I just received this message from MoveOn.org. This is
absolutely frightening and shows exactly how sneaky and
unConstitutional the Bush Nazis really are:

"Are you involved in a local or national non-profit or public interest
organization? As a leader or board director or member? Please read this
message carefully, because your organization could be facing a serious
threat.

The Republican National Committee is pressing the Federal Election
Commission ("FEC") to issue new rules that would cripple groups that dare to
communicate with the public in any way critical of President Bush or members
of Congress. Incredibly, the FEC has just issued -- for public comment --
proposed rules that would do just that. Any kind of non-profit --
conservative, progressive, labor, religious, secular, social service,
charitable, educational, civic participation, issue-oriented, large, and
small -- could be affected by these rules.

By the way, one thing FEC's proposed rules do not affect is the donations
you may have made in the past or may make now to MoveOn.org or to the
MoveOn.org Voter Fund. They are aimed at activist non-profit groups, not
donors.

Operatives in Washington are displaying a terrifying disregard for the
values of free speech and openness which underlie our democracy.
Essentially, they are willing to pay any price to stop criticism of Bush
administration policy.

We've attached materials below to help you make a public comment to the FEC
before the comment period ends on APRIL 9th. Your comment could be very
important, because normally the FEC doesn't get much public feedback.

Public comments to the FEC are encouraged by email at

politicalcommitteestatus@fec.gov

Comments should be addressed to Ms. Mai T. Dinh, Acting Assistant General
Counsel, and must include the full name, electronic mail address, and postal
service address of the commenter.

More details can be found at:

http://www.fec.gov/press/press2004/20040312rulemaking.html

We'd love to see a copy of your public comment. Please email us a copy at
FECcomment@moveon.org.

Whether or not you're with a non-profit, we also suggest you ask your
representatives to write a letter to the FEC opposing the rule change.

Some key points:

- Campaign finance reform was not meant to gag public interest
organizations.
- Political operatives are trying to silence opposition to Bush policy.
- The Federal Election Commission has no legal right to treat non-profit
interest groups as political committees. Congress and the courts have
specifically considered and rejected such regulation.

You can reach your representatives at: *

Senator Arlen Specter
Phone: 202-224-4254


Senator Richard J. Santorum
Phone: 202-224-6324


Congressman Robert A. Brady
Phone: 202-225-4731

*(People from other states will have to check out their own representatives)


Please let us know you're calling, at:

http://www.moveon.org/callmade.html?id=2541-1265727-DYbUTpLXrmIgM2TZwwfqPg

In a non-election year, this kind of administrative overreach would never
find support. It goes far beyond any existing law or precedent. It is a
serious threat to the fundamental checks and balances in our system. But
because of an unholy alliance between a few campaign reform groups and GOP
partisans, this rule change could actually happen if we don't act now.

I've attached more details below, prepared by our attorneys and by the FEC
Working Group -- a group of more than 500 respected non-profit
organizations.

If you run a non-profit, don't assume this change doesn't apply to you.
First check out the EXAMPLES OF SPECIFIC CONSEQUENCES FOR NONPROFIT GROUPS
section below. It's outrageous.

Thanks for all you do,

Sincerely,
--Wes Boyd
MoveOn.org
March 30th, 2004
________________


EXAMPLES OF SPECIFIC CONSEQUENCES FOR NONPROFIT GROUPS

Under the proposed rules, nonprofit organizations that advocate for cancer
research, gun and abortion restrictions or rights, fiscal discipline, tax
reform, poverty issues, immigration reform, the environment, or civil rights
or liberties - all these organizations could be transformed into political
committees if they criticize or commend members of Congress or the President
based on their official actions or policy positions.

Such changes would cripple the ability of groups to raise and spend funds in
pursuit of their mission and could be so ruinous that organizations would be
forced to back away from meaningful conversations about public policies that
affect millions of Americans.

If the proposed rules were adopted, the following organizations would be
treated as federal political committees and therefore could not receive
grants from any corporation, even an incorporated nonprofit foundation, from
any union, or from any individual in excess of $5,000 per year:

- A 501(c)(4) gun rights organization that spends $50,000 on ads at any time
during this election year criticizing any legislator, who also happens to be
a federal candidate, for his or her position on gun control measures.

