In the News
The Big Picture: The real story…why the IRS targeted the Tea Party
Thom debates Conservative David Keating on the role of 501 (c)(4) organizations in our elections
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Cato Institute: The I.R.S. Takes Aim at the Tea Party (David Keating)
CCP President David Keating discusses the IRS targeting of conservative groups with the Cato Institute.
Washington Free Beacon: Under Pressure
By Alana GoodmanBradley Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, said Levin should not be surprised that the IRS was caught targeting Tea Party groups when senators are sending these kinds of letters.“And he wonders why the IRS gets caught using partisan criteria to investigate Americans,” said Smith…Article continues: David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, said requests from members of Congress for the IRS to single out specific groups for scrutiny were inappropriate.“There seems to be a consensus that members of Congress should not pressure government officials to reward friends with contracts or special treatment,” said Keating. “Neither should they demand that government agencies punish political opponents.”…
CCP“This is fixable”
By Joe TrotterWith all due respect, this is not “fixable.” An agency of the United States government specifically targeted groups based on partisan criteria, which included the organization’s purpose being to educate Americans about the Constitution. As a result of the IRS’ actions, Tea Party and other conservative groups had their applications for non-profit status held up for years. All the while, the IRS denied to Congress that it was specifically targeting these groups.You cannot “fix” a situation where Constitutional rights were violated. You can provide restitution and enact new policies to prevent similar actions from happening in the future, but it isn’t a “fixable.”Outrageously, proponents of speech regulation are trying to use this as an opportunity to expand the government’s role in political speech. Calling for new disclosure regulation, the speech regulatory community is hell-bent on placing more power in the hands of the very people who have just admitted to abusing what power they already have. In the span of less than a week, the regulatory community has forgotten what happens when we empower the government by letting them make decisions about what constitutes political speech.
How Much Disclosure?
By Sarah Lee“There are a lot of good examples…I think there have been many unpopular causes over time where people are not willing to join if their names are going to become public,” Keating told Hartmann. “Let’s say…it’s going to be difficult to enact a gay marriage law…there may be people that want to donate to, say, a gay rights organization, that works for gay marriage in [states unfriendly to gay marriage]. But they may work for employers who don’t tolerate those kind of views. You think you want their names in the record?”
Independent Groups
Washington Post: In IRS scandal, echoes of Watergate
By George WillAn emerging liberal narrative is that this tempest is all the Supreme Court’s fault: The Citizens United decision — that corporations, particularly nonprofit advocacy groups, have First Amendment rights — so burdened the IRS with making determinations about who deserves tax-exempt status that some political innocents in Cincinnati inexplicably decided to begin by rummaging through the affairs of conservatives. Ere long, presumably, they would have gotten around to groups with “progressive” in their titles.Remember, all campaign “reform” proposals regulate political speech. And all involve the IRS in allocating speech rights.Liberals, whose unvarying agenda is enlargement of government, suggest, with no sense of cognitive dissonance, that this IRS scandal is nothing more sinister than typical government incompetence. Five days before the IRS story broke,Obama, sermonizing 109 miles northeast of Cincinnati, warned Ohio State graduates about “creeping cynicism” and “voices” that “warn that tyranny is . . .around the corner.” Well.
Politico: The IRS wants YOU — to share everything
By David Nather and Tarini Parti and Byron TauSeveral of the groups were asked for résumés of top officers and descriptions of interviews with the media. One group was asked to provide “minutes of all board meetings since your creation.”Some of the letters asked for copies of the groups’ Web pages, blog posts and social media postings — making some tea party members worry they’d be punished for their tweets or Facebook comments by their followers.And each letter had a stern warning about “penalties of perjury” — which became intimidating for groups that were being asked about future activities, like future donations or endorsements.
NY Times: Acting Chief of I.R.S. Forced Out Over Tea Party Targeting
By JONATHAN WEISMANHe vowed that the Treasury Department would ensure new safeguards were in place to prevent a similar incident from happening in the future, and he promised to work “hand in hand with Congress as it performs its oversight role.”“We’re going to hold the responsible parties accountable,” Mr. Obama said.
SCOTUS/Judiciary
Cato Institute: The First Amendment Protects Both Political Donations and Campaign Spending
Cato Institute: The First Amendment Protects Both Political Donations and Campaign Spending
By ILYA SHAPIROThe First Amendment broadly protects political speech and the use of resources (printing presses, the internet, money) to facilitate that speech. Yet when someone wants to engage in the most obvious kind of political speech — supporting election campaigns — the government is allowed to restrict this important constitutional right. In a new case coming to the Supreme Court, Shaun McCutcheon, a wealthy political donor, and the Republican National Committee contend that the limits on political donations are unconstitutionally low and not supported by a sufficient governmental interest.
State and Local
New York –– Suit by a Prosecutor’s Rival Seeks to Block a TV Show
By JOSEPH BERGERThe news that Charles J. Hynes, the longtime Brooklyn district attorney, had provided television producers access to his office to film a six-part series provoked an immediate outburst of criticism from rival candidates that it would give him an unfair edge in the Sept. 10 primary. On Tuesday, one opponent filed a lawsuit asking a state court to block CBS from broadcasting the series, calling it an “unlawful campaign contribution” and saying it would cause “irreparable harm” to his campaign.The lawsuit filed by Abe George, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan who is one of Mr. Hynes’s challengers in the primary, asks for a temporary injunction barring the show from being shown as scheduled on May 28.“The broadcast is nothing more than an in-kind campaign contribution by CBS to Hynes in excess of the legal limit imposed on corporate contributions by New York State election law,” Mr. George said in his lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
