Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

18. Department of Labor and Related Agencies · Notable

Condition public UI funds on 501(c)(3) political spending restrictions

Not started

605 18. Department of Labor and Related Agencies

“Require organizations to comply with restrictions on political spending. DOL should establish as a precondition for receiving any public funds a requirement that an organization comply with restrictions on political spending as applied to 501(c)(3) charitable organizations.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    The Department has not made compliance with 501(c)(3) political-spending restrictions a condition of receiving public funds. Executive Order 14332, Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking (2025-08-07), is the window's grant-conditions order and its text contains no reference to political spending, lobbying or 501(c)(3) status; the government-wide Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance proposed on 2026-05-29 does not impose such a condition either.

    No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.

  2. Not started

    Moved nearby. The Department runs its awards through the grantmaking order's review. Its Workforce Opportunity for Rural Communities Round 7 announcement (FOA-ETA-26-23, posted 2026-06-10) says: "Prior to issuance, and annually thereafter, awards will be subject to review in accordance with the process described in Executive Order 14332". Its lobbying terms are the standard restrictions on lobbying or fundraising with federal funds, set out in the 2026 Application Guide. Nothing makes an organization's compliance with 501(c)(3) political-spending restrictions a precondition of the grant. The President's memorandum of 2025-08-28, Use of Appropriated Funds for Illegal Lobbying and Partisan Political Activity by Federal Grantees, orders the Attorney General to investigate "whether Federal grant funds are being used to illegally support lobbying activities (See, 31 U.S.C. 1352)". That enforces the existing law on use of funds. It sets no condition on an organization's own political spending. DOL's standard grant terms could not be read: dol.gov refused every request shape on 2026-09-29, so this negative covers DOL announcements on grants.gov and not its standard terms.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Negative search: chapter log, Cluster negative search — the unemployment insurance asks (#1645, #1646, #1647, #1663, #1664, #1665).

  • The text of Executive Order 14332 was read at govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-08-12/html/2025-15344.htm: zero occurrences of “political”, “501(c)”, “advocacy” or “lobby”.

  • The Quote sits in the unemployment insurance discussion but is written as a general condition on “any public funds”, which is why the grantmaking order rather than a UI instrument is the place it would have appeared.

  • EO 14332 grant-process sweep (2026-09-29). Already recorded that EO 14332’s text says nothing about political spending. This pass read DOL’s own FY2026 announcements for a precondition and found that DOL applies the order’s review but no political-spending condition (the 2026-06-10 event). dol.gov returned 403 to a bare request, to a browser User-Agent and to the full header set via scripts/fetch-page.mjs (/agencies/oasam/grants, /agencies/oasam/grants/terms-and-conditions, /general/grants, /sitemap.xml), so DOL’s standard grant terms were not read. Also read: the ETA UI Integrity Center notice ETA-UI-2026-01 (a sole-source award notice with no conditions of this kind).

Action
restrict
Object
Political spending by organizations receiving public funds
ID
1665