Here at The Agitator politicians are a never-ending source of amusement and amazement.

Tom — safely tucked behind a moat called the Pacific Ocean that surrounds The Agitator’s Southern Hemisphere HQ in New Zealand — where he tries to explain the Donald Trump phenomenon to horrified and petrified Kiwis.

But today my attention today is drawn down into the political weeds of state legislatures and the frightening work of politicians who slither in that habitat.

Specifically, I’m looking at a bill that’s been introduced in the Oklahoma legislature prohibiting any nonprofit working and advocating for animal rights from soliciting private funds in that state.

This proposed legislation — backed by the Farm Bureau, ranchers and the industrial agricultural industry — is a deceptively simple bill with a single goal: To defund and block the work of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and any other group that wants to take on Big Agriculture and end its abusive practices toward farm animals.

In seeking to immunize factory farming interests — the political and financial benefactors of the bill’s sponsors — against any public debate over animal cruelty, the legislature is engaged in what can only be viewed as a diabolical plot.

We’ve reported the Oklahoma battle between HSUS and the special interests before. And we’ve applauded the willingness of HSUS to fight back vigorously. See Battling the Bullies.

And we’ve warned time and time again of the mis-use of state fundraising regulations to silence any group the powers-that-be disagree with.

In the case of Oklahoma it involves animal rights. But in other states these regulations can be used to stifle or silence political dissent (we’ll deal with that one in the next Agitator post on this subject) or defund any cause — from LGBT to Voting to Women’s rights. The possibilities for abuse are endless.

Frankly, I’m concerned that few nonprofits know (or care?) about these special interest moves to stifle and silence any group that seeks private support to advance a social changes agenda. If left unchallenged this misapplication of fundraising regulations will continue to spread from state to state.

[A word-for-word copy of the Oklahoma Bill has now been introduced in the Missouri legislature.]

What state is next? Which issue is next? When will the politicians and special interests deny your group the right to solicit funds?

Roger

P.S. Most worrisome to me is that at a time when our sector’s voice is needed more than ever, too few of our leaders and our trade associations are speaking out. We all need to encourage them to do so, and to provide the funds our trade associations will need to fight back for all of us.

As Simone Joyaux commented earlier in The Agitator:

“Nonprofits restrain their public policy and advocacy work. Or nonprofits just don’t do it at all. Because this bullying happens. And other nonprofits don’t do public policy and advocacy work at all because they are afraid of donors who won’t like it.

“I hear board members say: ‘We shouldn’t be so harsh. We shouldn’t speak out. We need to be very careful. We shouldn’t get embroiled in some of these issues. Because then our donors won’t give’.

“How very sad. Because if we read the history of the NGO sector, our early founding was about pushing back against government sometimes. Pushing back against bullies in corporations, too.”