Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague. I have listened all afternoon as my Republican colleagues have held forth about the importance of the First Amendment. No one is debating that. That is not what this bill is about, despite your best efforts to suggest it is.

What this bill is about is letting organizations spend millions of dollars of secret money, secret money, to try to buy elections to serve their special interests. That is what this bill is about.

Now, our Republican colleagues have talked repeatedly about the Treasury inspector general's report. I don't know if they have read the report, but one of the recommendations was for the IRS to revise its regulations and guidelines to clarify this particular area.

I would have hoped that all of us would want the IRS out of the business of determining whether or not a 501(c)(4) is primarily involved in political activity or primarily involved in social welfare activity.

I don't want them under the nose of every organization trying to figure it out, and that is why the IRS is trying to reform this area of the law.

So why isn't that what our Republican colleagues want?

Because this isn't about allowing those groups to exercise free speech. It is allowing those organizations to be used to channel secret money without disclosing those expenditures to the voters. That is what this is all about, because you can spend as much money as you want on political advocacy and campaigns. All you have to do is organize as a 527, which is another organization under the Tax Code which, by the way, is also tax exempt.

So why isn't that good enough?

You can say as much as you want, spend millions of dollars. I will tell you why. Because under 527's, people are spending all that money to influence elections, they have to disclose. They have to tell voters who they are spending millions of dollars to try and influence those votes.

That is not good enough for our Republican colleagues. They want to preserve this messy situation because it allows all that secret money to flow into these campaigns.

We believe voters have a right to know who is trying to spend millions of dollars to influence these votes, and by the way, eight of the nine Justices on the Supreme Court in Citizens United, a case which I had lots of problems with lots of parts of it, but eight of the nine Justices agree with us that transparency is important.

Here is what Justice Kennedy said. These transparency laws ``impose no ceiling on campaign-related activities'' and ``do not prevent anyone from speaking,'' but they have ``a governmental interest in providing the electorate with information about the sources of election-related spending.''

Eight out of nine Supreme Court Justices agree with what every poll shows, that the American people overwhelmingly want transparency in our elections. Because why? Transparency brings accountability.

I think every American has an interest in knowing who is spending millions of dollars to try and get them elected to Congress, to serve particular special interests.

So, Mr. Speaker, for goodness sakes, this isn't about the First Amendment. Everyone is in favor of the First Amendment. This is about allowing secret money in campaigns, and we should not allow that. It is against the public interest.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee.

If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended, and as the motion indicated, it addresses secret money in elections. I am trying to make sure we end that secret money. It also deals with the issue of extending unemployment insurance, which my colleague from Michigan (Mr. Levin) will discuss in a minute.

But I want to focus on this issue of secret money because this resolution, what we are asking our Republican colleagues to join us on, is to vote on a very simple statement: to say that nothing in this act shall limit, restrict, or prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury from issuing regulations requiring the disclosure of secret political donors.

Our Republican colleagues all afternoon have said this is about the First Amendment. This is about protecting the right of people to express their views.

That is not what their bill is about. Everyone is in favor of people being able to express their views. As I indicated earlier, you can form what is known as a 527 organization; and whether you are an individual or an organization in that form, you can spend millions of dollars to try to influence the outcome of elections.

What we are saying is the voters have a right to know who is bankrolling these campaign efforts. What we have seen over the last couple of years is a huge increase, an explosion of money being spent by outside groups to try to influence the outcome of elections to try to elect Members of Congress to support whatever interests those groups may support.

This motion, what we are proposing, would still allow all this money to be spent. But--and here is the key--most of that money is now flowing through 501(c)(4) organizations because some groups have been abusing those organizations to allow them to use them as secret conduits, conduits to allow them to secretly fund campaigns.

All we are saying is let's not take away the right and ability of the Treasury Department to adopt regulations to make sure we don't allow that secret money because I thought most of us agreed in transparency, and I thought most of us agreed in accountability.

And I know that eight of the nine Supreme Court Justices, even in a controversial case, support transparency and disclosure. They say that is good for democracy. And you know what? Every poll shows that the American people overwhelmingly agree. So let's vote for disclosure and vote for this motion.

With that, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

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