IRS Should Not Become A Campaign-Finance Regulator

I spoke on the Senate floor yesterday against a proposed rule from the IRS targeting 501(c)(4)s that would effectively make the IRS a campaign-finance regulator.

We already have an agency responsible for enforcing campaign finance rules. It’s called, strangely enough, the Federal Election Commission. And it’s a strictly bipartisan institution, as it should be.

If the President and my friends across the aisle wanted to change campaign finance laws, they should either draft legislation or make their case to the federal agency that has the jurisdiction to deal with it: the election commissioners at the Federal Election Commission. But turning to the IRS as a de facto arm of the FEC is just more political overreach and is going to be ripe for abuse.

Not only would the proposed 501(c)4 rule further distract the IRS from its core mission, it would trample the First Amendment, intimidate people from exercising their rights of free speech, and it would weaken our participatory democracy.