Why We Exist: An Overview
Eleanor Smeal
President, Feminist Majority and
Co-Chair, Free Speech Coalition Board of Directors
Richard Dingman
Vice President, Free Congress Foundation
David Keene
Chairman, American Conservative Union
ELEANOR SMEAL
PRESIDENT, FEMINIST MAJORITY AND
CO-CHAIR, FREE SPEECH COALITION BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Thank you.
We are a very, very unusual coalition for
Washington. I, as the President of the Feminist Majority, am
sitting between David Keene, who is representing the
American Conservative Union, and Dick Dingman, who is from
the Free Congress Foundation.
We would seldom, I think never, be on a
panel together on anything. As a matter of fact, if you look
at the groups which are supporting many of our activities
you could get quite dizzy. Many times in Washington you
figure out what side you are on by just looking at who is
supporting what.
The Free Speech Coalition is definitely a
coalition of groups from the left, right and center. In some
ways those are cold war terms, maybe not meaning so much,
but definitely they mean a lot to the groups in that we
represent many different viewpoints on issues that would
come before our public -- everything from gun control to
abortion to women's rights.
But we have come together to fight for
the existence of small, nonprofit advocacy groups. In
essence, we are worried that rules at the state and federal
level, and in some places even in localities, are becoming
so stringent and so difficult to meet that non-profits - -
organizations that are expressing opinions on public policy
-- have to hire a battery of lawyers and accountants just to
comply with the regulations. So, it is extremely hard for
new groups -- groups with ideas that maybe none of us have
ever heard of -- to get together and assembly to affect
public policy.
If more of these regulations which appear
to be reform take place, we will see fewer and fewer
non-profits, fewer and fewer small groups forming at the
grassroots constituency level.
I became active in public policy affairs
at a local level too many years ago now. Actually, I fear
that many of the things women's rights groups did long
before we had organizations would be very difficult to do
today because regulations are making it more and more
expensive to simply participate.
The Free Speech Coalition is concerned
about all those things that affect small nonprofits and
advocacy organizations such as fundraising, direct mail, and
solicitation of gifts through the mail.
When I first became active in non-profit
organizing, those were of less concern than they are today.
The postal regulations or the postal costs were very small.
Today, not only have postal rates gone up, but the
requirements to play the game have become more complicated.
The average group now must use a direct mail house or a
vendor or a business firm to get out their mailings at an
affordable price.
In essence, the better the equipment, the
more computers, the higher tech your establishment, and
whether you can go to a professional mailer, the cheaper you
can reach out through the mail. There isn't one rate for
every non-profit group. Those non- profit groups which
cannot afford all the high tech segmentation or separation
of the lists so that you do the Post Office's work for them,
are mailing at a higher rate.
If you have to mail at a higher rate,
guess what? You can't reach as many people. Yyou might have
the best idea on earth, but that idea is going to become one
that only reaches a very few people.
Wwe are so concerned about mail -- not
only the fundraising aspects, but the public education
aspects -- because in our modern society it is probably one
of the only ways a small non-profit organization can reach a
constituency economically. We are priced out of the market
for television advertising. We are priced out of the market
for radio and ewspaper advertising, too. So we are left with
either getting our message out of information through the
mails or literally walking door-to-door.
I figure with even the regulations of
walking door-to-door that we're all going to be left with
the proverbial soap box in some park, standing there
screaming at ourselves.
PARTICIPANT: You'll need a permit.
MS. SMEAL: That's it. There you go. We'll
need a permit in the park; so we won't have the soap box.
Will we just mutter to ourselves or throw something at the
television set?
No. We aren't going to accept that in a
free society. Instead, we -- the Free Speech Coalition --
banned together a very wide variety of organizations,
increasing in its variety everyday, to fight regulations
that make no sense or make it much more difficult for small
groups to operate effectively.
Some regulations are reasonable. We don't
fear a takeover of the public policy debate by rich, vested
interests that are doing it for their own interests. That
isn't the case. One example of what we do worry about is the
Lobby Reform Disclosure Act still before Congress. What is
primarily in front of the public from this bill is the
regulation of gifts from lobbyists to Senators or
Representatives, or officials. Who wouldn't want to end
expensive gifts or golf trips or payoffs to our policy
makers?
So, when you look at it as a private
citizen you think, well, that makes sense to me. Let's pass
that.
