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Thursday, June 29, 2006

Grassley Puts Charitable Reforms In Catch-All Tax Bill
The Senate Finance Committee yesterday approved a number of charitable reforms. The reforms, which were unexpectedly rolled into a tax-adminstration bill via Sen. Chuck Grassley's (R-IA) manager's amendment, includes increased excise taxes, requiring electronic filing of Form 990, and a requirement that non-profits that currently do not file tax returns at all to provide the IRS with general information every three years.

Grassley issued a press release on the bill on Wednesday. He talked about the broad probe he has been conducting at abuses by tax-exempt groups. The press release says:

In addition, he is looking at problems raised by the charitable foundations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and a group called the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which some allege sets up non-profit groups to receive federal grants and engage in political advocacy.

He has asked the IRS to describe plans to step up enforcement in the various areas of concern in the tax-exempt arena. According to the press release, he expects a response in the next several days to determine what will be the committee's "next steps".

For a more detailed summary of the bill, see the JCT report

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 12:38:19 PM

Roll Call Says Oversight Needed
From Roll Call:

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee has set a standard for what Congressional oversight should be, but often isn’t, with its investigation of the fleecing of American Indian tribes by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Now, it’s time for the Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees to follow up with probes of his, and others’, misuse of tax-exempt foundations.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 11:41:45 AM

Lobby Reform Update
According to BNA:

While House leaders held out hope June 27 that lawmakers could send President Bush a lobbying and ethics reform conference report in the next three days, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) said consideration of the measure would extend into July

Also of interest is a letter, sent by Sens. Charles Grassley, James Inhofe, and Ron Wyden, and signed by 29 Senators, urging conferees to keep in language that ends the practice of secret holds in the Senate.

The letter says:

The use of anonymous holds in the Senate undermines public accountability, and eighty-four senators have voted to end this shadowy practice. The Senate has spoken and we expect this standing order to remain intact in the final conference report on the Lobby Reform Bill.

See also a great Washingon Post editorial on congress' unwillingness to act on lobby reform.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 11:30:54 AM

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

China Audits Nonprofit Organizations
From the The San Francisco Chronicle :

Chinese officials have been auditing nonprofit groups in what critics say is an effort to intimidate and disrupt their work. The director of one environmental group, Green Watershed, told the Chronicle that the organization has “experienced investigations through almost the whole of last year.” The group has received grants from the Ford Foundation and other large U.S. donors, the paper reports.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 09:56:26 AM

Birnbaum On Crawling Lobby Reform Bills
From the Washington Post:

Jeffrey Birnbaum decries the weak lobby reform bills and the seeming unwillingness of the Republican Leadership to enact anything at all - even the weak bills passed by the House and Senate.

He's not alone.

"Initially, I worried that Congress would do this bill too quickly and that it might not be as well-thought-out as it needed to be," said Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which had partial jurisdiction over the legislation. "That fear seems ludicrous now."

However, Collins also placed blame on the advocates of lobby reform.

The lack of powerful public backing for the legislation has prompted recriminations. "The advocates of reform utterly failed to mobilize public support," Collins observed.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 09:41:00 AM

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Great OpEd on the Logic Puzzle
From the Washington Post:

Members of Congress argue that these restrictions are necessary to reduce the spurious e-mails sent on behalf of constituents. Frankly, this is ludicrous. These extremely rare occurrences do not explain the majority or even a small percentage of the increase in communications with Congress.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 02:04:29 PM

Is the Heat Off on Lobby Reform?
From Roll Call:

It was dispiriting enough that Senate and House Republicans passed weak lobbying reform bills this spring. Since then, embarrassing revelations have surfaced on the Democratic side and the GOP won the race to succeed imprisoned ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R) in his California district. If Republicans decide that the ethical heat is off, what emerges from a House-Senate conference — if anything ever does — is likely to be downright pathetic.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 11:56:05 AM

