How To Become A Registered Lobbyist In Massachusetts
HOUSE SPEAKER RON MARIANO recently announced that he was asking the House Rules Committee to take a look at the rules effectually "unregistered, or vaguely-affiliated, advocates and coalitions."
Mariano'southward pronouncement created confusion – and some concern – among public policy advocates. Only information technology has as well highlighted the complex nature of lobbying on Beacon Colina, with an assortment of coalitions, nonprofits, lobbyists, and members of the public all making their voices heard, under frequently confusing regulations.
Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin said there has been an uptick in contempo years in instances where groups have come together to lobby every bit a coalition – but the coalition does non be as a legal entity and is not registering with Galvin's lobbying sectionalisation. "We've gone round and round on a number of groups and had to negotiate disclosure," Galvin said.
Mariano wrote in his email to members that "the parameters for how to work with these opaque coalitions are ill-defined and can create a lack of clarity." He said he is asking the Rules Committee to "develop a set of all-time practices for engaging with these groups" and then that lawmakers and staff are "readily aware of who they are meeting with, which external groups comprise a coalition, and how those groups are funded."
Asked for clarification on who Mariano was talking about and how he might regulate the groups, Mariano spokesperson Joe Masciangioli said "the Rules Committee will gain a better sense of those solutions and which groups will exist impacted in one case it completes its study."
Many speculate that Mariano was referring to Deed on Mass – a group that is pushing for increased State Business firm transparency – and the Mass Financial Alliance, a fiscally conservative group, both of which are nonprofits and neither of which take to disclose their donors.
Matt Miller, co-founder of Human activity on Mass, said his grouping is a nonprofit funded past labor unions and private donations with a "tiny" budget. He called it "shocking" that Mariano is trying "to put the focus on a really modest grassroots organisation equally if we're doing something shady" when the grouping is asking for modest reforms to make the legislative process more transparent.
The Mass Fiscal Alliance is a 501c4, a "social welfare" nonprofit that is not required to disclose donors, but it has faced scrutiny over whether it should be classified every bit a political commission and subject to donor disclosure laws. In 2016, the Office of Campaign and Political Finance found that Mass Financial Brotherhood is not a political committee merely did violate the law by failing to disclose who donated money to buy door hangers and handbills during a Fitchburg special election. Mass Financial'south campaign activity, primarily mailers attacking candidates the grouping dislikes, has particularly angered Democrats on Beacon Colina.
Paul Craney, a spokesman for Mass Financial Alliance, said he thinks Mariano is trying to "consolidate more than power" past setting up new regulations for how the public can interact with members. "Anytime you lot put upwards whatsoever kind roadblock like that, it's a bad matter," Craney said. "Rank and file lawmakers should make up one's mind on their own how they communicate with the general public."
Craney said the tax rules that do not require nonprofits to disclose their donors stem from the civil rights era, when segregationists wanted to know who was supporting the civil rights movement. "For decades, everyone agreed, including liberals, that at that place was a value in making sure nonprofits had some kind of protection of liberty of spoken language and association among their members," Craney said. He said his arrangement has received death threats, and there is a danger of harassment if donors are disclosed.
Pam Wilmot, vice president of state operations for the national good government group Common Cause, who previously led Common Cause in Massachusetts, said it is hard to know what Mariano is referring to. Land law requires groups to disclose their donors if they are involved in elections, through election questions or candidates. Lobbyists must disclose their clients and payments in filings with the Secretary of State's function. And courts have ruled – most notably in a landmark 1958 US Supreme Courtroom case involving the Alabama NAACP – that nonprofit groups do not have to disclose their donors if they are not conducting election-related political activity.
Wilmot noted that state lobbying laws are in place to serve public transparency, non legislators' convenience. If lawmakers endeavor to impose additional rules, she said, "You tin go overboard and run into Start Subpoena issues and into harassment problems for no additional real public benefit."
One trouble Galvin has flagged is groups uniting to abet for a bill as a coalition, which is non organized as a legal entity and does not register its lobbying. For instance, a coalition might utilize a lobbyist employed by a union, and the lobbyist does not disclose the coalition as their client. Or a coalition might advocate in a way that does non involve a paid staffer coming together straight with a lawmaker.
State lobbying laws require registration of anyone who is paid at least $2,500 and spends at least 25 hours lobbying over a six-month period. Lobbying under land police force covers a wide range of political activities intended to influence legislation.
Galvin spokesperson Deb O'Malley said most of these cases take been resolved through discussions, with the coalition either registering or deciding to cease lobbying. Some negotiations are ongoing, she said.
Anecdotally, groups take varied approaches to lobbying. Raise Up Massachusetts, a ballot committee that advocates primarily for workers rights' issues, uses registered lobbyists who work for its member organizations. Those members written report the lobbying as in-kind contributions.
Some advocates may concord events at the Land Business firm, merely believe they do not accept to register because their activities are non lobbying. Lisa Guisbond is president of Massachusetts Didactics Justice Alliance and executive director of Citizens for Public Schools, both groups that advocate for public school funding. She said she did not register as a lobbyist because she personally does not lobby lawmakers – her focus is on educating the groups' members and urging them to be informed and talk to lawmakers.
Zac Bears, former director of the higher education advancement organization PHENOM, said similarly that while he has held events at the State House and connected constituents with lawmakers, he rarely meets direct with lawmakers. Bears said he is unclear what Mariano is because, but "it seems a footling cocky-defeating to me to try to not have lawmakers connecting with dissimilar residents and constituents and voters to talk about issues."
