(I am not a lawyer — I looked into this as a non-US donor living outside the US)
My understanding is that Adrian’s reading is correct:
The foreign-national ban (52 U.S.C. §30121) covers contributions and spending in connection with elections (source). It defines “foreign national” as someone who is neither a US citizen nor a green card holder, so Angelina is right that permanent residents are unaffected.
AFAICT, the ban does not include lobbying or issue advocacy.
“In a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the foreign national ban “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” Bluman v. FEC,” (Source)
My understanding is that since this campaign is issue advocacy/lobbying rather than electioneering, foreign nationals can lawfully fund it through a 501(c)(4).
AFAIK the campaign itself has a note for foreign nationals without a green card, plus a template letter to send so your gift is recorded as restricted to non-electioneering use. They ask foreign donors to only do this above $50k because of the accounting overhead.
Really? Claude seemed to think they can, just not for anything related to elections?
(I am not a lawyer — I looked into this as a non-US donor living outside the US)
My understanding is that Adrian’s reading is correct:
The foreign-national ban (52 U.S.C. §30121) covers contributions and spending in connection with elections (source). It defines “foreign national” as someone who is neither a US citizen nor a green card holder, so Angelina is right that permanent residents are unaffected.
AFAICT, the ban does not include lobbying or issue advocacy.
“In a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the foreign national ban “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” Bluman v. FEC,” (Source)
My understanding is that since this campaign is issue advocacy/lobbying rather than electioneering, foreign nationals can lawfully fund it through a 501(c)(4).
AFAIK the campaign itself has a note for foreign nationals without a green card, plus a template letter to send so your gift is recorded as restricted to non-electioneering use. They ask foreign donors to only do this above $50k because of the accounting overhead.