posted on: Wednesday, September 07, 2005

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports today that a political fund connected to Democratic State Senator Vincent J. Fumo reimbursed the Philadelphia-based Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods for political polling work that the Alliance conducted in 2003 (see http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/12576322.htm). Fumo has publicly praised the Alliance, which is a 501(c)(3) public charity nonprofit organization. These types of organizations are barred from engaging in partisan political activity.

According to The Inquirer, “The polling is now a focus of a federal criminal investigation into Fumo's nonprofits, launched in early 2004 after The Inquirer reported that Fumo had extracted $17 million in donations for the nonprofit from Peco Energy, and an additional $10 million in money paid by bridge users to the Delaware River Port Authority.”

NCRP has written about Fumo’s dalliances with nonprofits in the past (see Rick Cohen’s “Strange Bedfellows” article in the Spring 2004 issue of Responsive Philanthropy at http://ncrp1.mediastudio.tv/rparticles.asp), as part of its on-going efforts to monitor and call attention to elected officials who use (and abuse) nonprofit organizations for personal and/or political gain. The Fumo case is also another good example of current shortcomings in government oversight of nonprofits and foundations—once again, the press discovered these nonprofit shenanigans, not the IRS or any other public agency.