The discussion is also reviving long-standing debates about transparency in the controversial world of educational activity policy. On 1 side are several matrimony-funded groups, which tend to abet for more than public school funding. On the other side are foundation-funded groups that tend to push for reforming public schools and providing educational choice. Organizations on both sides take faced questions well-nigh paperwork compliance and donor disclosure.
Mo Cunningham, a political scientific discipline professor at UMass Boston and co-founder of the MassPoliticsProfs web log, who belongs to the Massachusetts Teachers Association, has long led the charge to scrutinize the funding behind foundation-backed groups, particularly Massachusetts Parents United, an urban parent organization focused on improving schools.
"They desire to call themselves a bunch of scrappy moms who started in a library, and so lo and behold the Waltons want to dump $1.5 meg on it," Cunningham said, referring to the family unit who started Walmart. "You won't find an inch of departure between their policy priorities and those of their funders, an out-of-state family unit that is the richest in the country."
Like her financial supporters or not, Keri Rodrigues, founder of Massachusetts Parents United, said she is transparent about where the arrangement gets its funding. She publishes the identity of donors on the arrangement'due south website, and its tax forms are public. Massachusetts Parents United is funded mainly by foundations, including the Walton Family Foundation and the Boston-based Barr Foundation, both of which likewise fund other Massachusetts pedagogy reform groups.
Rodrigues said she gets frustrated with reporters and advocates referring to her organisation equally "Walton-funded" when the other side is non described as "union-funded." "I'm more transparent than I need to be virtually who we are, how we're funded," Rodrigues said. "Nobody else on the other side of our advocacy fights is held to that standard….There's a group of 10 to xv people who all shuffle around, so it looks like all unlike organizations, but they're all literally funded by teachers' unions."
She pointed, for instance, to the nonprofit Citizens for Public Schools. "Are you actually citizens for public schools or are you lot another branch of the teachers' union? It's a game of smoke and mirrors," Rodrigues said.
Paul Toner, a quondam Massachusetts Teachers Clan president, echoes Rodrigues' concern and said the problem is that some organizations, like Massachusetts Didactics Justice Alliance or Citizens for Public Schools, appear to be citizens' groups. "They were created by the unions, in most respects they're funded by the unions, they're used to reinforce the messaging of the unions. I think the problem people take had with them is that's not very credible," Toner said.
Merely representatives of the union-backed groups say in that location is a reason for the dissimilar groups, which accept different purposes but sometimes share common goals. For example, PHENOM, Jobs With Justice, and Fair Test accept some overlap with i another and with the unions when information technology comes to staff or directors. Only PHENOM focuses on higher education, Jobs With Justice on workers' rights, and Fair Test is a national group critical of standardized testing.
Bears, the former PHENOM director, who sits on the board of Jobs with Justice and was an officeholder at the Massachusetts Didactics Justice Alliance, said some of the groups share staff or officers. Simply, he said, "It'due south not some cloak-and-dagger network of didactics organizations as much as a public coalition of educational activity organizations who accept come together to accelerate policy goals."
Guisbond said Citizens for Public Schools started in 1982 to oppose an initiative that would take allow public education funds get to individual schools. It morphed into a 501c3 membership organisation focused on protecting public schools.
Guisbond said Citizens for Public Schools "is certainly registered with the state and nosotros are transparent about who we are and who supports us." The organisation's directors, which include leaders of the state'due south teachers' unions, and its acquirement are public in state and revenue enhancement filings. Its "centrolineal organizations," though non specifically donors, are listed on its website. A 501c3 is a charity with more than restrictions on political activity than a 501c4, although both types of nonprofits are tax exempt and do not have to disclose donors.
The Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance is a coalition of parents, students, educators, and organizers that was founded to oppose a 2016 ballot question to expand charter schools, and is now focused on increasing public schoolhouse funding. It had been a 501c4, a nonprofit "social welfare" system, just the Internal Acquirement Service stripped it of its tax exemption because of its failure to file required revenue enhancement documents for three years. It has also not filed annual reports with the chaser general's office.
MEJA has since changed its treasurer from Juan Cofield, the president of the New England Area Conference NAACP, to Beth Kontos, president of American Federation of Teachers – Massachusetts. Kontos said the organization filed the necessary revenue enhancement forms and is waiting for an IRS response. Asked about filings with the attorney general's office, spokesperson Steve Crawford said, "Our new leadership is working through the process of ensuring that the organization is in full compliance as a non-turn a profit."
Although nonprofits do not accept to disclose their donors, Kontos said MEJA is funded by teachers' unions, foundations, and private donations. Member groups include the country'southward teachers' unions and organizations like PHENOM, Jobs With Justice, and Citizens for Public Schools.
MEJA is non the but organisation to have had compliance problems. Rodrigues, of Massachusetts Parents United, was previously the state managing director of Families for Fantabulous Schools, a national organization advocating for the 2016 ballot question to expand admission to lease schools. Families for Splendid Schools was fined by the Part of Entrada and Political Finance for hiding the identity of donors. Rodrigues said she ran the system'due south 501c3 and was not continued to the 501c4, which was fined.
Representatives of several of these organizations say they are unsure who the Business firm Rules Committee will be looking at. Guisbond said it "seems odd" that a contend about legislative transparency turned into an attempt to scrutinize advocacy groups.
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Kontos said the right to gratis association allows people to communicate nearly bug, and she hopes lawmakers will continue to answer to constituents. "What needs to happen in a commonwealth in full general is we have to have more interaction betwixt the average denizen and the legislators, not less," she said.
Source: https://commonwealthmagazine.org/state-government/getting-a-handle-on-beacon-hill-advocates-coalitions/
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