In an effort to make the source of money given to political campaigns more transparent a Democratic congressman has filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service because of the way tax-exempt groups are actually spending their money, according to USA Today.
The suit is being brought by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., along with three advocacy groups that want to limit the amount of money spent in politics: Democracy 21, Public Citizen, and the Campaign Legal Center, according to USA Today.
Groups that receive 501 (c)(4) tax-exempt status are required to be "operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare." A rule adopted in 1959 changed the status a bit by allowing these groups to make political donations as long as those donations were less than 50 percent of the group's total spending, according to USA Today.
"By redefining 'exclusively' as 'primarily' in violation of the clear terms of its governing statuses, the IRS permits tax-exempt social welfare organizations to engage in substantial electoral activities in contravention of the law," Van Hollen said in the suit.
After the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United vs. FEC the amount of money donated to political campaigns from groups with 501 (c)(4) status skyrocketed in the last election cycle. In 2008 those groups spent $82.7 million compared to $256 million in 2012, according to U.S. News & World Report.
It was the targeting of 501 (c)(4) groups that was at the heart of the IRS scandal that led to the dismissal of IRS commissioner Steven Miller in May. It was learned that the IRS was giving extra scrutiny to conservative groups who had applied for tax-exempt status and a Congressional investigation into exactly what happened is ongoing.
"There's been a lot of attention to the recent investigations into the IRS review of applications of organizations seeking 501 (c)(4) tax-exempt status," Van Hollen told U.S. News & World Report on a conference call. "Those investigations have gained substantial notoriety but for the wrong reasons."
The main goal of Van Hollen's lawsuit appear to be to make sure that groups claiming to be formed in order to promote social welfare are actually doing so instead of just being an excuse for funneling anonymous donations into political campaigns.
A lawyer for the American Center for Law and Justice, a group that is currently representing 41 Tea Party groups in a suit with the IRS over the agency's targeting of the groups, told USA Today that Van Hollen's suit was an attack on the First Amendment.
"Political speech is protected by the First Amendment," Jay Sekulow said. "Anonymous pamphleteering is as old as our country and deserves just as much Constitutional protection. If he wants to change the code, he should do that through the legislative process. This would be a court way overstepping its bounds."