So who would be against it? Why should
small groups in any way worry about that?
We worry because the bill isn't just
about gifts and payoffs. In the fine print, there are
regulations on non-profit advocacy groups and how they have
to register and what the requirements are. Already there are
requirements at the IRS level. There are all kinds of
requirements.
And this bill adds another requirement:
it would ask all of us in the nonprofit community to yield
our membership lists or our constituency lists? And the
sponsors of the bil in Congress disagree about what it
means.
I've been before legislative bodies too
often where they say what really counts here is the
legislative history and the intent. I have been before the
courts too often where they say what really counts here is
the wording of the law and not the legislative
history.
This law could be interpreted by a
reasonable person to mean that nonprofit groups might have
to yield their membership lists, a lot of groups --
including the Free Speech Coalition -- say wait a minute and
make sure that it says it literally what the lawmakers want
it to mean.
Now, why would we be worried about
yielding our membership lists? What have we got to
hide?
One group today might seem
non-controversial, but tomorrow it might be controversial.
If you join a feminist group, would some employer assume you
are a trouble maker and decide not to hire you because you
might sue them for sexual harassment. The issue of privacy
and the freedom to associate are rights we are concerned
about.
To address these issues, the Free Speech
Coalition is forming a litigation committee to challenge
state regulations that are becoming so complicated that
ordinary heads of organizations can no longer fill out the
forms. You have to hire accounting firms. You have got to
hire lawyers. There is a different state regulation for
almost every state.
One of the beauties of the United States
of America is that we have the ability to go from one state
to another very freely. We have the ability to not only
travel, but to move, engage in commerce, etc.
That freedom doesn't seem to be extended
to nonprofits. Taxes are being placed on different
non-profits, registration fees, filing complications. For
those of us interested in reaching our constituents by mail,
they want us to put different disclaimers, with different
wording. So, your return devices have all this fine print
with different wording for different states.
Pretty soon we are going to need several
pages of direction just to tell our people what they have to
say in every state. Then they say, well, this is not so
onerous. This is just one state. They act as if we can
change the mailing for their state and not increase our
costs. Fifty different packets means again more costs, more
complications, and on it goes.
Our litigation plan is to challenge some
of the state laws that have made it economically impossible
to reach people within that state. Our litigation efforts
will challenge not only state, but if necessary federal
regulations which make it impossible or very difficult
nonprofit groups.
In sum, the Free Speech Coalition is made
up of nonprofit advocacy groups and others working together
to try to represent the interests that might not be a part
of our issue, but allows all nonprofit groups to reach
constituencies and members.
If we are only speaking for ourselves, we
will have no impact. In fact, we might as well just turn it
over to the very rich and let them talk to each other and
make our laws. If we are to have an impact with small groups
of people representing modest means, we have to do it with
numbers. We have to have rules and regulations that make
that possible.
We must also look at regulations that are
not as apparent as postal or charitable registration
regulations. Threats come from all different kinds of
agencies. The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) now has not
just one at the federal level, but little commissions in
every state.
We marvel every year at how more and more
millionaires are declaring for office and just buying, in
essence, the seat. The only people who can afford to operate
are those who are rich themselves. Up until now, we have not
challenged much. In fact, non-profits have sort of taken it
and looked at the limitations and have been afraid to do
anything. There has been a tremendous chilling
affect.
One of the things I worried about if the
Lobbying Disclosure Act passed is that many non-profits
would simply stop interacting with public officials. In
other words, fearful that they might do something wrong,
feeling that they could never afford the legal expenses,
they simply stop that activity. I have watched it happened
in the electoral circuits. When these reform law acts were
passed, groups thought that they would get together and form
PACs and that they would participate. Instead, many groups
have simply stopped participating in elections.
I think that is tragic enough in the
electoral system. It would even be worse in the legislative
system if public interest groups and non-profits simply
stopped talking to policy makers. We would then leave it
only to the very wealthy interests to do it as they used to
do it in smoked-filled back rooms. Today, I guess it
wouldn't be smoke-filled necessarily, but it would be rooms
of just a few individuals who would be able to wield any
influence without anybody checking. Well, we are not going
to let that happen. That's why we have banned
together.
It is the greatness of the United States
that we can come together for common interests and discuss
policy. In many ways, we should be doing this on other
issues so that everything we did was not so
polarized.
