Protect Those Who Power the Cause

It was 2022. After the red wave failed to materialize in the midterm elections, Republicans began grasping for culprits: Trump, candidate quality, “extreme” positions on various issues, and so on. It became a scramble for explanation, and the party lapsed into diagnosis while practical politics slipped out of view.

Then a voice from Ohio cut through the noise. J.D. Vance, still a senator-elect at the time, published a pivotal essay reminding Republicans what it actually takes to win a political fight. He raised a point no one was eager to discuss, but one that still demands our attention if we want to continue to win.

Ideas, Vance wrote, do not ultimately win elections, nor do they win political or cultural fights. To sustain the party and the movement at large, the GOP needs money.

Republicans have a finance problem, one that goes beyond party committees and campaign cycles. The Left regularly outspends the Right, from political dark money to nonprofit organizations and foundations. If conservatives fall behind financially, they forfeit the terrain on which the next generation of political fights will be decided.

Our institutions — crucial pieces in our war for the soul of America — are at risk without a sufficient donor base. Classical schools educate children rather than indoctrinating them with wokeness. Conservative think tanks and publications provide the intellectual firepower that shapes public policy. And charities, rather than an ever-growing welfare state, are the proper way to care for the most vulnerable members of society. Without well-funded conservative institutions, we present no meaningful alternative to massive government and the progressive NGOs with plenty of funding and savvy Gen Z marketing teams.

We need our wealthy conservatives. They provide the resources for candidates, institutions, and organizations that strengthen our society and keep woke insanity at bay. Many of these donors wish to keep their identities hidden, and their reasons are more than fair. The Left will use every available means — from lawfare to professional retaliation to physical violence — to maintain control of American institutional life.

Under current federal law, most nonprofits with 501(c)(3) status are required to file an annual Form 990, which includes a Schedule B listing the names, contact information, and donation amounts of major contributors. And for donors who already face social, professional, and legal pressure, the prospect of their identities being stored in a federal database is no small thing. While there are some small workarounds available, they’re complicated and deeply disincentivizing. 

The danger the wealthy donor faces isn’t theoretical. We live in a climate in which Charlie Kirk was murdered by a sniper’s bullet while speaking on a college campus; in which properties belonging to pro-life pregnancy centers and Republican Party headquarters have been firebombed; in which the President of the United States was nearly assassinated during a campaign rally. In such an environment, it is entirely reasonable that conservatives supporting controversial causes would want to stay out of the spotlight.

Even apart from the threat of physical violence, conservatives are rightly worried about extra scrutiny from government agencies for donating to certain causes. Recall that the IRS has a recent history of targeting conservatives in tax investigations. Beginning in 2010, the agency was exposed for targeting Tea Party–related organizations, something it consistently but unsuccessfully denied. The scandal went on for years, leaving conservative donors with a clear message: Donate to conservative causes and big government will be watching you closely. Liberal donors have no such cause for fear.

Several years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held in AFP v. Bonta that the California attorney general’s demand that all charities with 501(c)(3) status disclose the names and contact information of their donors violated the Constitution. The Court said California’s disclosure requirement imposed a widespread burden on associational rights without narrow tailoring or sufficient justification.

Recently, the Buckeye Institute, a conservative think tank based in Ohio, filed a lawsuit against the IRS, arguing that the same logic in Bonta applies to the IRS’s collection of donor identities and contact information. If it is unconstitutional for the California Attorney General to demand donor information from every charity under its jurisdiction, why should the same not apply to the federal government?

The argument is convincing. If donors fear that the IRS has access to their identities, their contact information, and to a list of every organization they support, they will understandably hesitate.

First Liberty Institute filed an amicus brief in the Buckeye case in the Sixth Circuit (which I have reviewed personally and which will soon be public), arguing that the constitutional right to free association includes the right to privacy in those associations. The disclosure of donor information, whether intentional or accidental, will chill indispensable liberties and dissuade people from joining important causes out of fear that their beliefs may be exposed.

If people are legitimately afraid of the repercussions of exercising their constitutional rights, they will be less likely to do so. This is unacceptable. Ordinary members of society have the right — and the need — to remain anonymous so they are not subjected to targeted investigations, harassment, or violence from an increasingly unhinged Left.

We must fight back on every front. The Buckeye Institute’s lawsuit against the IRS is an important example of ensuring that conservatives are permitted to fight. We must protect the constitutional rights of good Americans to donate to the institutions working to save this country — and allow them to do so without risking life and limb in the process.