[barry-cotter]

Sorry, what I should’ve said was that it was illegal for them to try and do it since they’re supposed to be non-partisan as a condition of their tax status. Same way as the Brookings Institution maintains the tissue thing pretence that it’s not a Democratic organisation. It is some other kind of thing that just happens to always do what the Democrats want to do. There’s nothing illegal about trying to send her and ruin the lives of your political opponents as long as you stay with the law but it is illegal for SPLC to be part of a partisan political campaign.

[tptacek]

Again, I'm not disputing anything in Patrick's post, and I totally buy SPLC could have stepped over the line in a number of ways, but being a 501c(3) just means you can't directly contribute to campaigns. You can do as much partisan advocacy as you want. There is absolutely no requirement that a 501c(3) be non-partisan; they just can't participate in campaigns.