[EL] ALEC Tax Status

[David Mason]

Drafting model legislation, which is count #1 in the linked post, is a
permissible tax exempt activity.  Drafting is not lobbying.  The post also
claims ALEC "are lobbying in state capitals across the country," whiich
likely confuses ALEC (which does not have staff in most (if any) state
capitols) with ALEC Members who are themselves legislators.

As far as corporations buying access, consider this statement from the NCSL
web site (
http://www.ncsl.org/about-us/ncslservice/ncsl-foundation-sponsor-documents.aspx
):

NCSL Foundation for State Legislatures: Sponsors' Documents

One of the benefits to sponsoring the NCSL Foundation for State
Legislatures is the ability to post position papers on the NCSL website.
These papers are restricted and searchable to all members that have a user
name and password. We encourage all of our sponsors to take advantage of
the ability to make your organization's views known to our constituents.

Let me be clear, I have no beef with NCSL or the NCSL Foundation, but when
ALEC is attacked for issuing model legislation (which NCSL also does), or
for providing favored access for corporate funders (See immediately above),
but the same folks are not in a lather to "expose" NCSL, you can see why
the attacks on ALEC appear simply ideological, rather than motivated by a
genuine concern about tax policy.



Dave Mason



>  Common Cause Says ALEC is Violating Its 501c3 Status<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=32948>
> Posted on April 13, 2012 8:41 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=32948> by Rick
> Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> I’m no tax lawyer, but on its face this looks like
> <http://www.commoncause.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=7550265>a
> reasonable point. A c3 cannot engage in substantial lobbying and
> legislation is necessary to achieve its ends.
>
> What am I missing?  (And I concede I may be missing something—I’m way
> outside my comfort zone here.)
>
>
>  [image: Share]<http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D32948&title=Common%20Cause%20Says%20ALEC%20is%20Violating%20Its%20501c3%20Status&description=>
>   Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, tax
> law and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22> | Comments Off
>
>
>
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