No wonder...Minnesota....I am surprised it's in St. Paul.
This is total bullsh*t! Victimized? What about the truth being exposed for once? Typical for the damn socialist to lurk in dark shadows!
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/093/wash/Socialist_Workers_Party_gets_F:.shtml Socialist Workers Party gets FEC exemption on revealing donors
By Sharon Theimer, Associated Press, 4/3/2003 11:45
WASHINGTON (AP) The Socialist Workers Party still faces the danger of harassment and can continue to keep the identity of its donors secret, the Federal Election Commission ruled Thursday.
The commission voted 4-2 to extend the party's long-standing exemption from FEC reporting requirements for political parties, including rules on identifying contributors.
The granting of the six-year extension came despite the opinion of two commissioners that times have changed and the party no longer faces significant harassment from the government.
Commissioner Danny McDonald voted against the extension, saying he saw only evidence of petty harassment of the party in recent years similar to what other political parties have faced. McDonald cited one case in which oranges were thrown at a party activist and another in which activists were cursed by political opponents.
''The true believers, when they send in a check, and they put it in the public record, they know it might be good for business and it might not be,'' McDonald said.
But the majority of the commissioners said that while harassment of the party has diminished, the organization's long history of threats coupled with anecdotal evidence from recent years justified extending the exemption.
Steve Clark, a member of the party's national committee, welcomed the FEC decision, saying that with the war on terrorism increasingly intruding on political activity, his party needed the protection.
''The times change back and forth,'' Clark said. ''Certainly the past year and a half there's been a much more open attempt by the federal government and states and local governments to push back political rights in this country.''
The Socialist Workers Party advocates a Marxist revolution to overthrow the U.S. government. Taking the Russian and Cuban revolutions of the 20th century as models, it wants to replace the country's capitalist system with a government of workers and farmers.
The exemption was first granted by a court in 1979 and last renewed by the commission in 1996.
The party, who counts its members in the hundreds, had candidates on the ballot in congressional and other races around the country last year; none won. It currently is protesting the war in Iraq.
On the Net:
FEC:
http://www.fec.gov/