Nonprofit Regulation and Democratic Inequality, Part 2

Update 2: Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pulled the bill after a rebellion among Democrats over the NRA exemption. Politico reports that the Congressional Black Caucus felt the provision would disadvantage the NAACP and other progressive groups.

Update: The Huffington Post is reporting that the exemption has been expanded to include groups that have at least 500,000 members. It will be interesting to learn how (or whether) the legislation defines "member." Nonprofits, especially those whose members are nothing more than contributors, count membership in all sorts of ways. Even if the more relaxed 500,000-member standard goes into effect, it won't help gun control groups, which could only hope to have that many donors.

Political scientists have long recognized that interest groups are not egalitarian. Some are systematically advantaged, particularly those that represent well-heeled constituents and those, such as hobbyist organizations, that can offer tangible social benefits and material inducements to lure members.

The classic example of this inequity involves the 4-million-member National Rifle Association (NRA), on the one hand, and the comparatively weak gun control movement, on the other. In my book, Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America, I estimated that, in the campaign's modern heyday, membership in state and national gun-control groups probably totaled no more than 7% of the NRA's membership.

Now comes word that the House of Representatives, seeking to restore campaign finance regulations that were overturned by the Supreme Court in January, has struck a deal with the NRA to make that inequity even more pronounced.

Politico reports that House members have carved out an exemption to a proposed law that would "require special-interest groups to disclose their top donors if they choose to run TV ads or send out mass mailings in the final months of an election."

However, according to the article, that provision would not apply to groups that "have more than 1 million members, have been in existence for more than 10 years, have members in all 50 states and raise 15 percent or less of their funds from corporations."

Reports Politico: "Democrats say the new language would apply to only the NRA, since no other organization would qualify under these specific provisions."

Fred Wertheimer, president of the Democracy 21 campaign-reform group, told the Washington Post that the compromise constituted "a very narrow exemption" that would not apply to most advocacy groups.

Understandably, advocacy groups don't want to disclose their donors. Requiring them for the first time to do so, in exchange for the right to state their views on candidates, will no doubt constitute a chilling effect on their political voice.

The proposal, if enacted, would be yet another example of how obscure regulations affecting nongovernmental organizations perpetuate democratic inequalities.