UCLA Hillel, a student government candidate and outside money

“>controversy isn't over the amount of money—apparently $1,000—but that outside money is financing student government elections and that the UCLA Hillel acted as a bagman. And this is where an interesting legal question arises.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service also prohibits tax-exempt charities like Hillel from contributing to partisan political campaigns. But Ellen Aprill, a specialist in tax law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, told the Forward that “as far as I can tell, student government is private, like a club set up by the university, and not a public office.” She cautioned that the question was a murky one, given UC’s status as a state-sponsored public university.

In interviews with the Forward, spokesmen at several Hillels nevertheless assumed it was illegal for their centers to donate to or endorse student government candidates. Legality aside, nine separate campus Hillel branches also made clear that for them, the idea of wading into partisan campus politics on one side would contradict Hillel’s role as a campus unifier.

Even if UCLA's “>not a requirement, but it certainly makes the case for one's nomination stronger. Of course, that connection is probably too attenuated to cause UCLA Hillel tax problems.

But, for me, the real concern is not Hillel's involvement, or that the money was earmarked for a candidate with a particular political outlook. The issue is that outside money is being earmarked at all. (Do we need another example of how money shapes the democratic process?) And the