Dem Rep. Earl Blumenauer Defends IRS Targeting Pro-Family Group Because He Doesn’t Agree With Them Politically
(CNSNews.com) – Calling the tax-exempt status of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) a “charade,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said it should not qualify for 501(c)(4) status with the Internal Revenue Service, because it is not a social welfare group but political in nature.
“It’s everybody’s right to participate in politics, and well you should,” Blumenauer said on Tuesday at the House Ways and Means Committee hearing into allegations that the IRS targeted conservative organizations, including NOM. “But I think having organizations parading as being social welfare organizations and then being involved in political combat harkens back to why the (IRS 501(c)(4) statute – a hundred years ago – said that they were prohibited, and I wholeheartedly agree.”
But John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University School of Law and chairman of the board for NOM and who was on the panel of witnesses at the hearing, did not let Blumenauer’s remarks go unanswered.
“I really have to respond to the scurrilous things that were said on the other side,” Eastman said. “Representative Blumenauer, it’s your kind of statement that have empowered IRS agents to make determinations about which organizations qualify for the public good and which do not.
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