18
Consistent with Cal-Med’s ruling, FECA limits
contributors to donating a maximum of $5000 per year to a
non-profit’s hard-money account. A non-profit in turn may
contribute to a candidate or party only from that hard-money
account. See 2 U.S.C. § 441a(a)(1)(C). And an individual’s
contribution to a non-profit’s hard-money account may count
against the individual’s aggregate annual contribution limits.
See 2 U.S.C. § 441a(a)(3).
3
What about a non-profit entity that falls into both
categories – in other words, a non-profit that makes
expenditures and makes contributions to candidates or
parties? EMILY’s List is a good example of such a hybrid
non-profit: It makes expenditures for advertisements, get-outthe-vote efforts, and voter registration drives; it also makes
direct contributions to candidates and parties. In all of its
activities, its mission is to promote and safeguard abortion
rights and to support the election of pro-choice Democratic
women to federal, state, and local offices nationwide.
The constitutional principles that govern such a hybrid
non-profit entity follow ineluctably from the well-established
principles governing the other two categories of non-profits.
To prevent circumvention of contribution limits by individual
donors, non-profit entities may be required to make their own
contributions to federal candidates and parties out of a hardmoney account – that is, an account subject to source and
Blackmun, J.). But as discussed above, the Cal-Med Court never
stated that non-profits could be required to use hard money for
advertisements, get-out-the-vote activities, and voter registration
drives; indeed, Justice Blackmun’s opinion stated the opposite.