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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWell Lookie Here: 3/28/2012: Judge rules tea party group a PAC, not a nonprofit
Judge rules tea party group a PAC, not a nonprofit
By Joe Holley | March 28, 2012
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A Travis County district court judge ruled this week that a Houston-based tea party group is not a nonprofit corporation as it claims, but an unregistered political action committee that illegally aided the Republican Party through its poll-watching efforts during the 2010 elections.
The summary judgment by Judge John Dietz upheld several Texas campaign finance laws that had been challenged on constitutional grounds by King Street Patriots, a tea party organization known for its "True the Vote" effort to uncover voter fraud.
The ruling grew out of a 2010 lawsuit filed by the Texas Democratic Party against the King Street Patriots. The Democrats charged that the organization made unlawful political contributions to the Texas Republican Party and various Republican candidates by training poll watchers in cooperation with the party and its candidates and by holding candidate forums only for GOP candidates.
more:
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Judge-rules-tea-party-group-a-PAC-not-a-nonprofit-3442532.php#src=fb
MADem
(135,425 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)Happy birthday to meeee
Doubtless just some librul judge who will eventually be set "right" by the mighty SCOTUS.
DCKit
(18,541 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)mar 28, 1948. Aries rule
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)Anansi1171
(793 posts)...Advertisement gracing the page of this progessive site, and understand why we are losing the struggle.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)If, in some small way, DU is causing he AEI to waste it's advertising dollars, by advertising on a site that will simply laugh at the AEI ads, then I'm OK with that.
Sid
zerosumgame0005
(207 posts)of SCTV
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid Dithers in Taxi Driver is my fave...
Sid
freshwest
(53,661 posts)The Magistrate
(95,241 posts)robinlynne
(15,481 posts)TexasTowelie
(111,907 posts)I posted a thread on it last year at http://www.democraticunderground.com/10782100 .
amerciti001
(158 posts)I reviewed your thread of Thu Mar 29, 2012, 04:51 AM, and now it's back, great.
caledesi
(11,903 posts)John2
(2,730 posts)when you have members of Congress, the Press and even the White House expressing outrage over the IRS doing their jobs to police these groups for violating the Tax exempt Laws. Thjey are still pushing this theme the IRS only singled out conservative groups. It was reported out of 300 groups examined by the IRS, 70 were conservative. How do you get from 70 out of 300 to only conservative groups were examined?
lastlib
(23,140 posts)Just like Alice In Wonderland--it adds up to what they WANT it to add up to...!
lame54
(35,259 posts)repug math
KansDem
(28,498 posts)"Voter fraud is extraordinarily rare," the Brennan Center finds in its in-depth investigation. "By throwing all sorts of election anomalies under the "voter fraud" umbrella, however, advocates for such laws artificially inflate the apparent need for these restrictions."
--more--
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/230345/the-gops-make-believe-voter-fraud-epidemic
But voters need to show I.D., dammit!
Initech
(100,029 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)silvershadow
(10,336 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Crooks one and all.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)himself as W's "running mate". Wink wink.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Just a quick plane trip to WY to take advantage of their drive-thru motor voter law at the time. They had the convention before either of them read the Constitution. The man was clearly ineligible to run as VP, and not a resident of Wyoming, since he was taking every tax break that the State of Texas offers. That homestead tax break requires that the house be one's primary residence and he'd taken the tax break for years. GOP, party of grifters!!
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)their only issue(s). What a trip down unpleasant memory lane. I shudder.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Rain Mcloud
(812 posts)The WH culture of intimidation.
DallasNE
(7,402 posts)Even if the Tea Party is required to set up a PAC for its political activity I still don't see where there will be meaningful disclosure if given 501(c)(4) status. They use the c4 as the vehicle to collect donations without disclosure then pass those donations to the PAC where the PAC lists a single donor - the Tea Party organization.
The IRS needs to go back to the language of the law that says the organization must engage exclusively in social welfare activities. That language is clear. The 1959 rewrite is improper at best. As it is, we have the "fog of IRS".
