Decisions on Election Activity Meet With Mixed Reactions

The Federal Election Commission has stepped back from regulating charities’ political advertising, leaving it to the Internal Revenue Service to decide whether such ads violate the federal ban on electioneering by charities.

At the same time, an effort in Congress to allow churches to campaign for or against political candidates failed.

The election commission agreed to allow charities, but not other types of nonprofit groups, to run advertisements on television and radio that mention a candidate for office within 60 days of an election, or 30 days of a primary. Charities still are barred from running ads whose main purpose is to endorse a candidate for political office. However, the commission said it would rely on the Internal Revenue Service to ensure that charities do not engage in overtly partisan politics. The ruling is one of many the commission is making as it decides how best to enforce the federal campaign-finance law signed this year.

Affiliates of charities that engage in lobbying — groups usually classified under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code — will continue to be barred from running advertisements that refer to candidates, even if the ads relate to issues or legislation and do not oppose or support a particular candidate, the commission ruled. That prohibition, however, will apply only to paid advertisements, it said. Thus, for example, public-service announcements will not be restricted if they do not back specific candidates.

The Alliance for Justice, an association of grass-roots advocacy organizations, and OMB Watch, which monitors government spending, praised the commission’s decision to allow charities unrestricted freedom to advertise. They said it means charities must comply only with IRS rules on such ads.

But the organizations said they were disappointed the commission did not also allow 501(c)(4) groups to run advertisements that, for example, urge viewers to call a particular lawmaker about an issue.

Separately, the House of Representatives defeated a bill that would have allowed churches and other religious groups — but not charities — to campaign for political candidates and donate money to their campaigns.

The Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act (H.R. 2357) failed by a vote of 239 to 178. Some Republican leaders supported the measure, which was sponsored by Representative Walter B. Jones Jr., a North Carolina Republican. But many of those who last year voted to change campaign-finance law opposed it.

“Our religious organizations should continue to be places where ministers, priests and rabbis, and imams give moral and spiritual guidance,” said Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat. “We should not allow them to be transformed into institutions that tell their members and their parishioners how to vote.”

Opponents of the legislation included Independent Sector, a coalition of charities and foundations, which argued that the change would embroil religious groups in “partisan politics” and undercut their ability to represent their members. Some religious and civic groups also opposed the measure, while several conservative religious organizations supported it.