The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), of which ILMA is an association member, announced last week that it plans to appeal a federal court order dismissing its lawsuit challenging the new congressional ethics and lobbying law.

On April 11, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled against NAM's suit. NAM was contending that a provision in the new ethics and lobbying law that requires umbrella organizations that receive "stealth contributions" to disclose their member companies if they contributed at least $5,000 per quarter to the coalition or actively participated in a lobbying campaign. According to NAM's suit, that provision hinders members' constitutional rights to freely associate and could lead to the harassment of individual members. NAM had also requested a stay of the Judge's order while the appeal is considered, but this request was denied.

NAM's appeal contends that the language of the law is too vague and fails to define how much participation is required by a member organization to require the parent, umbrella organization to name it as a member under the law's disclosure requirements. Failure to report by the deadline carries a penalty of $200,000 and five years in prison. Rather than filing detailed forms with the secretary of the Senate and the clerk of the House, NAM could fulfill the law's disclosure requirements by listing its lobbying members on its Web site.