Anyway, that's where we are here. We are
working. We are trying to work together on very technical
issues affecting the ability to organize grassroots, to
publicly educate, and to fund raise in a manner that is not
too expensive and that can be done by groups of various
sizes -- especially small groups.
Now, I'd like to introduce Dick Dingman,
who is the Executive Vice President of the Free Congress
Foundation. He is the anchor of the American Family Show on
the National Empowerment Television, the new network that
has been established by the Free Congress Foundation. He
held a senior staff position in the House of Represenatives
as the Director of the House Republican Study Committee.
Dick.
DICK DINGMAN
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, FREE CONGRESS FOUNDATION
Thank you, Ellie.
The very mix that we see here today of
interest groups bespeaks the seriousness of our task because
none of the people who are here are people who needed
another meeting. None of the people here take lightly
matters that affect the freedom that we are working on here
today. So the very fact that you are here and that we have
such a philosophical mix tells us there is something
seriously amiss.
Now, during my many years on the Hill --
and I've been in the political and public policy arena now
for 30 years -- I have seen an awful lot of change. High
tech has made a lot of that change, with the sophistication
in the communications fields, with the introduction and
proliferation of fax machines.
I can remember when we first had a fax
machine in a Congressional office and it took about four
minutes to get a single page through. Today, they crank them
right out.
But all kinds of changes have taken place
that have resulted in a higher volume of input to the
offices.
In my early years, anytime I would go out
to speak to a public group, inevitably, the first question
that would be asked was, how can we be informed? Well, we
didn't have all of these public interest groups back then.
They have come about because people kept asking that
question: How can I be informed?
So, you, as participants in public
interest groups, have sought to fill that need, whatever
your subject. You have tried to find the cheapest, the most
effective way that you could to get a message out to those
who cared about your subject.
Well, that has resulted in an astounding
increase of incoming mail, whether it be voice mail, or
electronic mail, or faxes, or whatever. The Congressional
offices are now swamped because people are beginning to be
educated. The result is that Congressmen, Senators,
notwithstanding the fact that they are our representatives,
somehow are wishing they could be insulated from all of
this.
They liked constituent contact when they
originated. That's why they have all of the newsletters, et
cetera. But when they start getting volumes of input that
challenge them in any way, that's work. That's a political
booby-trap. And they don't like it.
We have seen evidence of some of the
proposed reforms that have resulted specifically from
interest groups exerting their rights of communicating and
getting people to communicate then back to their elected
officials. The best way to do that is to put more controls
on that incoming correspondence. And we see a whole spate of
things designed to do that. That's what has given rise to
the Free Speech Coalition.
The fact that there is a concerted effort
among many government entities to stifle constituent input
and that is where we take serious issue with them
collectively. It is our right to be able to communicate. It
is our right to be able to tell the people out in the field,
this is what is really happening in Washington and here is
what you can do about it. Then when they react to it and
grassroots spring up, then the elected officials get very
touchy.
As a member of the leadership of a
non-profit organization, I have many duties. One of them is
always to obey the law, whether it is a fundraising law, tax
law, or whatever. Our goal is to obey the law. Although, I
am not the finance director, I have a finance director who
is very competent. She comes to me and she says, here is a
whole bunch of state filings. Would you review these and
then sign off on them?
The other day she came to me and said in
Michigan they now want bios of all of the senior officials
of the organization in addition to the tax information and
the financial reports and all. It is just getting out of
control.
It is not just a matter of the difficulty
of complying with these things; every time there is a new
restriction added, you are exposured to an additional
opportunity to be in violation. That threatens all your
resources, ecause if you get sued you get taken --
challenged on it -- you have got to tie-up your resources in
that instead of your basic mission.
Our goal is to educate on issues. Our
goal is to raise funds so we can educate on issues. I don't
have time to keep track of all the nuances of state laws.
When I get in a magazine or some publication that says, oh,
some state has just changed the law on fundraising. You now
have to do x, y, and z to comply. You know, I might say, oh,
man. There is another one. I'll send it down to my finance
director. I wish I could change it, but I can't. I don't
have time to start leading the fight on that particular new
change.
That's why we have and need the Free
Speech Coalition. They keep a close eye on all of those
things, the collective impact of all of those things, and
tell each of us, the members, what is happening. Here is
what we can do. Here is a bill coming up that is going to
make life worse. It is going to stifle communications even
further.
