Political Activities and Nonprofits: Why Not?

As the line between the activities and services of profit and nonprofit organizations gets more blurred, the legal rules restricting the political activities of nonprofits seem to make less sense. Even if many of these rules are intended to stop ethical abuses and to ensure transparency and the elimination of corruption. 

In some ways, these rules, for example the one which prevents nonprofits from contributing to political campaigns, seem unfair. After all, companies and unions, through political action committees, are able to raise money for candidates. And perhaps it is the case that nonprofits, through establishing political action committees, can do the same. I don't know. But political action committees are a blight on the political landscape. And an ethical disaster in my opinion.

Further, to the extent the public sector and governments increasingly rely on and outsource private nonprofits to do work that has been done (or perhaps ignored and left undone) by governments or public entities,  nonprofits are in a no-win position with respect to the limits set on their political activities. In many cases, nonprofits' main activities are political or have been politicized and their missions betray choices between different kinds of policy approaches to a societal problem. So, for example, needle exchange programs supported by many HIV/AIDS nonprofit groups as an effective method to decrease transmission of the disease among IV drug users, have been politicized by some other nonprofit groups who think such programs condone continued harmful drug use in our society.

So, what is a nonprofit to do? Is this a case of being "damned if you do, and damned if you don't? And isn't it time to reconsider and broaden the audience discussing these issues? 

Here are a few questions on these issues:

1. Why should nonprofits' political activities be restricted? Is the rationale for this outdated, given the blurring of the line between public and private and the increasing reliance by government on the nonprofit sector to do political business?

2. And how about nonprofits who are more profit-minded? That is, the nonprofits who sell products and services through subsidiaries that in some cases are nonprofits? There has been alot of commentary on the ethics of the commercialization of nonprofits. But how about the ethics of  politicizing nonprofits? And are the two, that is commercialization and politization of nonprofits, related?  

3. Or is the problem one of identifying what a political activity is? And then perhaps determining the good and the bad political activities?

If you know about these issues, we hope to learn about them, and to hear your views.