Posted on 09/18/2013 11:52:10 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
A national tea party group is asking for permission to keep their donors secret — just like the socialists.
Citing a long litany of harassment examples, the Tea Party Leadership Fund is asking the Federal Election Commission for the same right granted to the Socialist Workers Party to shield the names and information of their donors from the public.
In a new request to the FEC shared with POLITICO, the group argues that tea party donors and activists are being targeted for harassment by government officials and private groups — and they cite derogatory comments by politicians and overbearing government investigations as evidence.
“Nobody likes the communists and really for good reason,” said Dan Backer, the attorney for the group who wrote and filed the complaint. But, Backer said, the same legal principle that grants left-wring groups the right to hide their donors should also cover tea party groups.
“As we very thoroughly document at almost three times the length of the socialist request, tea party supporters are subject to an unprecedented level of harassment and abuse,” Backer said.
If the tea party request is granted, the decision could open the floodgates to outside groups, candidates and political parties who want to hide their donors with the government’s blessing.
“This will be the beginning of a conversation about the burdens and the perils of disclosure,” Backer predicted.
While some political nonprofits are able to shield their donors, federal law requires that PACs, political parties and candidates make public the names, employers and addresses of their donors.
In recent cycles, though, political nonprofits, organized as 501(c)4s or 501(c)6 organizations, have also emerged as a major political force for the reasons of allowing anonymous money to be spent on political advertising. Those groups that are not required to disclosure their donors under IRS rules.
But federal courts and the FEC have recognized that minor party candidates and other political organizations can be entitled to exemptions from disclosure on behalf of their donors, if they might face government retribution or private harassment.
The only exemption ever granted by the FEC under this principle, however, is for the Socialist Workers Party. The self-described left-wing political party has been granted the right to keep donors secret since 1990 — a special exemption that was renewed as recently as 2013.
Federal courts have also granted special disclosure exemptions to the Communist Party, Socialist Action and the Freedom Socialist Party.
“We are not advocates of financial disclosure. That’s not the problem in this country,” Socialist Workers Party chairman Steve Clark told POLITICO in April.
Backer and the Tea Party Leadership Fund argues that the IRS scandal coupled with comments by President Barack Obama, top administration officials and members of Congress is ample evidence that tea party groups and their donors and activists have been specifically targeted for harassment by high ranking government officials.
To document those abuses, Backer shipped a 1,438 page appendix cataloging his evidence to the FEC via FedEx. (Only a summary of the appendix was shared with POLITICO).
The IRS scandal — where a top official agency admitted in May to targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny — figures prominently in the Tea Party Leadership Fund evidence of harassment.
Other evidence: Obama’s use of the pejorative term “tea-baggers,” Vice President Joe Biden’s comments that tea party activists were acting like “terrorists,” and hundreds of examples of members of Congress, and administration officials speaking negatively of the movement.
“It’s the president, it’s the House and the Senate. It’s numerous federal agencies,” Backer said.
The Tea Party is doing this to Illustrate the absurdity of the socialists getting a break...
The Politico writer is clueless
The Politico writer is a Marxist plant.
Who gave the socialists a pass? Why? Let me guess...
However, unlike the socialists, Tea Party contributors can actually expect retribution at the hands of the IRS and other “servants of the people.”
Reading the comments on that thread literally makes me want to find the nearest liberal and beat the stupid out of him.
POLITICO is controlled by the Obama mob.
Reading the comments on that thread literally makes me want to find the nearest liberal and beat the stupid out of him.
Pardon me, please, Heavyrunner, for sticking my nose in where it may be neither needed nor wanted, but do you have evidence it's possible to beat the stupid out of leftist extremists?
No evidence at all, but I’m willing to conduct research and put the theory to the test—Repeatedly—Until I feel better.
On a serious note, I’ve often thought the anonymity provided by the internet has destroyed any chance of reasoned debate between perspectives because now everybody fires for effect and suffers no consequences for even the most offensive speech.
You don’t walk up to a gang of bikers and suggest they’re p*ssies, because while you’ve got the right to say it, wisdom dictates you don’t.
Freedom of speech is very different than freedom from consequences for saying stupid stuff. Just once, I’d like to deliver those consequences to some effete, milquetoast socialist punk and see if he feels differently about the 2nd Ammendment after being nearly beaten to death by a guy who didn’t take kindly to his condescending tone.
Surely this is satire.
Well it is very therapeutic to attempt to obtain said evidence.
Tea Partiers thirsty, ask for water — just like the socialists!!!
Like card-check when the union shows up at your door and say “What cute kids you have, pity if something happens to them”
Why not have the true Republicans require a BINDING, updated, “Federal Financial Impact Statement” for 2012-2013 for Obama”care?”
It should take a month or two to complete, allow for a vote to delay Obama”care” for a year, and then show the great financial harm to our Economy that the Statement’s numbers will document.
Wharton, Stanford, Michigan and Princeton could also file their independent Financial Impact Statements to compare to the Office of Budget and the Congressional Budget Office Financial Impact Statements.
As B. Hussein is fond of saying: “We need to get all the facts first.”
bttt
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