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Shays-Meehan To Introduce New Lobby Reform Bill
From Roll Call:

[Reform] groups are set to rally around a bill expected this week from Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) that will include reform provisions that were dropped or blocked from the leadership-approved overhaul measures.
The bill would create an Office of Public Integrity to oversee compliance with new lobbying rules; require more frequent and fuller disclosures by lobbyists of their activities; ban gifts to lawmakers; and force them to pay fair market value for rides they catch on private planes.
“This will serve as a marker for the reform groups who will be criticizing the conference report,” said Public Citizen’s Craig Holman.
To try to keep campaign and ethics reform measures front and center in this fall’s midterm elections, a coalition of watchdog and issue groups on Wednesday plan to launch a program designed to get Congressional candidates to sign a pledge that they’ll support public financing of elections as well as anti-corruption and lobbying reforms, Holman said.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 02:58:27 PM

Monday, June 19, 2006

Nonprofits Ask Members to Disable "Logic Puzzles"
Over 100 organizations came together to send a letter to Congress on June 19th, asking that legislators stop using software that blocks constituent messages sent through organization websites.

For the letter and its signers, click here.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 06:26:51 PM

Steve King Says No Fed Funds If We Don't Agree With You
Last week, the House approved an amendment offered by Steve King striking the federal funding for a gay and lesbian center.

He says:

“The gay and lesbian center in Los Angeles is free to advocate their views, but I do not believe that taxpayers should be forced to subsidize an organization that is so radically opposed to traditional values the overwhelming majority of Americans hold dear.”

For the whole press release.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 05:50:18 PM

Friday, June 16, 2006

Shelby Expects Senate to Take Up GSE Bill This Summer
Freddie Mac wants to help move legislation forward in the Senate that would create a new regulator and is making progress toward an anticipated financial restatement, said Chief Executive Daniel Mudd to a Senate committee.

Sen. Richard Shelby should welcome that news. He is still pushing for tighter controls over Fannie and Freddie.

Legislative action has been stalled in the Senate over the issue of limiting Fannie and Freddie Mac's massive holdings of mortgage-backed securities.

Shelby is now saying he expects the Senate to debate a bill this summer. What that means for a anti-advocacy provision like the one the House passed in October is unclear. Hopefully, if and when the Senate moves forward, there will be no attempt to attach anti-advocacy language to the bill.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 05:26:48 PM

Newt On Electioneering Communications Black-out Period
Newt Gingrich on BCRA, and the electioneering communications rule:

This is horribly wrong. What would the Founding Fathers have thought of such free speech “blackout periods”? The days leading up to an election ought to be filled with debate. Free speech and activism, by informing and organizing the public, empower average citizens to promote a cause they believe in and to demand honest and responsive representation. Instead, the incumbent politicians that supported McCain-Feingold prefer to keep us quiet and prevent us from making noise about their records as Election Day gets closer.
A great travesty of the law is that it makes it harder for candidates of middle-class means to run for office at all. Instead, we have the example of how one candidate spent $100 million personally to buy a Senate seat, then a governorship, but while in the Senate voted for McCain-Feingold to limit every middle-class citizen to $2,500 in donations per election campaign. These rules move us dangerously closer to a plutocracy where the highest bidder can buy a seat.

For the whole article, click here

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 05:14:15 PM

ACLU Sues to Force DOD to Turn Over Files on Peace Groups
The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a federal lawsuit to force the Department of Defense to turn over records it wrongly kept on peace groups and law-abiding Americans throughout the country.

"The U.S. military should not be in the business of maintaining secret databases about lawful First Amendment activities," said ACLU attorney Ben Wizner. "It is an abuse of power and an abuse of trust for the military to play any role in monitoring critics of administration policies."

