A Conversation With Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer (Notre Dame)

Capital Research Center, A Conversation with Notre Dame Law School’s Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer (Part 1):

The scholar of nonprofit and election law talks to Michael E. Hartmann about what should and shouldn’t be considered a subsidy for charities, and the relationships between charity, politics, and government.

Professor Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer has researched, studied, taught, and written about many various aspects of nonprofit and election law since he came to Notre Dame Law School 17 years ago from the Washington, D.C., office of Caplin & Drysdale, where he’d practiced in those same areas for almost a decade.

Mayer’s recent published scholarship, for example, has thoroughly examined charitable crowdfunding, when tax exemption should and shouldn’t be considered a subsidy, fundamental public policy and the tax exemption of churches, and government use of “Big Data” in nonprofit regulation, among other things. His thoughtful “When Soft Law Meets Hard Politics: Taming the Wild West of Nonprofit Political Involvement,” in Notre Dame’s Journal of Legislation, caught our attention in particular and likely will inform policymaking discourse in the coming years.

Capital Research Center, A Conversation with Notre Dame Law School’s Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer (Part 2 of 2):

The scholar of nonprofit and election law talks to Michael E. Hartmann about past and potential future cross-ideological overlap in the critique of establishment philanthropy, non-exempt vehicles for wealthy givers, and the roles and capabilities of the IRS and the FEC.

The engagingly good-natured Mayer was kind enough to join me for a conversation last week. In the first of two parts of our discussion, which is here, we talk about what should and shouldn’t be considered a subsidy for charities, and the relationships between charity, politics, and government.

In the second part—the just more than 15-and-a-half-minute video below—we talk about past and potential future cross-ideological overlap in the critique of establishment philanthropy, non-exempt vehicles for wealthy givers, and the roles and capabilities of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Election Commission (FEC).