Date: June 3rd, 2014 Contact: Joe Trotter Phone: 210-352-0055 (Cell)
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (June 3) — The Center for Competitive Politics announced today that it filed a complaint with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics calling for an investigation of nine senators who violated the Chamber’s rules and abused the powers of their office for political gain by requesting IRS investigations of specifically named organizations and interfering with IRS adjudications of non-profit tax status.
“Richard Nixon faced impeachment charges for attempting to use the IRS for political purposes. These similar actions surely require the Ethics Committee to sanction one or more of these senators or, at the very least, to adopt rules to ensure it never happens again,” said David Keating, president of the Center. “Over many years, both Republicans and Democrats sought to use the IRS for political purposes and this must stop.”
“These senators improperly attempted to use the IRS to suppress the free speech of American citizens for their party’s electoral gain,” said Brad Smith, chairman of the Center and a former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission. “We will fight this type of abuse of power and work to ensure that those who have violated Senate Ethics rules are held to account.”
Senators Carl Levin, Richard Durbin, Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeanne Shaheen, Al Franken, Jeff Merkley, and Tom Udall are the nine the Center accuses of improperly interfering with the Internal Revenue Service’s administrative proceedings. The senators’ goal was clear — to stifle the free speech rights of nonprofit organizations with which they did not agree.
The complaint is divided into three parts. The first part provides background on the political context informing the senators’ actions. Part II outlines the senators’ specific actions, and Part III sets forth the violations that must command the Committee’s attention.
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For more information or to schedule an interview with someone at the Center, please contact Kristen Thomaselli at (202) 471-4228 ext. 101 or kristen@keybridge.biz.
The Center’s complaint is accessible at this link.
About the Center for Competitive Politics
The Center for Competitive Politics promotes and defends the First Amendment’s protection of the political rights of speech, assembly, and petition. It is the nation’s largest organization dedicated solely to protecting First Amendment political rights.