Like you, I have dealt with many interest
groups in this city. Some of them are very effective. Some
are rather ineffective. I have certainly had plenty of
opportunities to make judgments on many of them. But I'll
have to tell you that my experience has been that I've
gotten timely information from this organization and concise
information. Even though lawyers write it, I can understand
it.
Not only are they telling me, here is
what we need you to do, and ere is the list of people who
need to be called, but they also are on the ground as I
expect they were yesterday. I was trying to reach Howard
yesterday, and of course the Lobbying Bill was up and all
kinds of things were done.
When I finally got him, he was able to
fax to me within five minutes a critical document that I was
then able to share with a number of other activists to go
back out and lobby further on the Lobbying Bill.
So, I'm simply suggesting to you that if
you are not a member, you need to seriously consider it
because this is an organization that can help keep you out
of trouble, but beyond that defensive measure, can help us
collectively go on the offensive and either roll back some
of these onerous provisions, have them declared illegal, if
that is the case, but certainly to prevent more and
worse.
I urge you to become seriously involved
because if you don't, we won't be having meetings like this
much longer because we won't have organizations like these
much longer. The nation needs to hear. I have no fear if my
issue differs from your issue.
I have no fear of whether you are going
to win or I'm going to win as long as we both have the
opportunity to communicate to the people. You communicate
your view of it. I'll communicate my view of it and let them
decide and let them act. But we both have the right and need
to preserve the right to communicate with them.
There are lots of ways that bureaucrats
and elected officials can stop our efforts, whether it is
through raising the postal rates, or whether it is through
redefining what is lobbying, or whether it is through
changing the application of the FEC rules, or whether
through state control or fundraising.
There are a whole array of avenues they
can get us. They will if we are not vigilant and active. So
I urge you to get involved, be involved and help take
leadership in stemming the tide that is coming against
us.
Thank you.
MS. SMEAL: Thank you very much.
Our next speaker is David Keene. He is
President of Keene, Helper and Associates, a governmental
affairs and political consulting firm based in Alexandria,
Virginia. He is also an attorney and a businessman. And, he
is the Chair of the American Conservative Union.
DAVID KEEN
CHAIRMAN, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION
Thank you, Ellie.
The reason that there are two of us and
one of her is that she is twice as effective in many
cases.
(Laughter)
We have to gang up a little bit to get
that proverbial level playing field.
I'd like to begin, and I'm not going to
spend a lot of time talking here, but I'd like to begin by
once again thanking Charles Overby and thanking the Freedom
Forum, John Segenfowler (phonetic) and Al Newhart for the
contributions they have made to this discussion.
Without the assistance of the Freedom
Forum, the conference we held last year would not have been
possible. I don't think the conference that we are having
here today would be possible. More than that, out of that
conference last year came a realization on their part that
the final clause of the First Amendment to the United States
Constitution is ignored more often than it is in fact
honored. The Constitution guarantees to the people of this
country the right to petition their government for redress
of grievances. Lobbying, broadly construed, is as protected
as religion, and the right to free speech, the right to
press. Yet no one seems to either grasp that simple fact, or
understand it, or operate with an eye toward that part of
the Constitution.
As a result of that, they asked me to
come down to Nashville to their headquarters this year. I'll
be down there for the next three or four months working with
them to develop a study of these threats to the right to
petition, the threats particularly directed at advocacy
groups.
In fact, during the course of the next
few months you will probably all be getting some letters
from me asking for some of your experiences, and the costs
incurred, and the inhibiting effects and all of these sorts
of things. I'd personally appreciate your cooperation on
that.
But more than that, all of this
underscores the dedication of the Freedom Forum to the kinds
of values that are necessary if any of us are to be able to
continue in the activities that we are involved in. Having
said that and looked at that and having experienced some of
the things that have been going on in the last few years, I
like a lot of other people I expect, wonder how many people
really do believe in the First Amendment? We all believe in
it for ourselves. But do we believe in it for the other
fellow?
I haven't been able to find very many
Members of Congress who believe in it for folks other than
themselves.
One of the problems is, and one of the
important reasons for this coalition is that those people
who understand that the First Amendment is essential to
their activities must also understand that they have to
stand up for the activities of others.
