OBAMA IS CREATING LAWS ILLEGALLY!

Submitted by: Jason Lord

New IRS Regs can Tip 2014 Elections

With his signature ‘stroke of the pen’, Pres. Obama's IRS has proposed sweeping new powers to oversee campaign laws. As you will see, these rules stack the deck against opposition to the President.

Under a proposed regulation, Pres. Obama is using the IRS to close the loophole that allows §501(c)(4) groups to spend 49% of their budget on elections without disclosing the names of their donors.

By itself, that disclosure may not be bad, but the new IRS regs do not stop there. If these rules go into effect, many of the activities readers are engaged in right now could lead to fines and imprisonment. 

The new rules require reporting on all §501 (c)(4) donations that engage in any form of political activity.  (See below for the expanded definitions of ‘political activity’.) But, the same does not hold true for groups like Planned Parenthood that can segregate their donations between abortion activities and other activities.

While most conservative groups use §501 (c)(4) organizations, liberal groups tend to use §527 organizations that do not fall under these new rules.

For the first time in our history, the rules consider administration appointments and the confirmation process itself as political activities.  This give the IRS the authority to police opposition to any administration nominations.

Once an issue has been raised for or against a candidate or appointee, the IRS sees discussion of that issue or even retaining information about that issue in website archives as political activity that can be controlled.  This includes distributing voter guides, registering voters or getting out the vote drives.  While one can argue that voter guides can be distributed by either party, therefore this applies to liberals and conservatives alike, not really. Once the practice is controlled by the government, the sitting administration is the only one left that can guide the electorate.

These are the proposed regulatory changes:

1.       The IRS would declare that a broadly expanded category of “candidate related political activity”, including voter registration drives and non-partisan voter education, is not beneficial to the community as a whole and does not promote social welfare.  Therefore it is treated as political speech.

2.       The definition of “candidate” is expanded to include anyone who is proposed by another for selection, nomination, or appointment to any public office in a political organization, or to be a Presidential or Vice-Presidential elector.
3.       “Candidate political activity” would include the appointment and confirmation of executive branch nominees.

4.       Issue oriented communications would be treated as “candidate related political activity” even if it is neutral or non-biased or if it is just intended to explain a non-electoral action such as a vote on pending legislation.  Voter guides and get-out-the-vote drives would be defined as “candidate-related political activity.”

5.       “The Treasury Department and the IRS contend that content previously posted by an organization on its Web site that clearly identifies a candidate and remains on the Web during the specified pre-election period would be treated as candidate-related political activity.”

6.       Any event an organization hosts within the 60/30 day election timeframe, at which a candidate appears, whether or not it was previously scheduled, would constitute “candidate-related activity.”

7.       The definition of “express advocacy” is radically expanded to include any communication that makes “reference to a particular issue or characteristic distinguishing the candidate from others.”  (For example, during an election that included Pro-Life and Pro-Choice candidates, any reference to the abortion issues would become express advocacy, even if the election was not mentioned.)

8.       The IRS would include statements about political parties, not just candidates, in its definition of express advocacy.

9.       Any contribution to a §501(c) organization that engages in “candidate-related political activity” would itself constitute “candidate-related political activity” by the donor.

10.   Contributions would be defined to include in-kind donations and volunteer services as well as cash.

This regulation severely represses Free Speech and Free Association of those opposing the president, while leaving his supporters relatively untouched. While it is likely most of this ruling is unconstitutional, the point is moot for the short term.  By the time any opposition case makes its way through the court system, the 2014 elections will be over.

Then there is the perception issue.  The media will hail the fairness of finally forcing §501 (c)(4) organizations to reveal their donors while ignoring the colossal trampling of Free Speech.