• Prohibited Political and Lobbying Activities for LSC Grantees
  Election-Year Reminder Memo (Sept. 15, 2023)
  (This memo as a PDF for printing.)

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To: All LSC Grantees

From: Will A. Gunn, Vice President for Legal Affairs and General Counsel

Date: September 15, 2023

Subject: 2023 Review of Prohibited Political and Lobbying Activities for LSC Grantees

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As we approach the 2024 election year, I want to provide you with a review of LSC’s restrictions on political and lobbying activities of LSC grantees and some thoughts about operating within them. Please share this with staff, volunteers, board members, and anyone else acting on behalf of your organization or using its resources.

In 1974, Congress created LSC to address the “need to provide high quality legal assistance to those who would be otherwise unable to afford adequate legal counsel . . . .” LSC Act § 1001, Pub. L. 93-355 (42 U.S.C. § 2996). Congress found that “for many of our citizens, the availability of legal services has reaffirmed faith in our government of laws” and that “the legal services program must be kept free from the influence of or use by it of political pressures . . . .” Id. Furthermore, Congress found that “attorneys providing legal assistance must have full freedom to protect the best interests of their clients in keeping with the Code of Professional Responsibility, the Canons of Ethics, and the high standards of the legal profession.” Id.

To further those goals, Congress has funded LSC for almost fifty years and set out restrictions on political and lobbying activities of LSC and LSC grantees. For 2023, Congress appropriated $560 million to LSC including $526 million for grantees. This longstanding support for LSC grants reflects the success of LSC grantees in providing high quality legal assistance for low-income people and operating in compliance with LSC rules and restrictions.

Summary of Restrictions on Lobbying and Political Activities

• All LSC Grantees must avoid political activities prohibited by 45 C.F.R. Part 1608.
• All LSC Grantees must avoid lobbying activities prohibited by 45 C.F.R. Part 1612.
• These rules apply to anyone when acting on behalf of the grantee, including:
  • staff
  • volunteers, and
  • board members.
• These rules apply at all times to the use of grantee offices, equipment, and other resources, including computers, phones, and internet services, even when used on personal time.

For more detailed information about the scope of the restrictions, including how they apply to non-LSC funds, please see Part 1608—Political Activities, Part 1612—Lobbying, Part 1610—Use of Non-LSC Funds, and the web page at www.lsc.gov/lobbying-and-political-activities.

Political Activities

LSC defines “political” as providing or encouraging any “support for or opposition to candidates for public office, ballot measures, or political parties.” 45 C.F.R. § 1600.1.

Part 1608 prohibits grantees from engaging in any political activity, including:

• intentionally identifying the grantee with any partisan or nonpartisan political activity
• intentionally identifying the grantee with any campaigns for public or party office, and
• providing grantee funds or resources for any political activity, political party, campaign for public or party office, or any ballot measure, initiative or referendum.

Part 1608 does not prohibit providing legal assistance to eligible clients. For example, a grantee may represent an eligible client facing eviction because of campaign signs in the tenant’s window. 

Lobbying

Lobbying means any attempt to influence government decisionmaking through statements about what actions the government should or should not take for enacting, changing, or removing legislation, rules, executive orders, or other covered government actions.

Lobbying includes grassroots lobbying. That occurs when you both state a position about what the government should or should not do (lobbying) and encourage others to contact government officials with that position.

Lobbying does not include providing information about proposed government actions, such as how a proposed law or rule would work and the effects it would have, so long as you do not express a position about what the government should do.

Lobbying also does not include providing information about the services you provide and the clients that you serve. For example, although you may not lobby Congress regarding funding for LSC or your grantee, you may educate members of Congress about your work.

In some limited situations, you may use non-LSC funds to offer views and recommend action on pending or proposed policy such as responding to an unsolicited, written government request, commenting on public rulemaking, or advocating for state or local funding for your own organization. However, those exceptions are narrow with situation-specific compliance requirements and additional reporting requirements.

For more information about the lobbying restrictions, including exceptions for some situations involving the use of non-LSC funds, please see 45 C.F.R. Part 1612, Advisory Opinion 2014-005, and www.lsc.gov/lobbying-and-political-activities.

Examples of Permissible Personal Activities

In your personal capacity on your non-work time, you may do the following, but you must not use any grantee time or resources, and you must not do anything that would intentionally identify a grantee with any of those activities:

• actively campaign for candidates for public office in partisan and nonpartisan elections;
• contribute money to political organizations and attend political fundraising functions;
• campaign for and hold office in political clubs and organizations; or
• run for public office in nonpartisan elections (but no grantee staff attorney may run for public office in a partisan election).

In pursuing any of the permissible activities, you must follow these requirements:

• Do not engage in any of those activities during your grantee work hours.
• Do not, at any time, use any grantee resources, such as grantee-provided phones, computers, copiers, scanners, or supplies for those activities.
• Do not engage in those activities while at a grantee office, at any ti

Your non-work time means time that you are not working for a grantee, and may include evenings, weekends, official lunch times, or while on any type of leave (paid or unpaid).

Please note, the restrictions apply any time that you are working for an LSC grantee, even outside of your regular schedule. For example, you don’t normally work on weekends, but you worked one weekend preparing for a trial; the restrictions apply during your weekend work hours.

Questions and Guidance

We encourage you to contact LSC with any questions so that we can provide guidance specific to your situation.