Public Policy Legal Institute in 2023 – and beyond

Public Policy Legal Institute in 2023 – and beyond

Jan. 2, 2024

Public Policy Legal Institute:

            The Public Policy Legal Institute (PPLI) is a tax-exempt IRC § 501(c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to the education of the public and government officials on the rights of Americans, individually or in association with others, to advocate for or against governmental public policies. PPLI monitors, analyzes, educates about, and defends, Americans’ First Amendment rights to speak, associate and petition the government. PPLI is an all-volunteer organization.

Vox PPLI and Other PPLI Activities in 2023:

            Over the prior 12 months, PPLI has published more than 96,000 words of news, analysis and legal commentary, mainly through its “Vox PPLI” website and blog: PublicPolicyLegal.com. PPLI publications, like its activities, are non-partisan, largely focused on legal issues, and written for those who are involved in tax-exempt organizations, political and lobbying law, and other public policy advocacy activities. Although its publications are overwhelmingly supportive of First Amendment-protected activities, PPLI strives to provide objective and even-handed commentary.

Vox PPLI has published 12 monthly summaries of “Public Policy Advocacy Highlights,” covering 249 specific topics and posts, and four special reports, totaling some 72,000 words. PPLI articles and reports have been shared on Facebook, Twitter/X, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. The most read PPLI publication of the prior year, with thousands of views (some of which came from federal offices), was Vox PPLI’s special report following John “Jack” Smith’s appointment as Special Prosecutor for former President Donald Trump, which described Smith’s past activities at the U.S. Department of Justice that may have triggered the 2010-13 Lois Lerner-led “IRS Targeting Scandal.” The most popular time to access Vox PPLI was Tuesday (22% of all views) at 4PM (10% of all views); this may reflect the fact that many discussions at the monthly First Tuesday Lunch Group meetings were triggered by Vox PPLI articles (the First Tuesday Lunch Group is an informal, nonpartisan, nationwide discussion group of tax and election law practitioners; PPLI is independent of FTLG).

In addition, in September 2023, at the request of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways & Means, PPLI submitted 61 pages, totaling more than 24,000 words, of responses to the Committee’s questions about the Internal Revenue Code, the Internal Revenue Service, and the activities of tax-exempt organizations. In addition to responding to the Committee’s questions, PPLI submitted additional introductory commentary on the importance of maintaining taxpayer confidence that the tax system is politically-neutral and on the continued applicability of First Amendment limits on the Committee’s ability to craft legislation affecting tax-exempt organizations.

Unlike in prior years, PPLI itself did not file any amicus curiae briefs in federal or other courts in 2023. A major portion of its 2023 commentary, however, was focused on litigation alleging federal and state government censorship of social media and other activities of tax-exempt organizations. As of January 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States has accepted review of several cases involving these allegations, including Murthy v. Missouri, No. 23-411, and NRA v. Vullo, No. 22-842, with oral arguments likely in March 2024 and decisions expected before July 2024.

All materials are available free of charge on PPLI’s Vox PPLI website.

Changes Anticipated In 2024:

            PPLI is always evolving. Vox PPLI’s current “monthly highlights” review focus began in January 2022 as a published version of topics for discussion at the First Tuesday Lunch Group meetings; for the five prior years, PPLI used the more common blog format of posting individual topics as appropriate. Producing the thousands of words required for the monthly format is a significant burden on our volunteer staff. As part of PPLI’s review of its 2023 activities and publications, PPLI used an outside statistical analysis of viewership and forwarding of its publications as a basis for comparing the relative value of the two formats. Although not a perfect correlation, the adoption of the much longer-format Vox PPLI monthly highlights appears to have had two results which we interpret as reducing value of the monthly version: reader interest declines markedly with the length of the monthly review (meaning readers don’t always read through the entire post even though some important articles are towards the end of the post), and readership as a whole, though generally much higher than before 2022, has declined as recent monthly highlight reviews lengthened.

            So, we have decided to end the monthly highlights format and return to our format of individual periodic postings on important topics. We welcome your comments on our format, content or other matters. Please submit comments or proposed postings to PublicPolicyLegal@gmail.com or you can use the Contact Us form on Vox PPLI.