Lobby and Ethics Reform: June 2009

Updated Lobbying Disclosure Act Guidance

On June 9, 2009, the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House issued updated guidance on how to interpret the federal Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), as updated by the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA). This revision incorporates many suggestions Alliance for Justice made in comments submitted in December 2008 on the need to clarify what information must be disclosed on LD-203. 

501(c)3 / 501(c)4 Website Content

IRS provides limited guidance about links between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) websites.

The IRS issued a Technical Advice Memorandum (TAM) that offers some insight into the IRS's view on the extent of separation needed between website content of a 501(c)(3) and its affiliated 501(c)(4). Specifically, the IRS determined that a 501(c)(3) public charity impermissibly intervened in a political campaign by including on its website partisan content from its affiliated 501(c)(4) organization.

This ruling comes less than a year after an internal IRS memorandum issued July 28, 2008 that describes how revenue agents, when examining cases involving alleged campaign intervention by 501(c)(3) organizations, should treat Internet activities. 

Sonia Sotomayor

U.S. Supreme Court

Judge Sotomayor has a record of academic and professional excellence.  She graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude and holds a law degree from Yale, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order.  Following law school, Judge Sotomayor was an assistant district attorney in Robert Morgenthau's New York County District Attorney's Office and then moved to the small New York law firm of Pavia & Harcourt where she focused on intellectual property issues and international litigation and arbitration of commercial and commodity export trading cases.

Film: Quiet Revolution

The film describes how an increasingly influential movement on the far right has waged a war on the Constitution.

Give Me Your 990!

A guide to help nonprofits understand their obligations under new public disclosure requirements.