Nonprofits, Politics, and Privacy

Authors

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, Notre Dame Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2012

Publication Information

62 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 801 (2011-2012)

Abstract

The first Part of this Article briefly reviews and contrasts the history and current rules governing disclosure and privacy in the federal tax, federal tax exemption, and federal election law contexts. This review reveals that both the cost-benefit approach and the right-to-privacy approach can be found in this history, but to a greater or lesser extent depending on the context. The second Part explores these two different approaches and the extent to which the existing disclosure rules reflect those approaches. This Part shows that the rules are sometimes but not always based both on the cost-benefit approach to disclosure, in which privacy harms are but one possible cost, and on the right-to-privacy approach. The third Part considers recent proposals for disclosure rules relating to nonprofit organizations engaged in political activity using both the cost-benefit approach and the right-to-privacy approach. This consideration reveals that certain proposals, which relate to disclosure of financial information primarily about the organizations themselves, generally are justifiable under either approach. Certain other proposals that would require disclosure of financial information primarily relating to individuals, however, are more difficult to justify under a right-to-privacy approach. I conclude by discussing why this difference exists and what it means for the desirability of disclosure in this area.

Comments

Reprinted with permission of the Case Western Reserve Law Review.

Recommended Citation

Lloyd H. Mayer, Nonprofits, Politics, and Privacy, 62 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 801 (2011-2012).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/68