A coalition of higher education associations on Thursday urged the Obama administration to exempt colleges and universities from its proposed rules on political activity among certain tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, Politico reported.
The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have been seeking public comments on their proposal to more clearly define what constitutes political campaign-related activity at “social welfare” nonprofits, which are organized under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code. Those organizations are permitted to engage in some campaign activity, but government watchdogs say the blurred lines are allowing an influx of secret money into politics that has a corrupting effect.
“We really do believe this would undermine our civic mission, which goes way back, even before the country was founded,” said Steven Bloom, director of federal relations at the American Council on Education (ACE), Politico reported. The higher education lobbying group, which represents 4,300 traditional two- and four-year nonprofit public and private colleges and universities across the U.S., sent a letter to the IRS this week strenuously arguing against the idea.
In proposing new standards for 501(c)(4) organizations, the Treasury Department and IRS also asked for input on whether they should apply the same definition of political campaign activity to 501(c)(3) organizations, which include most nonprofit colleges and universities.
Colleges and universities, like all 501(c)(3) nonprofits, are completely prohibited from engaging in any “political campaign intervention” as a condition of their tax-exempt status.
The ACE’s letter further stated, “We are deeply concerned about the potential application of the proposed definition of prohibited candidate-related activities for section 501(c)(4) organizations to section 501(c)(3) organizations, in particular non-partisan election-related activities including voter registration, get-out-the-vote drives, distribution of materials, voter guides, ‘public communication’ related to a candidate, and hosting events with candidates. Such campaign-related activities regularly occur at colleges and universities across the country because they are at the core of our mission to advance civic learning and democratic engagement.”
The IRS doesn’t have hard and fast rules for what constitutes such political activity for colleges and universities. Rather, the agency takes a more subjective approach that weighs the facts and circumstances of individual situations. If the IRS were to expand its new 501(c)(4) standards to colleges and universities, it would “fundamentally damage the role that colleges and universities have played for hundreds of years in encouraging civic learning and democratic engagement,” the ACE said in its letter.
Colleges, for instance, would be prohibited from hosting presidential debates or other speeches, forums or panels too close to an election. They would also face myriad restrictions in their public communications about election-related issues.
Bloom said that although the administration was merely seeking input, not proposing real changes at the moment, it is a “worrisome” issue for college leaders.
“The IRS doesn’t do this as an academic exercise,” he said. “They must be seriously contemplating what they view as problems.”
The letter from the ACE emphasized that “the proposed rules are inconsistent with other federal law that requires colleges and universities to distribute voter registration forms to their students.”