IRS
Wall Street Journal: Did Lois Lerner Lie to Congress?
Potomac Watch columnist Kimberley Strassel on a new House report that examines the former IRS executive’s role in targeting conservative nonprofits.
Wall Street Journal: Democrats Say Issa Bungled Procedure at IRS Hearing
By John D. McKinnon
House Democrats said on Wednesday that Republicans goofed up procedurally at a hearing last week, and now are barred from trying to hold a former Internal Revenue Service official, Lois Lerner, in contempt of Congress.
In a letter to House leaders, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland said that GOP Rep. Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, failed to specifically overrule Ms. Lerner’s assertion of her Fifth Amendment privilege during last week’s hearing. Mr. Issa also failed to explicitly order her to testify on pain of a contempt-of-Congress citation, the Democrats said.
Wall Street Journal: Notable & Quotable: Lois Lerner and the IRS
Most damning of all, even when she found that the actions of subordinates had not adhered to a standard that could be defended as not “per se political,” instead of immediately reporting this conduct to victims and appropriate authorities, Lerner engaged in efforts to cover it up. She falsely denied to Congress that criteria for scrutiny had changed and that disparate treatment had occurred. The actions she took to broaden scrutiny to non-conservative applicants were consistent with efforts to create plausible deniability for what had happened—a defense that the Administration and its most hardcore supporters have repeated once unified outrage eroded over one of the most divisive controversies in American politics today.
Independent Groups
Politico Magazine: The Un-American Anti-Koch Campaign
By Richard Lowry
Reid’s maligning of the Koch brothers is part of a deliberate, party-wide effort to attack the politically engaged libertarian duo. Groups that the Kochs have donated to or are affiliated with have spent some $30 million on the midterm elections so far, with more on the way. For Democrats, that is a mortal sin.
There is no consistent standard here. In 2004, Reid didn’t complain about a globe-trotting billionaire who made a mint through currency speculation spending more than $25 million trying to defeat President George W. Bush. By Reid’s standard, George Soros was as robustly American as John Wayne in the “Sands of Iwo Jima.”
You can litigate the accuracy of the ads by Koch-supported groups, but as a genre, attack ads play fast and loose (although there’s no reason for anti-Obamacare ads to be anything but strictly accurate, since there’s so much material to work with). You can disagree with their politics, but they broadly represent about half of America. You can lament their spending, but welcome to our world.
SCOTUS/Judiciary
The Patriot News: Super PAC suit: Judge bars Pa. from enforcing union, corporate political donation ban
By Matt Miller
A federal judge is temporarily barring Pennsylvania from enforcing a political financing law that a Washington D.C.-based Democratic “super PAC'” claims violates its right to seek corporate and union donors.
U.S. Middle District Senior Judge William W. Caldwell issued a preliminary injunction Monday after concluding that the General Majority PAC has shown it is “likely to succeed on the merits of its claims.”
SCOTUSBlog: Book excerpt: Before McCutcheon – The ACLU position in the early years
By Ronald Collins and David Skover.
In 2013 the American Civil Liberties Union did not file an amicus brief in McCutcheon v. FEC, the First Amendment campaign finance case now awaiting a decision in the Supreme Court. But the group had not always been silent on the issue. Quite the contrary; it had once been quite vocal in its First Amendment opposition to many campaign finance laws.
For decades the ACLU had been at the forefront of this controversial issue, filing merits and amicus briefs in support of First Amendment claims in such landmark campaign finance cases as Buckley v. Valeo (1976) (Joel Gora, counsel of record) and Citizens United v. FEC (2010) (Steven R. Shapiro, counsel of record), among many other Supreme Court cases. That changed, however, after Citizens United came down. At that pinpoint in time, the past ceased to be prologue.
Corporate Governance
Acton Institute: Harry, Keep the (Climate) Change
By Bruce Edward Walker
In this, Sen. Reid joins the wide network of religious shareholder activists who cavil endlessly about the liberal bête noire trifecta: Kochs, Citizens United and climate change. A quick scan of the As You Sow and Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility websites reveals numerous resolutions related to all three topics. One wonders if you’ll hear a peep from them regarding Tom Steyer’s announcement that he would match up to $50 million in donations to his NextGen Climate Political Action Committee.
Disclosure
CPI: Documents reveal GOP group’s secret donors
By Michael Beckel
But when the Center for Public Integrity asked Rachel Adams, the communications director for Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, for a copy of the group’s most recent tax form, she provided a version that is typically only delivered to the Internal Revenue Service and includes contributor names and contribution amounts.
This document named 16 contributors — including several corporations, trade associations, political action committees and one labor union, the Alabama Education Association. Each entity donated between $5,000 and $15,000.
Tax Financing
NY Times: The Phony Bill to Help Sick Kids Actually Helps Corporations Extend Their Influence
By DAVID FIRESTONE
But the conventions aren’t going to stop, and guess who’s going to pay for them if the president signs the bill: big corporations and the rich. They already pay for three-fourths of the conventions’ bills, and will happily write huge checks to the two parties for the rest, putting politicians further in their debt and amplifying their ability to affect public policy. Reducing the influence of big money is why public financing of elections and conventions was enacted after the Watergate scandals, but that principle has been steadily eroded by the Supreme Court and the ferocious demand for money by members of both parties.
FEC
CPI: Congressional investigations of FEC stalled
By Dave Levinthal
Leaders on two U.S. House committees acknowledge that parallel investigationsinto computer security and staffing breakdowns at the Federal Election Commission aren’t living up to their initial billings.
Such apparent lack of action comes at a critical time for the FEC, which this monthwarned Congress of threats to its computer networks that have “increased dramatically,” and of staff vacancies across the agency that “have begun to affect negatively the FEC’s ability to provide public services.”
