Minnesota's state employee relations commissioner has made a decision not to allow any advocacy oriented organizations to participate in the annual state employee deduction charity drive. The annual drive, Minnesota State Employee Giving Campaign, gives state employees the opportunity to donate money to their favorite charity through the payroll system. The donation is then used as a tax deduction for employees. The giving campaign started in 1980. Only this year, Department of Employee Relations Commissioner Cal Ludeman has single-handedly made the decision to deny a United Way alternative, the Community Solutions Fund (CSF), from participating in this year's drive. Removing the Community Solutions Fund -- which raises money for such groups as the Minnesota Senior Federation's Metro Region, the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women, Missing Children Minnesota, the Greater Minneapolis Day Care Association, Jewish Community Action, and 42 other groups -- would cut its total annual fundraising efforts in half. CSF has filed an appeal seeking to reverse Ludeman's decision. "The decision by Commissioner Ludeman unfairly targets grassroots organizations. His actions threaten all nonprofits who do any form of advocacy or whose mission is at odds with the Commissioner's values," says Marsha Frey, executive director of CSF. Ludeman explained his decision in a Opinion Editorial printed in the Star Tribune in order to combat the bad press that has surrounded his decision. In the editorial he writes, "Their [the Community Solutions Fund's] continued expansion of affiliated agencies that expressly engage in social change advocacy is in direct conflict with the laws governing the state employee charity campaign...The law provides a specific and narrow definition of "charity" as devoting a substantial amount of its activities to direct social services to individuals." Conversely, Nina Rothchild, former Department of Employee Relations Commissioner, explains that a lawsuit and legislation got the CSF access to the drive in the early 1980s. The legislation that Ludeman is interpreting "was written specifically to allow them to be part of the payroll deduction system," Rothchild told the Star Tribune. "Our department strongly supported it," she said. The Minnesota Attorney General, Mike Hatch, recalled approving registration for the Community Solutions Fund when he was state commerce commissioner in the 1980s. "I know when it was granted, advocacy was considered to be part of the service...One could ask what has changed to make it not be qualified," Hatch told the Star Tribune.