Hammer Blow Might Strike Nonprofits?

04:30 PM Sep 30, 2005

A roomful of Washington liberals plotting to get back in power is just the place to be when news comes down the pike that Tom DeLay's been indicted. Simon Rosenberg made the announcement to a round of applause at the latest New Politics Institute forum -- good events worth coming out to if you happen to be based in D.C. You can lay hands on the video from the last one, if you're favorably inclined to chatter about the "Post Broadcast Media" world (not as boring as it sounds); unlike the live performance, the .wmv version doesn't come with free lunch.

But I bring up NPI to bring up Tom DeLay, and I bring up the Hammer to bring up the law of unintended consequences.

Our friends and neighbors at OMB Watch have already been running a campaign to prevent the FEC from clamping down on charities' ability to air advocacy messages. (This is the last day of the public comment period, so get yours in stat. There's more issue background here.)

Now comes word that the GOP congressional leadership might be eyeballing a bill to choke off all issue advocacy from any nonprofit that gets federal grants (it's already illegal to use federal grant money for advocacy, so we're talking strictly private funds here). This "defund the left" proposal has long been a hobbyhorse of the right -- including the new Chief Justice -- whose most pungent expression is the Global Gag Rule outlawing open discussion of abortion among family planning grantees.

What do you know? Turns out the Bug Man has been holding up the gag rule for domestic grantees bill all this time.

With new sheriffs in town, OMB Watch hears that gagging federal grantees is back on the table. It issued an urgent e-mail appeal (no web presence I can find of it yet) to its list of nonprofit colleagues for immediate calls and faxes to the House leadership of both parties in opposition to the Republican Study Committee proposal for H.R. 1461.

It's not just NGOs with a finger in the federal pie that should be worried. If this goes down, the next Heritage Foundation policy paper on deck probably cuts you off at the knees, or the next one after that.

Here are those phone numbers:

Speaker of the House of Representatives
Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
Phone: 202-225-0600
Fax: 202-226-1996

House Majority Leader (Designated)
Rep. Roy Blount (R-MO)
Phone 202-225-6536
Committee Direct Dial: 202-225-0197
Committee Policy Fax: 202-226-1115

Office of the Minority (Democratic)
Rep.Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Phone 202-225-4965
Fax: 202-225-4188
Fax 202-225-8259

Minority Whip
Rep. Steny Hoyer
Whip's office phone: 202-225-3130
Phone 202-225-4131
Fax 202-225-4300

Committee Chair Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH)
Direct Dial: 202-225-7502 (Committee)
Phone 202-225-2676
Fax: 202-226-0577

Update: If you really can't resist kicking the Majority Leader-in-Exile while he's down, there's a party going on over at Public Citizen's Dethrone DeLay.

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