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Overview:
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National Rifle Association (NRA)
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| Stated Purpose: |
| Preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes. |
Tax Status: |
| 501(c)(4) |
Political Orientation: |
| Republican |
Profile: |
The National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most active opponents of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), has a history of spending soft money to influence elections.
Determining which of the group's advertisements were funded by its core organization and which by its federally regulated PAC is difficult, however, because the NRA has been shown to pay for its ad campaigns with money from both entities.
In 2000, for instance, the group ran separate commercials narrated by former NRA President Charlton Heston that contained four paragraphs of verbatim text. The last of the four paragraphs ended with a warning that "Al Gore's Supreme Court" would bring "the end of your Second Amendment rights." One version of the ad, paid for by the NRA's PAC, ended by asking viewers to vote for George W. Bush for president; the other concluded simply "paid for by the National Rifle Association,"1 suggesting that it was financed by the 501(c)(4).
The "vote for" admonition constituted "express advocacy" in the parlance of the FEC; therefore, the ad unequivocally needed to be financed with hard money. While the other commercial was outside the FEC's purview because it lacked express advocacy language, it should nonetheless have been included in the NRA's annual report of political expenditures to the IRS, which defines electioneering activities more broadly than does the FEC.2
But there is reason to question whether the NRA provided the IRS with an accurate report of its expenditures intended to influence elections in 2000. While the NRA reported to the IRS that it had $230,000 in such expenditures in 2000,3 Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said in a fundraising letter that the group "spent what it took to defeat Al Gore, which amounted to millions more than we had on hand."4
The NRA appeared to confine its spending on political advertisements in 2002 to independent expenditure campaigns paid for by its PAC. LaPierre said the group opted to send Heston on a barnstorming tour rather than buying commercials. "It's moving real people to the polling booth," LaPierre said.5 The NRA reported zero political expenditures in 2002.
The NRA was a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging BCRA. After the Supreme Court upheld the law, the NRA announced it had started an Internet radio station and subsequently, commenced a daily three-hour news and talk show on a satellite radio service.6 The NRA's newscasts are intended to fall within a provision of BCRA that exempts the news media from the prohibition on corporate money to broadcast "electioneering communications" that mention candidates' names in the 60 days preceding a general election or in the 30 days before a primary or convention.
"I vowed from the very start after the McCain-Feingold bill passed, we would not be silenced," LaPierre told the Houston Chronicle. "It's an act of defiance -- I readily admit that. But it's an act of defiance under the law."7
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| 1 |
Mitch McConnell v. FEC, "Brief of Amicus Curiae The League of Women Voters of the United States in Support of Appellees." |
| 2 |
IRS Form 990 Instructions, Line 81, 2003. (Available at www.irs.gov.) |
| 3 |
National Rifle Association 990 form, 2000. |
| 4 |
Mitch McConnell v. FEC, "Brief of Amicus Curiae The League of Women Voters of the United States in Support of Appellees." |
| 5 |
Sharon Theimer, "Special Interests Spend Millions To Influence Vote; Groups Are Focusing On 'Moving Real People' To the Polling Booth," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 27, 2002. |
| 6 |
"Profile: Launch of NRA News, An Online Newscast," National Public Radio, April 16, 2004. |
| 7 |
Kim Cobb, "NRA Challenges Soft Money Law with Radio Show," Houston Chronicle, June 18, 2004. |
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