
The
rules would upset more than 50 years of settled law and practice by
limiting the ability of certain tax-exempt nonprofits, organized under
Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, to conduct nonpartisan
voter registration and voter education. Such organizations would be
forbidden to leave records of officeholder votes and public statements
on their websites in the two months before an election.
It is tempting to pick the proposed rules apart—and there is much to
pick, such as restrictions on a nonprofit discussing any aspect of a
president's judicial nominees in a public communication any time between
Feb. 2 and a national election day nine months later. But it is more
important to ask how we got here. Why is the IRS regulating political
activity at all?
The answer is that many Democratic politicians and progressive activists
think new rules limiting political speech by nonprofits will benefit
Democrats politically. Stymied by judicial decisions restricting direct
government regulation of political speech, and by a Federal Election
Commission whose bipartisan makeup prevents Democratic commissioners
from forcing through partisan rules on a party-line vote, these
politicians and activists have decided to dragoon the IRS into doing
their work.
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