Can the NAD lobby? #AskHoward
VIDEO DESC & TRANSCRIPT: Howard A. Rosenblum is sitting at his desk. The NAD logo appears on bottom right corner as a watermark.
HOWARD: Can the NAD lobby? The answer is complicated! The NAD has been approved as a 501c3 tax-exempt organization by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which is a U.S. government office. Because the NAD is 501c3 tax exempt, people who donate to the NAD can exempt that donation from their taxes. The NAD can also fundraise or earn money without paying taxes on it. That’s a nice perk to be a 501c3 organization but it does come with limitations. One limitation is that 501c3 organizations cannot endorse a political candidate for office, like the U.S. President, Senator, Congress Representative, and others like that — regardless of which party affiliation the candidate has. The rules for 501c3 organizations forbid support for any political candidate – no exceptions. Another limitation but is not completely forbidden for 501c3 organizations is to lobby. The IRS allows 501c3 organizations to lobby as long as it is not “a substantial part of its activities” which means that the organization cannot spend more than a specific percentage of its budget towards lobbying efforts. This means that for the NAD, we have a budget to pay our staff but are not allowed to use a big part of that budget for staff to lobby. We can pay our staff to lobby but it must be a small percentage to keep our 501c3 status. But what does “lobbying” mean? Yes, it’s confusing to many people, including myself! Lobbying means to take actions to try to convince any legislators such as senators and representatives to support or oppose a specific bill that may become law. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act, when it was a bill being considered to be a law back in 1990, many people were telling Congress to support or oppose the bill. The NAD was involved but not all staff members at the NAD were lobbying for the bill. Specific staff members who had such responsibilities lobbied for the bill on behalf of the NAD. The rest of the NAD staff did not do any lobbying, so it was okay for the NAD as a 501c3 organization because only a small part of our staff lobbied. That ADA bill was so important for the rights of deaf and hard of hearing people, and we worked hard on this bill. In the end, Congress did pass the bill and the ADA became law. The small percentage of our staff time that was spent on these efforts counted as allowed lobbying. After the bill passed, there was still more work to do. When laws like the ADA are passed by Congress, they are usually written with general language. The next step is to create more specific language to help guide how those laws will be followed and this is done by different departments or agencies of the federal government, such as the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Transportation (DOT), and many others. Passed laws give each of those agencies responsibility to create rules to help explain what it means to follow those laws. For the ADA, the rules needed to explain what hospitals are supposed to do or what the buses must do, what needs to happen with education, and many other areas of life. Agencies generally do not write these rules by themselves, but must ask for feedback, ideas, opinions, suggestions, and requirements from everyone in the public. The deaf community can provide its requests and requirements to agencies that are thinking about making rules for each law that is passed. Sending in such requests for rule-making is not considered lobbying because the law had already passed. Rule-making is a separate process. The rule-making process is an important opportunity for us to educate and explain what rules should be created. However, educating opportunities are not limited to only rule-making comments for a bill that was passed. We can meet with and educate Congress at any time about the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people. That kind of meeting and educating for policy needs is not considered lobbying. Another area that is not considered lobbying for any 501c3 non-profit organization including the NAD is to communicate our position with the community about people who are being nominated for appointment to government positions such as a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Secretary of Defense, or the Secretary of Transportation. The NAD can communicate whether or not we agree with the appointment based on the nominee’s position on the civil rights of deaf and hard of hearing people. This is not considered lobbying, and we are allowed to communicate our concerns because the nominee is not running for political office but is being appointed. The NAD does not and cannot endorse any candidates for office, but we can share our concerns about those who are nominated for appointment. To sum it up, lobbying means when asking Congress and other legislators to support or oppose a bill that may become law. Lobbying does not include being involved with the rule-making process and sharing concerns about nominees for appointments, which means it’s okay for nonprofits to do those things.
Video cuts to grey background with the NAD logo quickly changing in different bright colors from teal to white to black to hot pink to green to orange to teal to yellow to purple to finally the official NAD logo with copyright text underneath “The National Association of the Deaf (c) 2019 All Rights Reserved”.