Sean Caranna over at the blog All Nine Yards has a fantastic find about MAIG activists getting bankrolled by the City of Orlando. The person they appear to have hired is a long time gun control activist, with a history with the Brady Campaign, Florida anti-gun groups, and MAIG. The position is funded partially (the rest by taxpayers) by a granted from United Against Illegal Guns Support Fund, which is managed by John Feinblatt, who works out of Mayor Bloomberg’s office. You can find the organization’s form 990s here. The organization is a 501(c)(3). Keep in mind that if Linda Vaughn does any lobbying activity in this role, she’d be putting the tax status of this organization in jeopardy. Bloomberg is no fool, so I’m sure this is on the up and up non-profit tax wise, but it’s something to keep an eye on. Also worth noting that Bloomberg’s non-profit arm of MAIG is funded quite heavily by the Joyce Foundation.
Now, this is happening in New York already. But the big difference here is that, as rumor has it, the Second Amendment community has some sway over the Florida legislature. If positions like this are being hired to promote MAIG’s agenda, taxpayers should not be funding it. The legislature of Florida, indeed any state where this is happening, needs to step in and forbid cities from spending taxpayer dollars in this manner.
UPDATE: Going through this document some more, there are a lot of duties for this position that are not supportable under 501(c)(3) auspices.
Reading, PA apparently has one (or had one) too: http://www.readingpa.gov/documents/2012_position_listing.pdf
Sean found quite a few more nationwide under different position titles. They’ve been flying these under the radar for a while now. Sure to find more in places like Baltimore and Virginia Beach.
It’s one thing to advocate. It’s quite another to advocate with taxpayer-funded positions.
Note: 501(3)(c)s can allocate up to 10% to non covered activities such as lobbying. You need to prove the (c)(3) funding (which is admittedly a small % of the total) is being used for those purposes and not that the larger sum of money is being used for the unprotected activities. Tough row to hoe.
You are better to look at whether the city/state money is being used contrary to the standards for the municipality as state/city employees are not typically allowed to lobby and do a host of things “activists” can do.
Feinblatt works out of Mayor Bloomberg press office. I assume the person from NY is/was Angelo Roefaro. He left that position to work for Schumer over a year ago. See here.
I just KNEW there was a reason I moved to Seminole County and not Orange County/Orlando!