Hi, all,
A big issue on campus is whether student organizations will be able to get funding for politically active events. I believe that political action is a critical component to the University of Michigan experience and reflects the University's mission to "develop leaders and citizens who will challenge the present and enrich the future." Therefore, I wrote a resolution last month to work towards funding political activism, again (MSA used to fund political activism until it was discovered that past MSA treasurers hadn't been doing our taxes correctly, and a spending tracking method was needed to fix that problem). This resolution should have passed for a variety of reasons, but unfortunately, it failed 12-12-1. I'll continue to work on this issue and defend student organizations' rights.
There is a lot of misinformation going around about the resolution, supposedly due to concerns with the resolution being too risky. These comments are totally false: please take a look at the resolution and notice:
* it PROTECTS, not threatens, MSA's tax-exempt status ...
... Currently MSA spends money on events, THEN guesses whether or not the spending would violate MSA's tax-exempt status. If the IRS were to audit us, we could be in big trouble. By creating a front-end, instead of back-end, approach to track lobbying expenses, MSA can keep better records of its spending and conserve its tax-exempt status.
* It states several times that MSA would only fund lobbying if it were LEGAL, ADMINISTRATIVELY FEASIBLE, and DIDN'T THREATEN MSA'S TAX STATUS
* It references past meetings with the administration, as well as the intention to continue to meet with them
* After a meeting with MSA's Administrative Advisor and Student Activities and Leadership Advisor to talk about the General Counsel's thoughts, I adopted all recommendations from the Office of the General Counsel on this resolution so that they could feel comfortable with this proposal.
Thanks,
Rese
Click *READ MORE* to read the resolution
