Washington, DC:
It’s no secret conservative organizations and their supporters are under attack. The Left is orchestrating an effort to harass and intimidate people who support conservative causes, a persecuted class. Part of their attack forces organizations like yours to report the names and addresses of your donors to the government, and then exposing those names and addresses on government websites for anyone to see.
What the IRS could not accomplish by targeting conservative groups, left-leaning groups are increasingly pressuring state legislatures and state attorneys general to do. When they can’t get lawmakers to force donor disclosure, they go straight to voters with misleading and deceptive ballot initiatives, such as “anti-corruption” initiatives to promote “transparency”, like those proposed right now in Arizona, Arkansas, California, South Dakota, and at the city level. That’s just the beginning. Go to www.Represent.us (a so-called “anti-corruption” project run by Progressives) to see if your state is among their many targets.
As a persecuted class, conservatives are bullied to either conform or suffer retribution, such as public shaming or having their customer base antagonized. If you’re outted for donating to what some would consider the “wrong side” of an issue, you may get fired, as we saw with Brendan Eich of Mozilla. Or you may have your door bashed in with a battering ram in the middle of the night, as we know happened to folks associated with the Club for Growth in Wisconsin, the infamous “John Doe” cases.
This well-coordinated, well-funded effort to require conservative nonprofits like yours to divulge the names and addresses of your donors is all part of a plan to choke off our air supply of funding. One group bluntly told the New York Times they “planned to confront donors to conservative groups, hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions” by exposing donors to “legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.”
What’s worse is that the Left has turned the transparency concept on its head to dupe conservative legislators and well-meaning TEA Party groups to help advance their initiatives. In many cases, Republican state lawmakers are proposing these disclosure measures. In 2014, Tallahassee voters adopted a city-level initiative that could force donor disclosure, co-sponsored by the local tea party group. Let’s be perfectly clear: transparency is for government; privacy is for people, not vice versa! All of us will do well to understand this fundamental difference.
This is an affront to the deeply held values that are enshrined in the First Amendment. Every American has the right to support causes they believe in. To keep that right a reality, we must protect individual privacy. We must protect people’s ability to come together, to freely associate, in support of each other. We must protect the resources they need to make their voices heard.
That’s why we must pay more attention to this growing effort in the states to “ban dark money.” Dark money is a pejorative term for private giving and it was coined by a left-leaning organization after the Citizen’s United decision. But we need to stop and think about this term before we continue to use it ourselves.
Calling private donations “dark money” is like saying your right to a private ballot is “dark voting.” Just as the right to pull the curtain closed behind us as we vote for our chosen candidates is sacrosanct, so too is our right to support charities and interest groups without the government standing over our shoulder and sharing the information with the wider world.
Trends in the states:
We face a wave of state legislation to force disclosure, state regulators taking unilateral action to force disclosure, and ballot measures to force disclosure.
In at least six states in 2015, state lawmakers considered bills written so broadly and vaguely that everyday activities of 501c3 groups, like communicating with your supporters about proposed laws that impact our missions, would have been reclassified as “electioneering communications” and the groups re-termed “political committees” and therefore subject to donor disclosure requirements that are meant for candidate campaign committees. We expect to see even more proposed laws in 2016. Right now, we know forced donor disclosure laws have already been introduced or will be in Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington.
We also saw several “ethics” bills aimed at rooting out corruption among state officials, but instead of shining a light where it matters—on the elected officials themselves—the focus becomes forcing private organization with a perspective on policy issues to report the names and addresses of their supporters to the government. These bills were introduced in at least South Carolina and Texas.
There is also ample evidence of efforts to redefine “coordination.” In the campaign finance context, coordination means a nonprofit group can’t join up with a candidate campaign to try to skirt campaign contribution disclosure laws. But now the push is to broaden this definition to prevent two private organizations that share a mission from working together to advance an idea. In other words, they want to use the law to prevent center-right groups from sharing information and resources, from freely associating.
