"We are not a political group. We are a non denominational group of Christians. The CBMC luncheon is not a political campaign event."

That's Dan DeLorenzo, a member of the CMBC, formerly the Christian Businessmen's Connection, now known as "Connecting Business and the Marketplace with Christ." They invited Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi to speak to a luncheon on Wednesday about his "life and 'testimony,'" according to a flyer for the event.

The problem: CMBC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. And, as far as the Internal Revenue Service is concerned, Rossi could have talked exclusively about his shoe size and the event still would have run afoul of the law. (Though, if portions of this post can be trusted, there was some shop talk....)(Update: The post was removed, but I'm keeping the link. I've got a screen shot, if you're interested.)

Because nonprofits don't pay taxes, they're strictly prohibited from getting tangled up in politics. They can encourage voting in general or hold open candidate forums but, when it comes to inviting a partisan candidate to speak to a group of paying diners, the law is clear.

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

I ran this by Daniel Borochoff, president of American Institute of Philanthropy, a nonprofit that specializes in watching other nonprofits.

"Yeah, they're not supposed to be doing that."

"According to IRS rules, they're not allowed to be involved in partisan political activity, and particularly involved in influencing an election. It sounds as if that's what's happening. if they were to invite all of the candidates there, that would be a different matter."

Borochoff said the group could be at risk for losing their nonprofit status -- and the tax exemption it provides -- if the IRS catches wind of this. He said they've been cracking down on this sort of activity recently.

Dwight Mason, however, sees nothing wrong with it. He's a CBMC organizer who spoke at the event.

"I feel like it's a private party. Our purpose was not fundraising, I can say that," he said.

I asked if fundraising occurred.

"There was no plea for funds. No funds were solicited."

I told him I had heard otherwise.

"You know, if there were envelopes there, they weren't anything that I had anything to do with. When you have a political campaign, I'm sure there's going to be some envelopes around somewhere."

Understandable. But whether there was fundraising is irrelevant in the eyes of the law.

"To me this sounds to me like a reporter who has an agenda."

Correct. My agenda includes something about holding people in power accountable.

Also, just to be sure, I asked Mason whether all the candidates had been invited to speak. Was this supposed to be a roundtable that went terribly wrong?

"We could invite her. We'd be happy to have her speak ... this group started out being a men's group. In the history I've been with the group, we 've had one female speaker and that was after 9/11 and she went back and was helping with 911. That's just the way, we usually don't have female speakers."

I've put calls in to Jill Strait, spokeswoman for the Rossi campaign.