For the press release

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 10:38:21 AM

Monday, June 12, 2006

Advocates Say Logic Puzzle Hinders Grassroots Lobbying
Articles on the "Logic Puzzle":

Jeffrey Birnbaum from the Washington Post discusses the issue, including

On a single day last week, of the 8,262 times the logic puzzle was viewed in the House, only 1,568 people answered it and moved on to send a message -- a 19 percent success rate. It's unknowable whether this means that computers could not crack the code or whether actual humans were frustrated and gave up (though there were probably a combination of both).

There is also a Roll Call article on the issue.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 11:18:20 AM

Friday, June 09, 2006

FEC Won't Investigate Radio Ad Criticizing Kerry During Election
From BNA:

The Federal Election Commission has rejected a staff recommendation to investigate a radio ad that ran in Indiana before the 2004 presidential election and appeared to criticize Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 03:58:47 PM

Hastert to Name Lobby Reform Conferees
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert said today they expect conferees to produce a final lobby reform package before Congress leave town for the Fourth of July. Majority Leader Frist and Speaker Hastert added, “Lobbying and ethics reform remains an important priority for Congress. We are confident that the conferees will work hard and deliver a conference report that will build trust with the American people by making our government more transparent and accountable.”

Hastert has said that he will name conferees before the July recess. It is speculated that he did not want to name conferees until staff behind the scenes had come to agreement (pre-conferencing) on specific provisions of the bill.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 03:50:58 PM

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Congress Says Send Money, Not Your Opinion
The Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives recently announced the availability of an "enhancement" to the House's “Write Your Rep” system that challenges constituents with a "logic puzzle" before they are allowed to submit a comment via web form.

For an example, go to http://www.house.gov/writerep, select California, and use zip code 93292.

At this time, not very many representatives have adopted the logic puzzle challenge, but the numbers are growing.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 02:30:06 PM

Monday, June 05, 2006

Major Challenge to Faith-Based Initiative
From the Washington Post:

In a 140-page decision, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt ruled that the InnerChange Freedom Initiative program at Iowa's Newton Correctional Facility violated the constitutional ban on government establishment of religion because it was state-funded, pervasively sectarian and aimed at religious conversion.

Brought by Americans for the Seperation of Church and State, the case is a major challenge to the faith-based initiative.

Although the ruling does not set a precedent for courts in other jurisdictions, lawyers on both sides agreed that the judge's logic, if applied nationwide, would invalidate many similar prison programs and deal a sharp blow to elements of the president's faith-based initiative.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 03:18:29 PM

527s Breathe Sigh of Relief
From Roll Call:

Now that the Federal Election Commission last week opted not to take its rules on 527 political groups back to the drawing table, most of these groups are expressing satisfaction with the decision. And, some say, they can move ahead with activities without fear of having the FEC rules change on them as the 2006 election approaches.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 09:44:11 AM

Friday, June 02, 2006

Reformers Ask for Real Lobby Reform
A coalition of reform groups issued a statement today, saying:

Regardless of whether a conference report passes, furthermore, the House and Senate must go back to square one and produce real, not cosmetic, reforms to address the worst congressional corruption scandals in decades.

They also noted that they will continue to press for real reform, regardless of what does or doesn't come out of conference.

For the text of the letter

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 05:36:22 PM

Lobby Reform Takes Backseat to Election Year Legislation
While serious - or any - negotiations have yet to begin on lobby reform legislation passed by both the House and the Senate over a month ago, the Senate is preparing to focus on inflammatory issues designed to rally its base.

Up next for the Senate:votes aimed at blocking gay marriage, banning flag burning and repealing the estate tax.

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 05:09:15 PM

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Birnbaum On Lobby Reform Lite

Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), one of the architects of the House-passed measure, said he would like to "pursue more reform" after the current legislation passes. And when will that be? If more indictments come down and the public begins to revolt noticeably against incumbents over the issue, maybe Congress will bestir itself to act more quickly and aggressively.
But my guess is that incumbents won't feel the wrath of voters until Election Day, and regret their inaction too late.

For the whole article...

Posted by Jennifer Lowe, 11:08:32 AM

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