In this case political wars rather than hot wars. Faced with a mountain of work some workers at the IRS devised a way to cut corners to speed up the process. Internal reviews uncovered these shortcuts and they were ordered to end but the review did not understand the underlying cause (a perceived notion that the workload demanded some kind of shortcuts). So the problem came back with a different, more vague set of keywords. They too were struck down but with the passage of time the IRS began backtracking on the questionnaires then threw up their hands and simply approved all of the applications. Well, two wrongs do not make a right.
A strict reading of the law (not the 1959 interpretation) says that to be tax exempt the organization must be exclusively engaged in social welfare activities -- in other words no political activity whatsoever, not even issue ads. It is time to enforce the law as it is written. That doesn't mean that these organizations engaging in political activity are illegal - only that they must apply as the Super-Pac's that they really are. The difference is not in the tax status - both are tax exempt - but reporting requirements. Large donors names must be listed. In the court of law you are allowed to me your accuser and the same should apply with political campaigns. Without transparency you have corruption -- it is that simple. And none of that would have happened by applying the law as written and that says "exclusively" for social welfare purposes. If anyone manipulated the IRS it is President Eisenhower with that 1959 ruling that gutted the intent of the law.
amerciti001
(158 posts)501(c)4 outfit. He knew this was a loophole that was not about to be plugged, because no one was aware of a change in the law from 1959, that really did make present day 501(c)4's actually illegal.
To further exacerbate this loophole, Mr. Rove states that a 501(c)4 can have 49.9% of it activities as political, by his interpretation of the tax code.
Also, I surmised as well about if these 501(c)4's was required to have a 527 PAC, that they'll gladly comply, because they'll still have their 501(c)4 to get these donations and simply pass them to their 527 listing the name of the 501(c)4 org as the donor, hiding the actual donors from all disclosure, slick.
DallasNE
(7,402 posts)In 1959 an internal IRS document was written to provide clarification on the meaning of "exclusive" to mean "primarily" and while that "clarification" still stands even that meaning has been further watered down to "over half". Not only that but new language segregates political activities between partisan and issue ads. Issue ads don't count towards the "over half" so today exclusive really means nominal. The only issue here is disclosure. These groups that function like PAC's could easily gain tax exempt status as PAC's and operate just as they do but that would require that they disclose large donors (I believe $4,000 and more).
meow2u3
(24,757 posts)(c) List of exempt organizations
The following organizations are referred to in subsection (a):
(A) Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, or local associations of employees, the membership of which is limited to the employees of a designated person or persons in a particular municipality, and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.
(B) Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to an entity unless no part of the net earnings of such entity inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)silvershadow
(10,336 posts)Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)it's obvious
MerryBlooms
(11,756 posts)is the IRS's blatant disregard of law regarding what constitutes a 501 (C) 4, then rubber stamping these scam organizations and our tax dollars subsidizing these goddamn grifters. Grrr
W T F
(1,145 posts)won't buy him a pony.
jmowreader
(50,528 posts)they're a spoiled rich brat who claims his parents are abusing him because he wanted a black pony and they got him a brown one instead.
okaawhatever
(9,457 posts)titled "Actually, Tea Party Groups the IRS lots of good reasons to be examined.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-tax-problems
True the Vote were the dbags who lined up at polls to make sure there wasn't any voter fraud. Of course they only did so in heavy democratic districts and were basically there for intimidation.
dragonlady
(3,577 posts)They took it upon themselves to examine all of the more than 1 million signatures on the recall petitions and oddly enough found many, many thousands that were "fraudulent" (missing zip codes that weren't required anyway, extremely strict standards for legibility of signature, which didn't have to be legibile either, etc. etc.) Then they put all the scans of the petitions online with a searchable database so anyone can look up people to see if they signed. (At least one judge lost reelection because he had signed.) What a nice group.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,283 posts)At the end of each of his op-ed pieces in The Wall Street Journal., he is described like this: "Mr. Rove, a former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, helped organize the political action committee American Crossroads."
See, for one example, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324266904578456652913658748.html or any copy of the print edition in which the column runs.
American Crossroads is a PAC. It is not a social welfare organization. Period.
If it's good enough for The Wall Street Journal., it's good enough for me.