IRS
Fox: Issa, House GOP investigative committee say Lerner will testify in IRS scandal hearing
Former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner, a central figure in the IRS scandal, will appear before Congress on Wednesday after refusing to testify last year on the matter, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., claimed Sunday — though Lerner’s attorney and Issa may still be at odds over the timing.
Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told “Fox News Sunday” that Lerner’s lawyers have indicated she will testify before his committee, after saying last week that she would not.
“It’s going to be a good, fact-finding hearing,” he said.
Washington Post: Attorney denies Issa claim that Lois Lerner will testify Wednesday
By Josh Hicks
Lois Lerner’s attorney has denied claims from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) that the former Internal Revenue Service official agreed to testify Wednesday about the agency’s targeting controversy.
Wall Street Journal: Emails Show Negotiations With Lois Lerner’s Lawyer
The emails, released by committee aides, show that the two sides had different priorities that made it difficult to reach a deal. Ms. Lerner was hoping to avoid a public hearing that could expose her to more uncomfortable attention, and was willing to consider giving a private deposition instead, even without a grant of immunity. Her lawyer, Mr. Taylor, recently has said she has been the subject of threats on her safety.
Politico: IRS hit from all political stripes on nonprofit rules
By Lauren French
“That’s certainly one of our biggest problems. You see how it’s overly broad, as get-out-the-vote efforts [are] neither candidate-related or politically related. It’s odd,” Spaulding said.
The NAACP called the regulations “sweeping” in its comments to the Treasury.
“The tax law should continue to encourage our nonpartisan efforts to ensure that every American citizen has equal access to the voting booth,” its comments read. “We believe that the proposed rules would make matters worse, not better, by further muddying the waters in this area of the law, and by dramatically restricting the NAACP’s ability to address the latest efforts to suppress voting rights.”
Independent Groups
Washington Post: Democrats embrace super PACs, but some fear lack of focus on midterm elections
By Matea Gold
As Democratic officials rely more than ever on the big-money super PACs they once scorned, party strategists and donors are caught in sharp disagreements over how to use the newly influential independent organizations.
Tensions are simmering over whether Priorities USA Action and other Democratic groups that can accept unlimited contributions are too focused on the 2016 presidential race and a potential Hillary Rodham Clinton candidacy, even as Democrats face a costly, uphill fight this year to retain a thin Senate majority and gain seats in the House.
SCOTUS/Judiciary
Wall Street Journal: Disorder in the Court
By James Taranto
“Newkirk is a member of a group called 99Rise, which says on its website, www.99rise.org, that its aim is to ‘get big money out of American politics,’ ” Reuters reports. The “longtime progressive activist” told the wire service that “99Rise was formed by a small group of people in Los Angeles who were inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests.”
Newkirk’s disruption was illicitly captured on video, apparently by a confederate who had smuggled a camera past court security. What Reuters accurately describes as a two-minute “shaky, low-quality video” was uploaded to YouTube. In addition to Thursday’s disruption, it shows what is purportedly a scene from the McCutcheon oral arguments in October.
Disclosure
Washington Post: Charles Koch speaks!
By CHRIS CILLIZZA
The Koch Brothers’ profile has never been higher. The brothers behind Americans for Prosperity and myriad other conservative groups have been called “un-American” by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and demonized by Democrats more broadly hoping to turn the 2014 election into a referendum on the Kansas-born duo’s spending on political campaigns.
Amid all of these attacks, Charles and David Koch have largely stayed silent — content to dispute the characterizations of them via their various official spokespeople.
Until now.
Charles Koch spent 40 minutes talking on the record with the Wichita Business Journal about a number of things including politics. (Worth noting: The Wichita Business Journal “agreed to some terms, including some topics, photography and taking no more than 45 minutes of his time” as a condition of securing the Koch interview.) It’s a rare glimpse into how a man who has emerged as one-half of the biggest spending conservative duo in the country sees his role in the national conversation.
Tax Financing
NY Post: The real cost of public campaign finance
By Mark Cunningham
Look at the last race. Bill de Blasio’s path to the Democratic nomination was cleared last year when the CFB shut down the campaign of the other major left-wing candidate, then-Comptroller John Liu, by refusing to release the matching funds he’d qualified for. The excuse was the federal probe into Liu’s past fund-raising, where some crimes plainly occurred — but the feds never linked Liu himself to any wrongdoing.
Liu is an excellent campaigner and often a clever politician — and de Blasio’s rise only began once he was sidelined. If the CFB hadn’t quashed Liu, the split on the left might’ve put Bill Thompson or Chris Quinn in the lead; at the least, a runoff would’ve been far more likely. Instead, de Blasio soared to a win, passing the 40 percent line as the moderate vote split.
The CFB’s move back in 2001 was even more anti-democratic. When the 9/11 attacks pushed Primary Day back two weeks, the board pretty much ordered all candidates to stop campaigning, and refused to release the funds that would’ve let them.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Time: Obama Completes His Slow About-Face on Super PACs
By Zeke Miller
“With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said in an unusually public presidential smack-down of the high court. ”I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities—they should be decided by the American people.”
Four years later, that position is unrecognizable. Since the Citizens United decision and other relevant court rulings, Obama has inched ever closer to the big-money groups he once decried, and in the coming months will make a full-on embrace of super PACs, which can accept unlimited money from corporations and wealthy individuals to spend on behalf of, or against, candidates across the country.
FEC
Revolution Messaging: FEC Criticized for “shortsighted” deadlock on mobile phone ads
“The Democratic FEC commissioners have no sense of the technology available to today’s political campaigns. They are employing 20th century logic to 21st century campaigns,” Revolution Messaging’s partner and head of digital advertising Keegan Goudiss said today.
“Commissioners misled us after our initial hearing where they said there could be a compromise by way of a shortened disclaimer. While Republican commissioners felt there was no need for a disclaimer whatsoever, they were willing to settle on an alternative which would achieve the same purpose. Unfortunately, Democratic Commissioners changed their minds and rejected that approach, apparently at the last minute.
“The Commission’s approach is disappointing, shortsighted and a transparency killer. Those that already bend the rules will continue to do so, while those committed to transparency with fewer resources will be unable to take full advantage of mobile technology.”
State and Local
Texas –– Wall Street Journal: Texas Speech Fight
Editorial
While the Obama Administration’s IRS is trying to roll back the political speech of 501(c)(4)s across the country, states like Wisconsin have been trying to criminalize political activities and intimidate donors. The latest example is Texas, where a conservative tax-exempt group went to court on Wednesday to fight harassment by the state Ethics Commission.
The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Austin on behalf of Michael Quinn Sullivan and Empower Texans, a 501(c)(4) that works on issues like spending caps and tax reform and puts out scorecards of state legislators. The suit charges that the commission has violated the group’s rights to free speech and due process by using subpoenas to force the group to disclose information that isn’t required of a 501(c)(4) under state or federal law.
Virginia –– Washington Post: Former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell asks for more details on charges
By Matt Zapotosky
Attorneys for former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell want federal prosecutors to be more specific about the “official actions” they allege he performed for a wealthy Richmond area businessman in exchange for loans and expensive gifts.
In a motion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Richmond, the lawyers asked prosecutors to produce a “bill of particulars” adding more detail to their 14-count, 43-page indictment that accuses McDonnell (R) and his wife of corruption while he was governor. The motion says the indictment, although “unnecessarily detailed in some respects,” falls short in defining the “official actions” that McDonnell allegedly performed or promised to perform for Richmond businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr.
