[EL] Tea Party group AO asking for disclosure exemption

[Steve Hoersting]

Your welcome, Dan. God's speed.
On Sep 18, 2013 11:46 AM, "Byron Tau" <btau at politico.com> wrote:

>  Of interest to some on this list:
>
>
> http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/tea-party-fec-socialist-treatment-96988.html
>
>    *Tea party wants socialist treatment*
> By: Byron Tau
> September 18, 2013 11:34 AM EDT
>
> 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 <http://images.politico.com/global/2013/09/17/2013-09-16_tea_party_leadership_fund_aor.html>
> POLITICO<http://images.politico.com/global/2013/09/17/2013-09-16_tea_party_leadership_fund_aor.html>,
> 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 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.<http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/socialists-allowed-to-keep-donors-secret-90693.html>
>
> “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<http://images.politico.com/global/2013/09/17/2013-09-16_tplf_appendix_final.html> 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.
>
>  --
> Byron Tau
> Lobbying and influence reporter || POLITICO
> c: 202-441-1171
> d: 703-341-4610
> Follow: @byrontau <http://twitter.com/byrontau>
> Subscribe to: http://www.politico.com/politicoinfluence/
>
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