CREW gets one wrong

November 29, 2005

I’m not generally in the habit of criticizing groups with which I agree, but Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington made an annoying mistake yesterday and should have known better.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today filed an Internal Revenue Services (IRS) complaint against Focus on the Family, a conservative, non-profit organization led by its Founder and Chairman James C. Dobson. The complaint asks for the IRS to investigate activities by the group which may violate IRS regulations and require a revocation of its tax-exempt status.

Although barred from electioneering, Mr. Dobson has endorsed candidates for political office several times. In early April, 2004, Mr. Dobson endorsed Republican Representative Patrick J. Toomey in his race for Senate in Pennsylvania. In addition, it was reported that Mr. Dobson actively campaigned during a rally for Rep. Toomey. Other candidates that Mr. Dobson reportedly endorsed in 2004 include North Carolina Republican candidate Pat Ballentine for Governor and Oklahoma Republican candidate Tom Coburn for Senate.

“Mr. Dobson’s egregious violations of IRS code demand an investigation into his improper activities that break both the spirit and the letter of IRS law,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today.

No, they don’t. I, among others, have been watching those Dobson endorsements closely for years, waiting for him to slip up and violate federal tax law. It hasn’t happened. Dobson did indeed publicly back all of those candidates and even campaigned with them in 2004, but he did so as a private citizen. Focus on the Family, Dobson’s non-profit organization, can’t endorse candidates, but Dobson can. The trick is, Dobson has to make clear that he’s speaking on his own behalf — which he did.

I’m no fan of Dobson. For that matter, I like CREW and believe the group generally does fine work. But in this case, its complaint doesn’t make sense. What’s worse, it gives Dobson a chance to rail against unfounded allegations from the left. CREW should have done its homework and called a few tax lawyers before making a big thing about this.

The group wants to argue that the IRS is engaged in some kind of selective enforcement. Fine, make the case. CREW insists liberal charities are being held to a stricter standard than conservative non-profits. Maybe so. But it doesn’t help to file complaints with the IRS against Dobson that point to alleged wrongdoings that were perfectly legitimate.

And which will only give him more PR and a larger soap box to bloviate from.

  • There’s a fine line here, and I don’t know which side to agree with. Dobson is Focus on the Family, and when he speaks as a private citizen, he isn’t really speaking as a private citizen, because everyone knows who he is and what group he is from. They also know he has made a number of political statements as part of FotF, even if they were not specifically targetted at a person.

    I wonder exactly what the line is between separating himself from his group and speaking for his group: If he puts something in his blog which is hosted by his organization, but says “This is my personal statement”, is that OK? Is it OK for a preacher who is holding a bible study at his home to tell his congregation to vote for someone, but it’s not OK for him to say the same thing at the pulpit on Sunday? At what point does his authority, and the likelihood that his congregation will do what he says, become indistiguishable from his private life?

  • There’s a fine line here, and I don’t know which side to agree with. Dobson is Focus on the Family, and when he speaks as a private citizen, he isn’t really speaking as a private citizen, because everyone knows who he is and what group he is from.

    That’s true, but for tax law purposes, it doesn’t help. In those 2004 endorsements, Dobson said he was speaking for himself. He’s an American citizen voicing his support for a candidate for public office. Yes, he founded and runs a non-profit, but that doesn’t mean that he, as a private individual, is prohibited from backing political candidates.

    I’ve worked on this issue for quite a while and sometimes the line can get murky. But this isn’t one of those cases. Dobson was careful, CREW wasn’t.

  • Did any of those ‘voters guides’ that were distributed to churches with a purely Republican bent come from Focus on the Family, even indirectly? I heard there was a lot of organized recruiting and arm twisting going on in churches during the election, as well. Can any of that be traced to FoF sponsorship?

    Dobson may be able to hide behind the ‘private citizen’ sham, but if his organization sponsored, promoted or paid for any overt electioneering activity or materials at all, that should still be enough to be worth an investigation, at least.

    That being said, I’m really disappointed that CREW seems to have been so sloppy in its methods in this case, as CB points out. We can and should do better than that.

  • It also reminds me of the WWII era anti-fascist campaign. Getting the government involved in suppressing the fascists seemed great. Until the government turned around and started suppressing the left. I’d hate to see that error repeated.

  • To his credit, Dr. Dobson provides the audited financials and the 990s of Focus on the Family on the website. That is a whole sight better than what a lot of these other so-called not-for-profits do.

    I wish the IRS or some organization would make all of the 990s available for political organizations. Guidestar and the Foundation Center provide a valuable public service by furnishing a lot of 990s online for free but their focus is to help people learn how to obtain grants etc not provide political disclosure.

    Last week, I commented here about Grover Norquist and how screwed up the 990s were for Americans For Tax Reform and his related foundation. I since took another look at the 990s and Grover Norquist omitted an important disclosure schedule from his 2004 990.

    I’m really thinking about complaining to the IRS about Grover Norquist but I don’t know how confidential complaints are kept.

    Here’s an odd one. The FEC search function on its website returns the message that there is no Term Limits America PAC. No PAC is registered to FEC i.d. #C00286880. I had to access FEC reports filed by Term Limits America from OpenSecrets.org.

    In 2003, John Michael,the outgoing treasurer of Term Limits America, took a $50k loan under the name of the Maine Freedom Committee. The loan was to be repaid in September 2004. Come September 2004, the loan balance is reduced to zero with no payments made and no explanation.

    I cannot find the Maine Freedom Committee registered in Maine or anywhere else. It loooks like John Michael, a Maine politician, got $50k tax-free under that table.

    In 2004, Americans For Tax Reform gave a grant of $650k to National Alliance which has the same address as the Term Limits America PAC.
    The problem is that I cannot find “National Alliance” registered anywhere.

    One little PAC and look at the issues raised. Maybe CREW shoud re-focus its efforts.

  • I’d question whether this is even a good law.

    I mean, American Catholics had a long history of ignoring the instructions of the their bishops on election day, as most ignore the church on whatever they damn well feel like.

    As an ex-mackerel snapper myself, I’m disposed to think that they are superior in most ways to protestants in general. Even looking through that fog, I doubt that preachers endorsing candidates would be serious problem. I think most Americans can make a pretty accurate guess as to which lever their pastor is pulling as it is and they follow or not. I think the main problems with peer pressure are likely to come from fellow parishoners who aren’t covered by these law, in any case.

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