Stanford Social Innovation Review:
On March 20, two-dozen scholars, practitioners, and policymakers met for a discussion around the theme “Are Nonprofits People, Too? Citizens United and the Future of the Social Sector.” Responding to the expanded roles that certain nonprofit organizations—501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, in particular—are now playing in electoral politics, the group discussed the potential effects of Citizens United on the philanthropic and nonprofit sector as a whole, beyond the particular actions now allowed by law.
We opened a presentation by Professor Rick Hasen of UC Irvine, who studies election law and created the Election Law Blog. He explained how the legal and political landscape has shifted for 501(c)(4) and (c)(6) nonprofit organizations since January 2010, emphasizing the role they can now play in making electioneering expenditures. From the perspective of campaign finance, 501(c)(4) and (c)(6) nonprofits offer donors a distinctive loophole (or, perhaps, advantage) over other organizations such as political action committees, political parties, and Super PACs: These nonprofits do not need to publicly disclose donors’ identities. Data comparing campaign finance expenditure reports from 2012 to previous presidential election years show a clear shift in dollars from PACs and other 527 groups that do require donor disclosure to (c)(4) and (c)(6) nonprofits. Using data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Hasen found that outside spending in the 2012 presidential election through February was 264 percent greater than the same time in 2008 and more than 600 percent greater than in 2004.
Adam Bonica of the Stanford Political Science Department questioned the degree to which electioneering spending equals influence. His research looks at the many ways commercial corporations seek to influence political decision making—including lobbying, federal election spending, involvement on state ballot measures, and the “revolving door” of relationships between private sector and elected officials and their staff. One notable finding: Nonprofit and commercial corporations spend significantly less on elections than they do on lobbying.
These opening remarks led the group to reach a general consensus that policing one organization structure—say, by imposing disclosure requirements on 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations—would have limited impact on campaign finance per se. Changing the rules for certain nonprofits would be like playing “whack-a-mole” with the money; it would simply pop up somewhere else.
The discussion then branched out in several directions:…