This Coalition is really a sort of
organic recognition of that fact. And it is important for
that very reason. What we have and we have had over the
years, is whenever anyone particularly in power sees one
aspect or another benefiting somebody with whom they
disagree, they'd find reasons why it ought to be corrected,
and why it ought to be restricted, or regulated, or
legislated out of existence, or whatever.
We have that with the airways. We have it
in the press. If conservatives feel that liberals dominate
the press, you hear some conservatives saying, well, we
ought to do something about that. If liberals think that
Rush Limbaugh has too much influence, they say, what we
ought to do is have legislation to solve that. If the United
States senator thinks that one side is getting the upper
hand in the Health Care debate as a Senator did at a press
conference this year, he said, they are lying about the
President's position. I'm going to have a law to prevent
that kind of lying.
This is not atypical. It is partly
because the people are human like the rest of us. If they
get power in their hands, they want to use it to further
their own agendas and prevent other people from furthering
theirs. So it doesn't mean that they are worse than anybody
else. Some of us might do the same sorts of things though.
Without the power, we always say that we wouldn't.
The fact of the matter is that non-profit
advocacy groups are really facing a serious threat. Some of
it is simply the burdensome nature of the regulations. Some
of it however is directed towards stifling the kinds of
activities in which we are involved. The one thing that
Congressmen can agree on regardless of party, regardless of
ideology, is that they don't like to be harassed by their
constituents.
They don't like to be bothered by people
who demand that they do this, or do that, or don't do that,
or don't do the other thing. That's one thing they can agree
on. So, you can easily get a coalition of people in the
Congress, in the Senate or the House, who don't like
something that some advocacy group is doing in their
district.
Last year, as you will recall, there was
an attempt in the House and in the Senate to get advocacy
groups to submit all of their contributor lists to the
Internal Revenue. The coalition that tried to put that
through consisted of people who, on the one hand, didn't
like what the Sierra Club was doing, or on the other hand,
didn't like what the American Conservative Union was doing,
or didn't like what this group was doing.
But they all agreed that they could get
together and create a little pain for all of these groups
and perhaps make their lives a little more uncomfortable.
Part of this is a response to something that Dick Dingman
was talking about and that is the advances of technology.
Ellie Smeal touched upon the same thing.
Twenty years ago, direct communication
from advocacy groups to constituencies in local areas was
not much of a threat to members of Congress or the Senate.
There were local groups that had a little influence here and
there. But lobbyists in 1960, or 1965, or even 1970 weren't
much different from the people who cornered President Grant
over at the Willard Hotel in the lobby and gave the
profession that name.
Those are the kinds of people that
Congressmen consider legitimate lobbyists. They may make
their life miserable on occasions, but they do take them to
play golf. They do give them gifts and they do help them
finance their campaigns and raise money. So there is a
benefit there to them.
Advocacy groups mostly just make their
lives miserable because advocacy groups go to their
constituents, the people who decide whether or not they are
going to keep their job and they don't give them much but
they educate their constituents.
Their constituents in turn contact their
congressman and say, why did you do this or why don't you do
that? And they don't even get to play golf. Now, twenty
years ago, that wasn't much of a problem, but today
computers, and mail, and the sophistication that has been
developed, and these alternative ways of communicating with
people have given advocacy groups and the people who care
about the issues that they care about, clout, which makes an
impact and which, frankly, restrains or restricts the
ability of Congressmen and Senators to do just as they
please or to respond to the folks who do take them
golfing.
So, to put it bluntly, we are all a royal
pain in the ass to every elected official in this country.
Some of us bother some more than others. And we all bother
different ones, but we bother them in total, completely. If
we would go away, they'd be happy. If they can't get us to
go away, they can certainly restrict that.
The Lobbying Disclosure Bill that Eleanor
mentioned, contains provisions that could very well require
every (C)4 that's involve in public policy issues lobbying
to divulge its list of contributors, members, and supporters
to the Federal Government; not just to the Federal
Government, but this time to a special agency of the Federal
Government set up to take care of these lists.
For forty years, advocacy groups have had
a recognized constitutional interest in keeping those lists
private ever since NAACP v. Alabama in 1958. If one thinks
that what is going on is more than simple harassment,
several questions have to be asked. The first one is, what
overriding government purpose is served by passing a law
establishing an office and paying some bureaucrats to force
Eleanor Smeal to give up her contributor list? What
overriding government purpose is solved? What purpose is so
important that it requires trampling on her rights under the
United States Constitution?
