In a brief statement, President Obama addressed the growing IRS scandal. Calling for cooperation between his administration and Congress in its “oversight role,” President Obama promised that the responsible parties will be held accountable and that new measures will be enacted to make sure this kind of targeting never happens again. President Obama also said [...]
How Much Disclosure?
Published on May 15, 2013
David Keating appeared on Thom Hartmann’s The Big Picture yesterday, discussing disclosure of non-profit information beyond what is already required by law. “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 [...]
Filed Under: Blog
Center for Competitive Politics urges the Supreme Court not to defer to Congress when reviewing contribution limits
Published on May 14, 2013
ALEXANDRIA, VA. – The Center for Competitive Politics announced today that it filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court supporting the plaintiffs in the case of McCutcheon v. FEC (No. No.12-536). The case presents a First Amendment challenge to the aggregate contribution limits regime set up by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Featured Content, Press Releases
Shifting Blame for the IRS Scandal
Published on May 14, 2013
The IRS scandal, which really is, at its core, about speech and privacy and the seemingly evergreen call of many lawmakers for a new and burdensome disclosure regime, has apparently sparked the interest of many campaign finance reformers as a sort of justification for a new look at reform. It seems Nancy Pelosi, as reported [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Uncategorized
Media Watch: NYT’s Coverage of IRS Scandal Speaks Volumes
Published on May 13, 2013
The IRS’ admission last week that they have been targeting conservative non-profit organizations for additional screening has been front-page news in many media outlets. The Wall Street Journal has nineteen mentions of the scandal on their website since last Friday (including a post featuring CCP President David Keating’s reaction). Even the Washington Post, by no [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Featured Content, Media Watch
Darn those shareholders – don’t they know what’s good for them?
Published on May 13, 2013
Proxy results keep rolling in, and shareholders keep voting against proposals to force more disclosure of corporate political activity, despite the continued assurances by dedicated “reformers” that “shareholders are demanding this information” and that “shareholders will benefit.” The latest results of the proxy season, keep refuting those contentions. Here are the latest proxy vote totals, with [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Corporate Governance, Corporate Governance Press Release/In the News/Blog, Featured Content, Bank of America, corporate disclosure, Danaher Corp., Entergy Corp., Motorola, SEC, UPS, Verizon
IRS Political Probes Draw Heat – Dumb Quote of the Day
Published on May 13, 2013
In the wake of the scandal involving the IRS’s partisan political criteria for scrutinizing non-profit organizations, David Vance of the Campaign Legal Center wins the prize for the day’s dumbest quote: ”the goal of this political storm is to scuttle the IRS cracking down on the larger abuses.” The reformers have been warning, ever since Citizens United and SpeechNow, [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Campaign Legal Center, david vance, IRS
IRS Targeted Groups For ‘Additional Review’ Based on Ideology
Published on May 10, 2013
Here is my reaction to today’s Associated Press article that the “the Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.” The IRS needs to come clean – what did they know and when did they know it? Why has [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Featured Content, IRS
Free Speech and the IRS
Published on May 10, 2013
Just in case there was any doubt about the relationship between the tax status of an organization and its ability to speak freely, John Podhoretz of COMMENTARY Magazine clears things up while addressing the news today that the IRS has apologized for unfairly flagging groups that had the words “Tea Party” or “Patriot” for additional [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Featured Content
UPDATE: Libertarian National Committee v. FEC
Published on May 10, 2013
There has been a lot of activity recently in Libertarian National Committee (LNC) v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), CCP’s challenge to the FEC’s overbroad application of contribution limits to the decease. On March 18th, Judge Wilkins of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia certified the following question to the Court of Appeals: “Does imposing annual [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Libertarian National Committee v. FEC Legal Documents