Another disturbing trend is that some state regulators are going rogue. Already in more than a dozen states non-profits can be forced to hand over their list of top supporters before they can even do business in the state. The problem with this is that once a document is given to a state agency, it becomes subject to public records law. For example, if a group like yours was forced to turn over its supporter list to the State of New York in order to fundraise there, and a left-leaning group wanted to get that list, they could send a public records request to the state attorney general who regulates charities, and there is no mechanism in state law to decline the request. This is a backdoor way to expose your donors.
We’re also witnessing state ethics commissions and campaign finance regulators unilaterally deciding certain groups must reveal their donors before they can testify at the state legislature or do other activities protected by the First Amendment.
Help stop the momentum forcing donor disclosure. Please take action now and alert your members and supporters by explaining what real transparency means (transparency is for government; privacy is for people) and how the Left is threatening their privacy, and the movement to protect liberty. Make no mistake about your role: we are now the movement not just of free markets, but of free speech as well.
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The Honorable Edwin Meese III
Former Attorney General
President Ronald Reagan
David Bozell
President
ForAmerica
Michael A. Needham
Chief Executive Officer
Heritage Action for America
Marjorie Dannenfelser
President
Susan B. Anthony List
The Honorable Colin A. Hanna
President
Let Freedom Ring, Inc.
Mr. Alfred S. Regnery
Chairman
Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund
The Honorable J. Kenneth Blackwell
Chairman
Constitutional Congress, Inc.
The Honorable T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr.
Former Domestic Advisor
President Ronald Reagan
Tracie Sharp
President and CEO
State Policy Network
Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform
Kevin Freeman
Founder
NSIC Institute
Willes K Lee
Executive Vice President
National Federation of Republican Assemblies
Beldon Bell
Trustee
The Heritage Foundation
David Y. Denholm
President
Public Service Research Foundation
C. Preston Noell III
President
Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.
Andresen Blom
Executive Director
Grassroot Hawaii Action
Robert K. Fischer
Conservatives of Faith
Robert D. Thompson
Administrator
The Weyrich Lunch
Ralph Benko
Columnist
Amy Frederick
President
60 Plus Association
Bradley Mattes
President
Life Issues Institute
Jenny Beth Martin
Co-Founder
Tea Party Patriots
Lewis K. Uhler
Founder and President
National Tax Limitation Committee
Tricia Erickson
President
Angel Pictures & Publicity
Trent England
David and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow
Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs
Sabrina Schaeffer
Executive Director
Independent Women’s Forum
Nancy Schulze
American Prayer Initiative
Mark Fitzgibbons
President of Corporate Affairs
American Target Advertising, Inc.
Paul Caprio
Director
Family Pac Federal
Floyd Brown
President
Western Center for Journalism
William J. Murray
Chairman
Religious Freedom Coalition
Thomas Donelson
Chairman
Americas PAC
David N. Bossie
President
Citizens United
Amy Ridenour
Chairman
The National Center for Public Policy Research
J. Christian Adams
President
Public Interest Legal Foundation
Carol Tobias
President
National Right to Life Committee
Dan Backer
President
American Dream Initiative
Shaun McCutcheon
Chairman
Coolidge Reagan Foundation
Larry Ward
PoliticalRefund.org
Niger Innis
TheTeaParty.net
Kent Ostrander
Executive Director
The Family Foundation (KY)
Len Deo
Founder & President
New Jersey Family Policy Council
Austin Ruse
President
C-Fam
Gene Mills
President
Louisiana Family Forum
Jim Minnery
President
Alaska Family Action
Cleta Mitchell, Esq.
