Welcome to The Watchdog, a new Chronicle blog written by Dean Zerbe, a lawyer in the Washington office of alliant Group and the former senior counsel to Sen. Charles E. Grassley.

Mr. Zerbe is best known in the nonprofit world as a top adviser to Mr. Grassley when he chaired the powerful Senate Finance Committee. In that role, Mr. Zerbe was a key player in Congressional efforts to fight charity abuses.

In addition to helping to pass the Pension Protection Act in 2006 — which instituted new curbs on nonprofit activities as well as new giving incentives — Mr. Zerbe also helped Mr. Grassley undertake numerous investigations of charity abuses.

More recently, Mr. Zerbe has fought back attempts to weaken provisions in the Pension Protection Act that were designed to fight nonprofit abuses.

His new blog will discuss the intersection between the charity world and government — with a particular…

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