NAACP investigated by IRS regarding political endorsements!

PRLog (Press Release) - Apr 19, 2007 -
http://charitygovernance.blogs.com/charity_governance/2004/10/the_irs_is_inve.html
THE IRS IS INVESTIGATING THE NAACP FOR POLITICAL ACTIVITY: IS IT TIME TO START INVESTIGATING CHURCHES?

Newsday reports today that the Internal Revenue Service is investigating the NAACP, a Section 501(c)(3) organization, for engaging in forbidden... political activity. The investigation was triggered by Julian Bond’s speech this past July in Philadelphia. Bond is the NAACP’s chairman of the board, and he made the speech at the NAACP’s annual convention. Section 501(c)(3) prohibits charitable organizations from “participate[ing] in, or intervene[ing] in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

Newsday quotes Bond as having said:
The election this fall is a contest between two widely disparate views of who we are and what we believe…One view wants to march us backward through history -- surrendering control of government to special interests, weakening democracy, giving religion veto power over science, curtailing civil liberties, despoiling the environment. The other view promises expanded democracy and giving the people, not plutocrats, control over their government.

We have not read the text of the entire speech, but have already called the NAACP in an effort to obtain the text and the letter issued by the IRS. Our call has not yet been returned. We imagine the NAACP will eventually post these documents to their website, which leads to the interesting question: If the NAACP posts the text of the speech, has it committed a "second violation" of the prohibition against political activity, assuming, of course, that the speech, itself, was a violation? We do note that both President Bush and Senator Kerry were invited to speak at the annual convention. Senator Kerry accepted the invitation, but President Bush declined.

As we stress in our Guide, Section 501(c)(3) organizations should steer clear of any activity that could be construed as participating in a political campaign. Having said that, we are not at all certain that the quoted language constitutes prohibited intervention—we assume the quoted language is the language that sparked the IRS investigation. The language does not specifically endorse a candidate. Nor does it expressly call for the audience to vote one way or the other. At the same time, the inferences to be drawn are pretty clear, leading to the question: Where is the line between issue advocacy and intervention on behalf of a particular political candidate?