Foley & Lardner, LLP
Adam Brandon
President and CEO
FreedomWorks
Michael Geer
President
Pennsylvania Family Council
Day Gardner
President
National Black Pro-Life Union
William J. Murray
Chairman
Religious Freedom Coalition
www.ReligiousFreedomCoalition.org
Darrell Burchfield
President
Cornerstone Family Policy Council of Idaho
Jason Jones
President
Movie to Movement
David W. Preston
Executive Director
Oklahoma Wesleyan University Foundation
Eli Lehrer
President
The R Street Institute
Everett Piper, PhD
President
Oklahoma Wesleyan University
John Dodd
President
Jesse Helms Center Foundation
Alan Gottlieb
Founder
Second Amendment Foundation
Bruce Chapman
Chairman of the Board
Discovery Institute
Thomas S. Winter
Editor Emeritus
Human Events
Joseph Bast
President
The Heartland Institute
(All organizations listed for IDENTIFICATION purposes only)
UPDATED: 2/5/16
[/column]
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The Honorable Becky Norton Dunlop
Chairman, Conservative Action Project
Former White House Advisor, President Ronald Reagan
The Honorable Bob McEwen
U.S. House of Representatives
Former Member, Ohio
Erick-Woods Erickson
Editor
The Resurgent
L. Brent Bozell, III
Founder and President
Media Research Center
The Honorable David McIntosh
President
Club for Growth
Luke Hilgemann
CEO
Americans for Prosperity
The Honorable Tony Perkins
President
Family Research Council
Mr. William L. Walton
Vice President
Council for National Policy
Starlee Coleman
State Policy Network
David Williams
President
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Phil Kerpen
President
American Commitment
Gary L. Bauer
President
American Values
Alan P. Dye, Esq.
Webster, Chamberlain & Bean
Judson Phillips
Founder
Tea Party Nation
Quin Hillyer
Veteran conservative columnist
Melissa Ortiz
Founder & Principal
Able Americans
Charles J. Cooper
Cooper & Kirk, PLLC
Tim LeFever
Chairman
Capitol Resources Institute
Jim Martin
President
60 Plus Foundation
Bill Pascoe
Partner
Antietam Communications
Penny Nance
CEO
Concerned Women for America
Allen Roth
President
Secure America Now
Mathew Staver
Founder & Chairman
Liberty Counsel
Mike Spence
President
Conservative Republicans of California
Heather Higgins
President and CEO
Independent Women’s Voice
Kelly Shackelford, Esq.
President, CEO
Liberty Institute
Paul Gessing
President
Rio Grande Foundation
Ted Baehr
Publisher
MOVIEGUIDE(R)
Member, Broadcast Film Critics Association
Ron Robinson
President
Young America’s Foundation
David Boyle
Executive Director
Alaska Policy Forum
Lisa B. Nelson
CEO
American Legislative Exchange Council
Cathi Herrod
President
Center for Arizona Policy
Keith Wiebe
President
American Association of Christian Schools
Thomas P. Kilgannon
President
Freedom Alliance
Larry Hart
Hartco Strategies
Rev. Louis P. Sheldon
Founder and CEO
Traditional Values Coalition
Andrea S. Lafferty
President
Traditional Values Coalition
Oran P. Smith, PhD
President & CEO
Palmetto Family
Allen Whitt
President
Family Policy Council of West Virginia
Carroll Conley
Executive Director
Christian Civic League of Maine
Dale A. Bartscher
Executive Director
Family Heritage Alliance Action
Julaine K. Appling
President
Wisconsin Family Council
John Helmberger
Chief Executive Officer
Minnesota Family Council
Dan Schneider
Executive Director
American Conservative Union
Jeff Laszloffy
President
Montana Family Foundation
Julie Lynde
Executive Director
Cornerstone Family Council Idaho
David Fowler
President
The Family Action Council of Tennessee, Inc.
Joe Ortwerth
Executive Director
Missouri Family Policy Council
Alex St. James
Executive Director
Blacks Economic-Security Trust BEST
Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage
Peter J. Thomas
Chairman
Americans for Constitutional Liberty
Nadine Maenza
Executive Director
Patriot Voices
Donna Hearne
CEO
The Constitutional Coalition
Peter J. Thomas
Chairman
Americans for Constitutional Liberty
The Honorable James C. Miller III
Former Director of OMB
President Ronald Reagan
Somers H. White, CPAE FIMC
Former Arizona State Senator
Sean Noble
President
American Encore
Terrence Scanlon
President
Capital Research Center
Bradley A. Smith
Chairman
Center for Competitive Politics
Allen J. Hébert
Director
American-Chinese Fellowship
[/column]
