IRS
Washington Examiner: House panel’s proposed citizen lawsuits against bureaucrats would discourage future Lois Lerners
By MARK J. FITZGIBBONS
One of the reforms suggested in the report is to “create a private right of action” when IRS officials intentionally violate laws governing the confidentiality of taxpayer information.
Such intentional disclosure is already a felony, but Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department has not enforced the law despite clear grounds and calls from congressional Republicans to do so.
“A private right of action would not only allow the victim [of such law breaking] the opportunity to vindicate the harm, but would provide a strong incentive for IRS employees to better protect confidential taxpayer information,” the report states.
Washington Post: Lois Lerner’s conservative bashing: Smoking gun or just cause for investigation?
By Josh Hicks
Another reader e-mailed: “Any good lawyer will tell you that circumstantial evidence is often more powerful than direct evidence. So saying something is just circumstantial evidence is not much of a defense though for some reason journalists think it is.”
To be clear, the point of last week’s article was not to suggest that authorities shouldn’t investigate Lerner for potential wrongdoing. It was to say that Republicans haven’t proven definitively whether the former IRS official used her position to slow down the proliferation of conservative advocacy groups.
Investors Business Daily: IRS Strikes Deal With Atheists To Monitor Churches
First Amendment: Government’s assault on religious liberty has hit a new low as the IRS settles with atheists by promising to monitor sermons for mentions of the right to life and traditional marriage.
A lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) asserted that the Internal Revenue Service ignored complaints about churches’ violating their tax-exempt status by routinely promoting political issues, legislation and candidates from the pulpit.
The FFRF has temporarily withdrawn its suit in return for the IRS’s agreement to monitor sermons and homilies for proscribed speech that the foundation believes includes things like condemnation of gay marriage and criticism of ObamaCare for its contraceptive mandate.
Independent Groups
More Soft Money Hard Law: You Should Talk to Your Kids—As long As You Are Not Engaged in Illegal Coordination
By Bob Bauer
The Times was doing well with the younger set in recent days, hammering home the virtues of legalized access to marijuana, but it has taken a step back. Now it is questioning the right of youth to accept unlimited support from parents and other relatives through family-established or -financed Super PACs.
This was one opportunity for the realization of a young person’s dream—unlimited financial support from family which could not be used as leverage to tell the kids what to do. This spending must be independent. It’s the law.
This turns out to be an exception from the trend noted just this morning by Robert Samuelson in The Washington Post toward large numbers of young people returning home after college. They can have family support while mapping out their careers. Should their career interest turn to politics, however, family options dwindle. Neither the mother nor the father, not the sister nor the brother, and certainly none of the relatives outside the immediate family circle, can contribute more than $2,600 per election. Unless the family sets up a Super PAC.
Corporate Governance
Reason: The New York Times: Unions Manipulate New York City’s Public Pension Funds To Punish Their Enemies
By Jim Epstein
Today, the grey lady has a blockbuster story that looks at how lawmakers, consultants, and public-employee unions use the city’s pension funds to favor particular groups and punish their enemies. The teachers’ union, which helps oversee the city’s pension funds, “keeps a list of investment firms it sees as unacceptable because of their connections to groups that, say, favor charter schools.” In 2010, pension fund trustees extracted an apology and retraction out of the private equity firm Blackstone, which does business with the system, after a company official offended them by remarking during an investment call that public-sector retirement benefits are “excessive.” Comptroller Stringer is planning to invest $1 billion in firms led by minorities and women, the Times reports, even though such initiatives “make it harder to achieve top investment returns.”
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Vox: 40 charts that explain money in politics
By Andrew Prokop
Unions are important financial powerhouses in elections, but much of their spending is done in such a way that it doesn’t show up on FEC reports — it involves getting out the vote or internal communication with their members rather than paid TV ads. And it often focuses on state and local races rather than federal ones. The Wall Street Journal’s Tom McGinty and Brody Mullins analyzed union disclosures of political spending to the Labor Department and came up with these totals, which were much higher than previously known. In the 2010 election season, the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions spent $608 million, the SEIU spent $150 million, and AFSCME (representing state, county, and municipal employees) spent $133 million. The vast majority of this money was spent in favor of Democratic candidates.
Politico: Exclusive: Powerhouse GOP group snared in money scheme
By Alexander Burns
But the group’s swift ascent has not come without controversy — or lingering legal hazard. At the height of its political emergence, the RSLC was implicated in a risky campaign finance scheme that an internal report warned could trigger “possible criminal penalties” and “ultimately threaten the organization’s continued existence,” according to a confidential document POLITICO obtained from a source.
The September 2011 report, prepared by the prominent Washington law firm BakerHostetler, was presented to an RSLC board then helmed by former Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie — RSLC’s chief financial rainmaker starting in 2010 and now a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
Never disclosed until now, the document detailed an investigation into alleged misconduct by multiple RSLC officials during the crucial 2010 election cycle: It charged that national RSLC leaders conspired improperly with the leader of the Alabama Republican Party to use the RSLC as a pass-through for controversial Indian tribe donations, essentially laundering “toxic” money from the gaming industry by routing it out of state and then back into Alabama.
State and Local
Montana –– AP: Campaign finance ruling should come after election
By MATT VOLZ
HELENA, Mont. — A court decision on whether individuals and political parties can give money to state candidates without limits isn’t likely to come until after the Nov. 4 elections, parties involved in the case said Monday.
That means this year’s elections probably won’t see a last-minute ruling that results in a sudden flood of campaign cash, which happened just weeks before the 2012 elections when U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell ruled the state’s campaign contribution limits were unconstitutional.
The Helena judge struck down a state law that sets individual contribution limits, which are now $170 for legislative candidates and most other candidates for public office in the state. The limits for statewide offices, such as attorney general, are higher, at $320, and the limit for a candidate for governor is $650.
Wisconsin –– The Capital Times: Another blow to campaign finance disclosure in Wisconsin?
By Jack Craver
Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board, the state agency that monitors elections, recently told a number of electioneering groups — conservative and liberal — that they are welcome to disclose their spending activity and donors, but are not required to.
That is a change from previous years in Wisconsin, when, at the very least, groups that expressly advocated for the election or defeat of a candidate have been required to periodically submit financial reports that listed their donors and spending activity. Groups that engaged solely in “issue advocacy,” meaning they did not produce advertising using words such as “vote for” or “vote against,” were not required to disclose.
Now, however, the GAB is allowing even groups that engage in a certain amount of express advocacy to forgo disclosure.