- A "good government" organization [§501(c)(3)] that spends more than
$50,000 to research and publish a report criticizing several members of the
House of Representatives for taking an all-expense trip to the Bahamas as
guests of the hotel industry.

- A fund [§527] created by a tax reform organization to provide information
to the public regarding federal candidates' voting records on budget issues.

- A civil rights organization [§501(c)(3) or §501(c)(4)] that spends more
than $50,000 to conduct non-partisan voter registration activities in
Hispanic and African-American communities after July 5, 2004.

- An organization devoted to the environment that spends more than $50,000
on communications opposing oil drilling in the Arctic and identifying
specific Members of Congress as supporters of the legislation, if those
Members are running for re-election.

- A civic organization [§501(c)(6)] that spends $50,000 during 2004 to send
letters to all registered voters in the community urging them to vote on
November 2, 2004 because "it is your civic duty."

Other potential ramifications include the following situations:

- A religious organization that publishes an election-year legislative
report card covering all members of Congress on a broad range of issues
would be unable to accept more than $5,000 from any individual donor if the
report indicated whether specific votes were good or bad.

- A 501(c)(3) organization that primarily encourages voter registration and
voting among young people will be required to re-create itself as a federal
PAC.

- A 501(c)(4) pro-life group that accepts contributions from local
businesses would break the law by using its general funds to pay for any
communications critical of an incumbent Senator's position on abortion
rights after the Senator had officially declared himself for reelection more
than a year before the next election.

- A 501(c)(3) civil rights group that has been designated as a political
committee can no longer hold its annual fundraiser at a corporate-donated
facility, and it must refuse donations or grants from donors that have
already given $5,000 for that year.

BRIEFING ON THE PROPOSED RULE CHANGES

Under federal campaign finance laws, federal "political committees" must
register and file reports with the FEC and can accept contributions only
from individual persons (and other federal committees), and only up to
$5,000 per year from any one donor ("hard money"). The FEC is now proposing
to redefine "political committee" to include any group that:

1. Spends more than $1,000 this year on nonpartisan voter registration or
get out the vote activity or on any ad, mailing or phone bank that
"promotes, supports, attacks or opposes" any federal candidate; and

2. Supposedly has a "major purpose" of election of a federal candidate as
shown by:

(a) Saying anything in its press releases, materials, website, etc. that
might lead regulators to conclude that the group's "major purpose" is to
influence the election of any federal candidate; or

(b) Spending more than $50,000 this year or in any of the last 4 years for
any nonpartisan voter registration or get out the vote program, or on any
public communication that "promotes, supports, attacks or opposes" any
federal candidate.

What's more, any group that gets turned into a federal "political committee"
under these new rules has to shut down all its communications critical of
President Bush (or any other federal candidate) until it sets up "federal"
and "non-federal" accounts; and raises enough hard money contributions to
"repay" the federal account for the amounts spent on all those
communications since the beginning of 2003.

These proposed rules would apply to all types of groups: 501(c)(3)
charitable organizations, 501(c)(4) advocacy organizations, labor unions,
trade associations and non-federal political committees and organizations
(so-called "527" groups, as well as state PACs, local political clubs,
etc.).

The new rules, including those that apply to voter engagement, cover all
types of communications -- not just broadcast TV or radio ads -- but
messages in any form, such as print ads, mailings, phone banks, email alerts
like this one, websites, leaflets, speeches, posters, tabling, even knocking
on doors.

The FEC will hold a public hearing on April 14 & 15. Written comments are
due by April 5 if the group wants to testify at that hearing; otherwise, by
April 9. The FEC plans to make its final decision on these proposed rules by
mid-May and they could go into effect as early as July, right in the middle
of the election year, potentially retroactive to January 2003.

It's clear that these rules would immediately silence thousands of groups,
of all types, who have raised questions and criticisms of any kind about the
Bush Administration, its record and its policies.

SOME TALKING POINTS

- The FEC should not change the rules for nonprofit advocacy in the middle
of an election year, especially in ways that Congress already considered and
rejected. Implementing these changes now would go far beyond what Congress
decided and the Supreme Court upheld.

- These rules would shut down the legitimate activities of nonprofit
organizations of all kinds that the FEC has no authority at all to regulate.

