No Labels, the organization that is considering a push to back a third-party presidential candidate in 2024, has been threatened with a lawsuit by several Democratic and nonpartisan groups if its financial backers are not disclosed.
Because No Labels is a 501(c)4 nonprofit group, the organization is not bound by law to provide in-depth information about its donors. But the advocacy groups say No Labels is acting unlawfully, as other political parties are required to register with the Federal Election Commission and provide their funding sources and limits.
“No Labels has misused the 501(c)(4) nonprofit structure to create a new political party and now aims to run a candidate for president as a secret money group rather than a legitimate political party,” a letter sent Thursday to No Labels CEO Nancy Jacobson reads.
No Labels chief strategist Ryan Clancy reaffirmed its eligibility to get on state ballots without registering as a political committee.
“Thanks to the Unity08 vs. FEC court decision, a nonprofit like No Labels is well within its legal right to secure ballot without registering as a political committee/ so long as it is not supporting any particular candidate. No Labels has engaged in obtaining ballot access for a potential No Labels Unity Ticket, but no support of any particular candidate has or will be undertaken by No Labels,” Clancy said in a statement to the Washington Examiner regarding the lawsuit.
The coalition of organizations, which includes End Citizens United, Public Citizen, Black Voters Matter, Campaign Legal Center, Defend The Vote, Democracy SENTRY, League of Women Voters, People For the American Way, and Stand Up America, accused No Labels of having wealthy financial backers who serve Big Business rather than regular citizens.
“We believe that the real reason you are keeping your donors a secret is what naming them would reveal: that No Labels is primarily supported by special interests and wealthy donors that care about what’s in the best interest of big business, not regular Americans,” according to the letter.
Amid a wave of Democratic concern over a potential bipartisan presidential ticket in 2024, Jacobson told NBC News last summer that “nothing nefarious” was happening with No Labels’s finances.
“There’s nothing nefarious going on here,” Jacobson said, stating No Labels is not a political party. “A party — [the] definition of a party is running candidates up and down the ballot. That is not what we’re doing.”
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No Labels, which is working to get on ballots in all states, is already on around a dozen going into 2024. Several names are being floated for a unity ticket, which is expected to be put forward after March 15, the Washington Examiner reported. Possible candidates include former GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who halted his own presidential campaign this week, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who announced last year that he won’t seek reelection, and former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
Doubling down on their stance of not releasing additional information regarding donors, Clancy said:
“This letter is a disgraceful attempt to disenfranchise the millions of Americans who clearly want another choice and the over 1,000,000 voters who have already signed up to get No Labels on the ballot in this 2024 election. These groups want the names of potential No Labels donors so they can then harass them and generate intimidation and even violence against them and their families. We aren’t going to provide those names because our supporters have a right to privacy and freedom of association that was confirmed in the landmark 1958 NAACP vs. Alabama case.”
