E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
The past two years
have witnessed a remarkable burst of NGO activity on the left, as new groups
established after the 2016 election have joined forces with longstanding civil
liberties and civil rights organizations to resist President Trump.
Constitutional scholars have followed (and, in some cases, participated in)
many of these initiatives with keen interest. To understand the larger
phenomenon, however, the most relevant body of law is not constitutional law
but nonprofit tax law. How exactly is the “resistance” being structured,
subsidized, and constrained by the Internal Revenue Code?
Curious about this
question, I began to look into the legal shape of resistance efforts and found evidence of an intriguing pattern: prominent left-leaning nonprofits,
both young and old, seem to be increasingly forsaking the 501(c)(3) “public charity”
form in favor of the 501(c)(4) “social welfare” category, which comes with
fewer fiscal privileges but greater freedom to engage in openly political work.
This trend deserves close attention. It signals the possible emergence and
institutionalization of a new model of liberal activism for an age of
disenchantment with the Supreme Court—a new legal liberalism, if you will, less
focused on litigation and more tightly tied to electoral politics and the
legislative process.
For readers interested
in these issues, I have just published a short piece in the Atlantic discussing
(as the Atlantic editors titled it) “The
Tax-Code Shift That’s Changing Liberal Activism.” I hope to have much more
to share in the coming years on the historical development of the nonprofit
sector and its relationship to constitutional law, politics, and culture.