The fact of the matter is that there is
no government purpose served by that. One thing it does do
is make her life miserable so that the Congress can become
just the sort of pain in the ass to her that she is to them.
In many cases, that's what this is all about.
In many cases, these laws, while couched
in terms of reform, these laws while sold as if they're
designed to protect the political consumer are, in fact,
designed to put some brake on the power and growth of groups
that are dedicated to pushing issues, agendas on behalf of
their members throughout the country.
I think we have to recognize that and I
don't think that it's too cynical of me to say that that is
the principle motivation. Last year, when we gathered in
this room, somebody said, in fact, somebody from the
Congress said that they didn't find it unreasonable that the
Congress should regulate the color of the envelopes that we
would use in making mailings. Remember that? We all
laughed.
This year, President Clinton signed into
law a bill that may very well empower the government to send
you to jail if you use the wrong color envelope in one of
your mailings. It's not a joke any more. It also limits your
ability to do a lot of other things.
Within that law, it stated very clearly
that if you do any of the things that the government doesn't
like in any of these areas, that a disclaimer on your
literature should not be taken into account by the courts in
determining whether you are guilty or not.
Obviously, if we put a disclaimer on it,
it's only because we're doing something wrong and want to
get out of the punishment that is due us. We are not winning
this fight and we're not winning it for a number of reasons.
The first is clear in the coverage of these so-called reform
efforts.
Very few people pay any attention to
what's going on. Eleanor mentioned the fact that the
discussion has all been about these gifts that Congressmen
can or cannot take from lobbyists. Very little discussion
about the fine print that affects us.
There's very little discussion of it
because there's very little understanding of its importance.
There is very little understanding of the way in which
non-profit advocacy groups function. There's very little
understanding of the way in which we all have to raise
money. We would all be very pleased if we could just make a
phone call and get our entire budget every year and the net
that we raised from that effort would be tremendous. We
can't do that.
Particularly, new groups, particularly
smaller groups have to rely on their membership and
supporters and that is very expensive. I can't tell you how
many times in both political operations and advocacy
operations I've received calls from reporters and I'm sure
Eleanor has, too, who said, explain to me the way this mail
works and how come it costs so much and how come the direct
mail firm is getting this much money or how come you're
spending this money to raise that much money.
It sounds outrageous to me. They say that
because they don't get it. They don't understand. Public
policy makers, the ones who are not out to get us, don't
understand. So, the sale of provisions and laws and
regulations that have a serious impact on our ability to
function, the sale of those provisions is relatively easy
because they are being sold to a consumer that doesn't get
it.
Perhaps the disclaimers and perhaps the
explanations ought to be required of the legislators that
are trying to make that sale to these uninformed consumers.
This coalition is vitally important because if we aren't
going to be active, there really isn't anyone out there who
isn't perceived as having his own axe to grind, and
therefore, has credibility problems.
There won't be anyone out there who can
say to the press and to the policy makers, wait a minute.
What are the First Amendment implications of this? What
about our right to function? Not only that, what about the
function that we serve in an interactive democracy? What
about the First Amendment? What about free speech and what
about the motives of these people that are doing this? What
about the impact of what they're doing?
I think that from the standpoint of every
advocacy organization in the country, what we're doing here
today and what the Free Speech Coalition is doing every day
is of vital importance. When I say it's of vital importance
to advocacy organizations, I'm really saying a lot more than
that.
The vibrant nature of our democratic
system today is largely dependent upon the activities of
those groups from every end of the spectrum and on every
issue. It is groups, advocacy groups that are reaching
people in towns and cities around this country and getting
them active in politics, getting them active in caring about
what their government and their elected officials do.
Twenty years ago, elected officials and
political scientists were complaining that Americans weren't
active enough. They weren't involved enough. Now, they are
getting involved and the result is that the political
scientists say, well, this skews the system and elected
officials say, we got to do something about it. They are too
active. We have got to quiet them down.
Well, if they succeed in quieting them
down, we suffer. The issues that we care about suffer and
just as importantly, the country suffers. So, the Free
Speech Coalition is important. Your participation in it is
vital and what we're doing here today is crucial to what
will happen legislatively in the regulatory arena and in the
courts in the next year.
Thank you.
MS. SMEAL: Thank you. If you noticed in
the agenda that was handed out, Senator Coverdell was
supposed to be here and because the Senate is in session, he
isn't here.
