By Tyler O’Neil
Bradley A. Smith, chairman and founder of the Center for Competitive Politics, argued that the new rules constitute “an effort to regulate campaign finance disguised as a tax regulation.” He explained that when the DISCLOSE Act failed last summer, Democrats turned to the tax code to force their campaign finance reform.
While such reform normally falls under the bipartisan Federal Elections Commission, Smith alleged that Democrats decided to push the rules through the Obama administration’s IRS as a way to circumvent Republicans. He also explained that since the IRS has no experience in drafting these kinds of regulations, they will be less effective and will end up causing a great deal of problems for nonprofit groups on both sides of the aisle.
“The Republicans have an enormous advantage in 501c4 giving,” explained Eliana Johnson, media editor of National Review. Johnson argued that the impact of these regulations would fall on Republican groups more than Democratic groups, and claimed that a friendship with Democrats might lie behind the new rules.
