A bad cocktail

Earlier this year, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson called the mixing of politics, money and charities is, "a bad cocktail." He meant electoral politics, not issue or legislative politics, but the point was clear... charities need to steer clear of intervening in elections. He needs no other reason other than, 'cause tax law says so.

The Campaign Legal Center and Fran Hill have made some suggestions to stop some of the backsliding highlighted by uber-crook Jack Abramoff's improper use of charities, including Americans for Tax Reform. In short, they propose:

• eliminating exceptions in ethics rules, campaign finance laws or lobbyist registration laws for benefits channeled to politicians through nonprofit, tax-exempt entities
• any funds or benefits that a charity gives to a politician or a political committee should be traced back to the original contributor on regularly-filed disclosure reports
• politicians should be prohibited from raising money from third parties for charities they control, directly or indirectly
• politicians should accept absolutely nothing in return from organizations or any organizations related to charities they fundraise for
• an electronic database where members list all their contributions to charities, benefits they receive from charities and their leadership positions in such groups

Certainly an interesting proposal... the real question here is whether the traditional privacy afforded to donors to charities is outweighed by the desire/need for disclosure of certain transactions. If you believe Abramoff is an indicator species (ahh, there's that B.S. degree kicking in and making itself useful!) rather than an outlier, this might be a place to start the dialogue.