IRS battle

From Campaign For Liberty:

The Supporter Ballots we have so far received regarding whether we should pay the IRS’ fine and disclose our top donors’ names or continue to refuse to do so have been tallied up, and I am pleased to report that out of the responses, the overwhelming majority (97%) say fight on!

As we are still receiving new ballots on a daily basis, I’m confident we’ll see an even higher level of support for standing firm. This support is crucial since we could be in for a long battle.

Obviously, losing this battle would have a negative effect on Campaign for Liberty, but it would also have repercussions for the entire liberty movement.

If we lose, it will set a precedent that could, and almost certainly will, be used against other pro-liberty organizations.

The effect, if not the purpose, of such attacks will be to protect the establishment while stopping the significant progress groups like Campaign for Liberty are making in defending and promoting liberty.

Ultimately, the result will be that no one will be able to substantially support an organization devoted to mobilizing grassroots opposition to the administration in power without having their names divulged to the IRS.

We have already seen at least one case where a list of donors to a political cause were leaked to that cause’s opponents.

And history shows that the IRS has a long history of targeting the political opponents of whatever party currently occupies the White House.

Background

Scholar Burton Folsom’s book New Deal or Raw Deal documents how IRS agents in the 1930s served as “hit squads” against opponents of the New Deal. In the 1960s, both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson used the IRS to silence their critics.

While most people think of the Watergate burglary when they recall the scandals that led to Richard Nixon’s downfall, a much more significant abuse of power was his use of the IRS to harass his political enemies. (One of the articles of impeachment drawn up against President Nixon dealt with this.)

During the 1990s, groups that opposed the Clinton administration's agenda were subjected to IRS audits. An IRS agent even told the head of one of these groups, “What do you expect when you challenge the President?”

Of course, few IRS agents are as blatant as that one, nor do they need to be to stifle opposition, as the attacks themselves send a message not only to the organizations but to grassroots liberty activists. The IRS also does not need to demand the names of every 501(c)(4) organizations’ major donors or subject those donors to audits or other harassments.

Just knowing that this can happen and oftentimes does can be enough to chill Americans’ willingness to actively engage in the public process by supporting groups like Campaign for Liberty.

So it’s obvious that using the IRS as a weapon against the political opponents of the incumbent administration is not anything new, with the current administration appearing to just be following in this shameful establishment tradition.

Recent examples include the news that 10% of the donors to certain “Tea Party” organizations were subjected to audits.

There is also a suspiciously high correlation between being a large donor to Mitt Romney and being audited by the IRS, just the latest in a long history of those who oppose the agenda of the administration in power finding themselves “coincidently” subject to IRS audits.

Of course, the most blatant abuse of IRS power is the delay and targeting of Tea Party and other pro-liberty groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Despite the administration’s continued stonewalling, resulting in the congressional resolution holding former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt, new evidence continues to come forward that the targeting was, if not directly ordered, at least encouraged by the IRS’ Washington, D.C. office as well as at least one prominent Democrat Senator.

Court Precedent

Several federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have upheld the right of organizations such as Campaign for Liberty to protect their donors’ confidentiality.

The primary example is the Supreme Court case NAACP v. Alabama, where the Supreme Court decided that the state of Alabama’s demand that the NAACP release a list of its members violated the NAACP’s First Amendment rights.

Writing for the majority, Justice John Marshall Harlan stated, “This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one’s associations . . . Compelled disclosure of membership in an organization engaged in advocacy of particular beliefs is of the same order. Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.”

Again, this is only one of several cases upholding the right of groups like Campaign for Liberty to refuse to comply with government orders that they divulge the names of their donors. Thus, we appear to be on solid legal ground in our refusal to comply with the IRS’ request.

However, fighting this in court will take a lot of resources.

The IRS has an inexhaustible supply of resources, so if this went to court, they would be able to drag out the case as long as desired, requiring Campaign for Liberty to undercut our crucial legislative efforts.

Legislative Outlook and Conclusion

With Audit the Fed having once again gained a majority of members of the House of Representatives as cosponsors, there is no reason why House leadership should not hold a vote on this legislation.

Yet House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor will need all the “encouragement” we can muster to schedule a clean vote.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has yet to reverse his refusal to allow a full Senate roll call vote on the legislation, meaning we will need to not only ramp up our campaign to persuade House and Senate leadership to hold a vote on Audit the Fed but also sustain that intense amount of pressure.

Last year’s revelations of the extent of the National Security Agency’s wiretapping on the American people provide us with our best opportunity since the passage of the “PATRIOT” Act to rein in the surveillance state.

However, as I write this, House leadership is preparing to pass phony “reform” that does not go nearly far enough. If this legislation gets through the House and Senate and is signed by President Obama, politicians will use it to claim they do not need to pass legislation regarding the NSA because they already addressed it. Preventing the passage of a phony NSA “reform” bill will require us to keep the heat on Congress.

And while we have so far been successful in stopping progress on the National Internet Tax Mandate in the House, the representatives who are carrying water for the special interests and revenue-hungry governors have not given up.

In fact, one of the representatives working on a House version of the mandate recently revealed their plan when he said that the legislative calendar “resets” after November.

So the forces in favor of increasing government control over the Internet are planning a push to ram this bill into law during the lame-duck session of Congress, when representatives and many senators are safe from the voters’ wrath for another two years.

We need to be prepared to thwart this attempt, and if it does come during the lame-duck session, even more resources will be required, as it’s harder to reach and mobilize opposition during the busy holiday season.

Like the National Internet Tax Mandate, there are indications that House leadership is determined to bring legislation creating a new biometric ID card, tied to a national database, to the House floor in November - under the guise of so-called “immigration reform.”

So far, we’ve been successful in halting this legislation, but it could gain considerable post-election momentum.

These are just some of the offensive and defensive battles Campaign for Liberty must continue dealing with in upcoming months.

If we are forced to divert significant resources to the battle with the IRS, we could lose our best chance to pass Audit the Fed, begin reining in the NSA, stop the National Internet Tax Mandate, and prevent the National ID system from passing into law.

If we lose any of these battles because of stopping the IRS attack, the statists will have gained a big victory — even if we eventually win any legal battle with the IRS.

Winning any potential legal battle with the IRS while pushing ahead on our legislative agenda will require raising enough resources to stay active on multiple fronts simultaneously.

But the outpouring of support from our members and other grassroots activists has been incredible and encouraging, and I believe Campaign for Liberty’s commitment to making 2014 a landmark year for liberty can stay strong with their continued help.

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