- Nothing in the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law or the Supreme Court's
decision upholding it provides any basis for these rules. That law is only
about banning federal candidates from using unregulated contributions ("soft
money"), and banning political parties from doing so, because of their close
relationship to those candidates. It's clear that, with one exception
relating to running broadcast ads close to an election, the new law wasn't
supposed to change what independent nonprofit interest groups can do,
including political organizations (527's) that have never before been
subject to regulation by the FEC.

- The FEC can't fix the problems with these proposed rules just by imposing
new burdens on section 527 groups. They do important issue education and
advocacy as well as voter mobilization. And Congress clearly decided to
require those groups to fully and publicly disclose their finances, through
the IRS and state agencies, not to restrict their independent activities and
speech. The FEC has no authority to go further.

- In the McConnell opinion upholding McCain-Feingold, the U.S. Supreme Court
clearly stated that the law's limits on unregulated corporate, union and
large individual contributions apply to political parties and not interest
groups. Congress specifically considered regulating 527 organization three
times in the last several years - twice through the Internal Revenue Code
and once during the BCRA debate - and did not subject them to
McCain-Feingold.

- The FEC should not, in a few weeks, tear up the fabric of tax-exempt law
that has existed for decades and under which thousands of nonprofit groups
have structured their activities and their governance. The Internal Revenue
Code already prohibits 501(c)(3) charities from intervening in political
candidate campaigns, and IRS rules for other 501(c) groups prohibit them
from ever having a primary purpose to influence any candidate elections --
federal, state, or local.

- As an example of how seriously the new FEC rules contradict the IRS
political and lobbying rules for nonprofits, consider this: Under the 1976
public charity lobbying law, a 501(c)(3) group with a $1.5 million annual
budget can spend $56,250 on grassroots lobbying, including criticism of a
federal incumbent candidate in the course of lobbying on a specific bill.
That same action under the new FEC rules would cause the charity to be
regulated as a federal political committee, with devastating impact on its
finances and perhaps even loss of its tax-exempt status.

- The chilling effect of the proposed rules on free speech cannot be
overstated. Merely expressing an opinion about an officeholder's policies
could turn a nonprofit group OVERNIGHT into a federally regulated political
committee with crippling fund-raising restrictions.

- Under the most draconian proposal, the FEC would "look back" at a
nonprofit group's activities over the past four years - before
McCain-Feingold was ever passed and the FEC ever proposed these rules - to
determine whether a group's activities qualify it as a federal political
committee. If so, the FEC would require a group to raise hard money to repay
prior expenses that are now subject to the new rules. Further work would be
halted until debts to the "old" organization were repaid. This rule would
jeopardize the survival of many groups.

- The 4 year "look back" rule would cause a nonprofit group that criticized
or praised the policies of Bush, Cheney, McCain, or Gore in 2000, or any
Congressional incumbent candidate in 2000 or 2002, to be classified as a
political committee now, even though the group has not done so since then.
This severely violates our constitutional guarantees of due process.

- These changes would impoverish political debate and could act as a de
facto "gag rule" on public policy advocacy. They would insulate public
officials from substantive criticism for their positions on policy issues.
They would actually diminish civic participation in government rather than
strengthen it. This would be exactly the opposite result intended by most
supporters of campaign finance reform.

- The FEC's proposed rule changes would dramatically impair vigorous debate
about important national issues. It would hurt nonprofit groups across the
political spectrum and restrict First Amendment freedoms in ways that are
unhealthy for our democracy.

- Any kind of nonprofit -- conservative, liberal, labor, religious, secular,
social service, charitable, educational, civic participation,
issue-oriented, large, and small -- could be affected by these rules. A vast
number would be essentially silenced on the issues that define them, whether
they are organized as 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), or 527 organizations.

- Already, more than five hundred nonprofit organizations - including many
that supported McCain-Feingold like ourselves - have voiced their opposition
to the FEC's efforts to restrict advocacy in the name of campaign finance
reform.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Resources on FEC Proposed Rule Changes Threatening Nonprofit Advocacy
FEC Working Group
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=14670

From two prominent reform organizations:

Soft Money and the FEC
Common Cause
http://www.commoncause.org/news/default.cfm?ArtID=282

Public Campaign Statement regarding FEC Draft Advisory Opinion 2003-37
Public Campaign"
http://www.publiccampaign.org/pressroom/pressreleases/release2004/statement02-17-04.htm