Protecting Nonprofit Rights

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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ChangeCongress Helps Empower Citizens

Mar 25, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

Last week a new effort began which uses technology to promote a transparent and open government. ChangeCongress wants legislators to make four commitments, which they can do by filling out a form indicating which of the pledges they support. In the end, it provides a graphic that the candidates can then place on their election campaign web sites. Citizens can also fill out pledges to put on their own website. ChangeCongress is an innovative way to organize citizens, encourage them to be politically active, and in doing so demands accountability in political campaigns.

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Supreme Court Will Not Hear Citizens United Case

Mar 25, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

The Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from Citizens United, which is requesting a challenge to campaign finance rules that require disclosure of those paying for political ads in the weeks before an election (Citizens United v. FEC). The Supreme Court's decision upholds a lower court ruling that denied the group a preliminary injunction and found that the ads Citizens United wanted to air advertising its documentary Hillary: The Movie, constitute as "electioneering communications." Therefore the group must disclose who funded the ads.

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New Group to Help Muslim Charities Worldwide

Mar 24, 2008 by Kay Guinane

Today's Chronicle on Philanthropy blog reports on formation of the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, an international effort to help Muslim donors and organizations make the public more aware of their work and to increase organizational capacity. The group held a two day inaugural meeting in Istanbul, and will set up offices in the United States and at least one Muslim country. The founder is Tariq H. Cheema, a Pakistani doctor living in Illinois. The blog said,

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11 States Considering Voter ID Requirements at Polls

Mar 24, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

Electionline.org reports that 11 states are considering legislation that will require voters to present photo ID at the polls. In January, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case concerning the constitutionality of such laws in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. The states considering such laws include California, Illinois, and Maryland.

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Date Set for SpeechNow.org Case

Mar 20, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

On April 11 the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments in the SpeechNow.org case. SpeechNow.org wants to advocate for the election of federal candidates who favor free political speech, and is challenging campaign finance law that requires the group to register as a political committee, and limits individual donations to $5,000 per year.

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Treasury Wins Award for Worst FOIA Agency

Mar 20, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

The LCCR was not the only one to notice Treasury's leisurely response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

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Defense of Member Disclosure Law Based on Outdated Supreme Court Decision

Mar 20, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

Attorneys for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) have filed a brief asserting that those who support the member disclosure law "have put too much emphasis on a half-century-old Supreme Court decision." NAM is challenging a provision of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA), Section 207, which requires coalitions and associations to reveal members involved in their lobbying.

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Lieberman Also Considers IRS Guidance to be Unclear

Mar 19, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) wrote to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requesting clarification of its standards for investigating candidates' and elected officials' appearances at churches. Lieberman questioned why the IRS chose to investigate the United Church of Christ for possibly violating the ban on partisan electioneering with a speech by Senator Barack Obama (D-IL).

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Treasury Releases Information on Complaints Made by Individuals Wrongly Placed on Terrorist Watchlist

Mar 19, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

In response to a federal court order, the U.S. Treasury Department released to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) of the San Francisco Bay Area over 100 pages of documents that show that a terror watch list has wrongly linked ordinary Americans to terrorism.

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The VA Can Deny Third Party Voter Registration on its Property

Mar 19, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

A recent AlterNet story highlights an unfortunate case that has been going on since the 2004 presidential election, challenging the refusal of the Veterans Administration to help soldiers register to vote. In August 2007 the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, in Preminger v.

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