When I was listening to my colleagues on
this panel, I was trying to think of real concrete
illustrations, because a lot of people do get mad at the
volume of mail while we think all we're doing is wasting
money trying to reach people with the mail. They look at
these groups that have a very small percentage of their
budget is paid for fundraising and a lot of them are large,
so-called charities.
I once did an analysis of the top 100
charities. Now, a charity in our country is what is called a
501(c)3, an organization which is tax exempt and tax
deductible. An advocacy group is tax exempt; we don't pay
any taxes but we are not tax deductible because we're trying
to influence public policy.
Most of the 100 are, I think all of them
are tax- exempt and tax deductible to their givers. But if
you look at who their givers are, they have one major common
denominator that I think the public would be shocked by if
they knew. It is the reason that the percentage that they
spend on fundraising is so low.
The top three groups, I think, receiving
the biggest contributions are the American Red Cross,
Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army. Can you guess
what the one major common denominator is that they
have?
Their largest single contributor is the
government. In other words, they don't have to send out as
many direct mail public solicitation because they are
getting money from the government. When I toured in Europe,
European feminist groups couldn't get over this phenomena
that we had these non-profit advocacy groups with which we
have a public position.
We're trying to change things, shake it
up or bring about movement and each of us have our own
movement for a change. They kept asking us, where do we get
our money. I would say, we send these letters out and we get
on the phones. It's called telemarketing, direct mail and we
ask people. We educate them according to our positions and
they send it back. They were just astounded.
Most women's groups in Western Europe
have entire budgets raised from the government. In other
words, the government pays for the so-called public interest
groups. Then, we wonder why there are not big movements for
changes in certain countries. Could you imagine some folks
funding some of us from the government? I mean, give me a
break.
So, I don't think people realize that. I
don't think they realize that when you see a small
percentage of fundraising, it doesn't necessarily mean that
that is a more effective, cost-effective administration. It
just might mean it has one major donor or it might mean that
it has a government donor or it might mean that it is
endowed.
MR. KEENE: Eleanor, let me throw in
another example we just discussed before the panel.
This summer, Senator Pryor appeared at a
press conference sponsored by the National Council of Senior
Citizens at which he attacked a number of groups, about a
dozen of them including the American Conservative Union as
direct mail scams. He said that their opposition to the
President's programs was simply being done for profit
reasons and he used as his evidence the fact that these
groups are all raising money in the mail and spend too much
raising money.
They then demanded that all these groups
give them immediate access to their 990 forms and it was at
this press conference that he said, I'm going to develop
legislation to prevent this. We asked for the 990 form of
the sponsoring organization, the National Council of Senior
Citizens, a group that bills itself as an advocacy group
with six million members.
The latest return we could get was from
1992, when this organization had a budget of $71 million. Of
the $71 million, $69.5 million came from the Department of
Labor. Every official of the organization was a retired
labor union official.
This organization put out statements that
these other groups were illegitimate because they spent too
much of their money on fundraising. My reaction was, if I
only had to send one letter every year to get 98 percent of
my budget, I can tell you that our net would be very high.
Unfortunately, most groups -- my organization, Eleanor's
organization can't do that.
So, it's very important, first, that
people do understand the way in which purely private,
issue-oriented advocacy groups raise their funds and the
fact, as Eleanor stated, that simply looking at a percentage
as some states attempted to get regulations enforcing that
were in fact struck down by the Supreme Court a few years
ago, but simply looking at that is an absurd way of
evaluating either the public support that a group has or the
efficiency of its operations because most of it may come
from the government or from one contributor, from one
millionaire.
I know that Stuart Mott's organizations,
for example, have a much higher net for the amount of money
they send on fundraising than you do or I do. He has every
right to do that. There are conservatives who do the same
thing. That doesn't mean somehow that they are more
legitimate than people who go out and depend on their
membership for funds that they have
MS. SMEAL: You know, only about eight
percent of the American public belongs to these groups and
part of the reason is, we don't have enough. So, we want to
make much more exchange, much more action and a free
marketplace of ideas.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
MR. SEGERMARK: My name is Howard
Segermark.
While our next panel is coming up here, I
want to announce the first cloture vote on the Lobby
Disclosure Act.
Cloture was defeated 46 to 52. They
needed 63 and they only got 52 votes.
(Applause)
That's where Senator Coverdell is right
now.
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