Independent Groups
National Review: The Lois Lerner Defense
By Mark SteynWe have the president of the United States’ word as a gentleman that he knew nothing about the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of his enemies until he “learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.”Furthermore, although the commissioner of the IRS, Douglas Shulman, visited Obama’s White House no fewer than 157 times, which is 156 times more than his predecessor Mark Everson ever visited the White House, we know that this was for legitimate Easter-egg rolls, as he testified to Congress, and meetings to discuss Obamacare. The Easter Bunny, one should note, visits the White House two to four times as often as the average IRS commissioner did before Mr. Shulman came along. But you can’t make a health-care omelet without breaking Easter eggs: It is one of the many distinctive features of Obama-style “health” “care” “reform” that, while it has not led to the hiring of a single additional doctor, nurse, or hospital janitor, it did require the biggest expansion of the IRS since the Second World War. So, when he wasn’t rolling Easter eggs and advising the moppets on whether they needed to declare the luxury Belgian white chocolate balls with praline filling, he was participating in vital meetings on how many extra SWAT teams he was going to need to enforce the new colonoscopy non-compliance penalty.
Wall Street Journal: An Antidote to Cynicism Poisoning
By Peggy NoonanBut this scandal is different and distinctive. The abuse was systemic—from the sheer number of targets and the extent of each targeting we know many workers had to be involved, many higher-ups, multiple offices. It was ideological and partisan—only those presumed to be of one political view were targeted. It has a single unifying pattern: The most vivid abuses took place in the years leading up to the president’s 2012 re-election effort. And in the end several were trying to cover it all up, including the head of the IRS, who lied to Congress about it, and the head of the tax-exempt unit, Lois Lerner, who managed to lie even in her public acknowledgment of impropriety.
Soft Money Hard Law: Controversial Speech and the Education of Voters
By Bob BauerNo one questions that campaign finance law has struggled through multiple, agonized revisions in distinguishing issues from campaign speech and the discussion of campaign issues from advocacy for candidates or parties. The statute is little help; it speaks of the “purpose of influencing” an election,” 2 U.S.C. §431(8)(A)(i), and broader Commission glosses on the phrase, such as a test for whether a message was “electioneering” in content, eventually came to grief. The Supreme Court held the express advocacy line briefly, then gave in to a conception of the “functional equivalent” of express advocacy, and has since cast much of discussion into obsolescence by extending to corporations the right to make independent expenditures. Now tax policy-makers and tax law face pressure to work through the same issue, in limiting political intervention by 501(c)(4)s, and the results might be expected to be the same.
Political Law Briefing: 501(c)(4)s: Why all the fuss?
By Ron JacobsObviously the IRS has spent a great deal of time trying to determine whether certain groups qualify for exemption under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code. Why 501(c)(4) status matters so much is really about disclosure and not about tax revenue at all.Unlike contributions to Section 501(c)(3) organizations, contributions to 501(c)(4)s are not deductible by the donor. Thus, the tax consequences flow to the recipient, not the donor. That is, the recipient does not have to pay taxes on its revenue. There is another part of the tax code, Section 527, that allows political organizations not to pay tax on the revenue they spend for political activities, meaning that there is very little tax difference between a 501(c)(4), which is limited in how much political activity it can conduct, and a 527, which can spend every penny it brings in on political activity.
Free Beacon: New Details Emerge on IRS Targeting Conservatives
One IRS agent interviewed by the committee revealed that orders to target some groups had come directly from Washington, D.C., contradicting statements from the agency’s tax-exempt division chief Lois Lerner and other administration officials.
Contributions
Legal Newsline: D.C. Circuit: Campaign donation case must be heard en banc
By Jessica M. KarmasekThe panel vacated the judgment of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and remanded the case back to the lower federal court to make appropriate findings of fact and to certify them, along with the constitutional questions, to the en banc court within five days of Friday’s opinion.In this case, federal contractors Wendy Wagner, Lawrence Brown and Jan Miller seek a declaration that FECA abridges their freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment and denies them the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
Lobbying and Ethics
NY Times: Pugnacious Builder of the Business Lobby
By Sheryl Gay StolbergToday, Mr. Donohue presides over a $250-million-a-year operation, where roughly 500 employees — a small army of lobbyists, legislative analysts, economists, lawyers and communications gurus — devote themselves to carrying out his vision for a more pro-business government.Since Mr. Obama took office, Mr. Donohue’s army has mobilized against the president’s health care overhaul, his financial regulatory overhaul, his energy policy and his new consumer protection agency — though it did help to pass Mr. Obama’s financial stimulus package. Often, the chamber is more aggressive than the individual companies in its membership; pharmaceutical companies and insurers, for instance, took a more nuanced stand on the health bill.
State and Local
New Jersey –– Political Law Briefing: Unlimited Contributions to New Jersey Super PAC Now Allowed
By Larry Norton and Ron JacobsState campaign finance laws change constantly, but not always this quickly. In late March, the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) issued an advisory opinion stating that independent expenditure-only political committees (Super PACs) in New Jersey would be subject to the same contribution limits as other New Jersey political committees.
