Political nonprofits must now name many of their donors
WASHINGTON — Advocacy groups pouring money into independent campaigns to impact this fall’s midterm races must disclose many of their political donors beginning this week after the Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to intervene in a long-running case.
The high court did not grant an emergency request to stay a ruling by a federal judge in Washington who had thrown out a decadesold Federal Election Commission regulation allowing nonprofit groups to keep their donors secret unless they had earmarked their money for certain purposes.
With less than 50 days before congressional elections, the ruling has farreaching consequences that could curtail the ability of major political players to raise money and force the disclosure of some of the country’s wealthiest donors.
In an interview, FEC Chairwoman Caroline Hunter said that the names of certain contributors who give money to nonprofit groups to use in political campaigns beginning Wednesday will have to be publicly reported.
“It’s unfortunate that citizens and groups who wish to advocate for their candidate will now have to deal with a lot of uncertainty less than two months before the election,” said Hunter, a Republican appointee.
Advocates for stricter regulation of money in politics celebrated the move.
“This is a great day for transparency and democracy,” Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which brought the case, said in a statement, adding: “We’re about to know a lot more about who is funding our elections.”
The ruling last month by Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell will be challenged on appeal. But in the immediate, the decision forces major groups on the left and the right to scramble and reassess how they plan to finance their fall campaigns.
Nonprofit advocacy groups — which do not have to publicly disclose their donors, as political committees do — will now have to begin reporting the names of contributors who give more than $200 per election toward their independent political campaigns, campaign finance lawyers said.
The change could affect heavyweight groups across the political spectrum, including the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity on the right and the League of Conservation Voters on the left.
The case began nearly six years ago when CREW filed a complaint to the FEC, arguing that it should require Crossroads GPS, a major conservative nonprofit, to disclose the names of donors behind a $6 million effort it ran in 2012 against Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
The FEC deadlocked on whether to open an investigation into Crossroads and then dismissed the complaint in 2015. The following year, CREW sued the agency.
In her ruling last month, Howell sided with CREW. In her 113-page opinion, Howell wrote that the FEC’s regulation “blatantly undercuts the congressional goal of fully disclosing the sources of money flowing into federal political campaigns, and thereby suppresses the benefits intended to accrue from disclosure.”