Direct lobbying is when you state your position on specific legislation to legislators or other government employees who participate in the formulation of legislation, or urge your members to do so. In order to count as direct lobbying it must refer to specific legislation and express a view on it.

Grassroots lobbying is when you state your position on specific legislation to the general public AND ask the general public to contact legislators or other government employees who participate in the formulation of legislation. If you do not include a call to action in your communication to the general public, it is not lobbying. Remember, urging your members to lobby counts as direct lobbying not grassroots lobbying

Generally speaking, under the Internal Revenue Code, “lobbying” is support of or opposition to, or a call to action on, specific legislation . Specific legislation refers to the complete range of proposed bills and legislative enactments, at federal, state, and local levels, from constitutional amendments to local zoning ordinances.

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Our PTO gets asked by the Principal every year to come out and endorse the budget. She has asked us to initiate a phone chair, hold special meetings and tells us we must urge parents to vote yes.

Each time she asks, we say no. Our answer is to encourage all families TO vote, we just don't tell them HOW to vote. Big difference.

Thanks Cindy. A "Yes Campaign" is a movement to pass an override vote allowing our town to raise property taxes in excess of the prescribed legal limit of 2 1/2% (A Massachusetts tax statute).

We have held several informational sessions on many aspects of our district's finances and feel strongly that serving as a conduit for such information/education is our role. Our school superintendant is presenting his full budget at our next meeting, for example. We would like to draw the line, however, at telling people which way to vote in an override election and would prefer to remain non-partisan.

We just had a Bond Vote for our school to make improvements on our school that havent been done in over 50 years.

We had informational meeting letting the parents know what it was about and how it would affect the students. But we never told them how to vote.

Our superintendent thanked us for doing them it was our highest voter turnout ever.

Cindy


PS What is a YES campaign????

Help!!! - our PTO is being pressured by our town's override committe to fund and endorse their "Yes" campaign. We feel strongly that our mission is to serve as a non-partisan organization for the benefit of all our members.

Our PTO Bylaws provide no specific guidelines or protection on this matter, so I'm looking for support, particularly as other town-wide PTOs have endorsed the "Yes" platform.

Does anyone have helpful precedent, 501c3 data, support or other info/data that would be useful in making the right decision for our membership. Anything with a Massachusetts focus is especially helpful.

Thanks!