect he’s not a fan of the Roberts Court… A little reading for your Tuesday if you’re into analysis. After my tangle with Dulles Airport (which I may personally rename to include expletives, but that’s another post), I may hold off until later…