Protecting Nonprofit Rights

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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more news

Rally in Maine Protests Homegrown Terrorism Bill

Feb 21, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

S.1959, the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" was the subject of a protest in Portland Maine. Sponsored by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), the bill would set up a government commission to study U.S. based terrorism. The commission would examine and report on what the bill calls "violent radicalization," "homegrown terrorism" and "ideologically based violence."

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Judge Rules that Treasury Must Release Some Documents on Watch List

Feb 21, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

The U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California ruled that the Treasury Department must release to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) of the San Francisco Bay Area documents detailing complaints from people who claim they were wrongly placed on a terrorist watch list. The lawsuit challenges Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), seeking further information about how Treasury manages its list of 6,000 suspected or known terrorists and others, called the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.

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Supreme Court Still Not Decided whether it will Review Citizens United Case

Feb 20, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

The U.S. Supreme Court did not consider the Citizens United case during its February 15 conference, and now a decision on whether the Court will review the challenge to Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules will wait until February 22. Citizens United is a 501(c)(4) organization claiming that television ads for its film, Hillary: The Movie, should not be subject to donor disclosure requirements under FEC rules.

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SpeechNow Challenges FEC Contribution Limits for Independent Political Groups

SpeechNow.org, an independent organization whose stated mission is to advocate for the election of federal candidates who favor free political speech, has filed a lawsuit challenging federal campaign finance laws that prohibit contributions of more than $5,000 per year to political committees as an unconstitutional violation of free speech and association rights.

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Senate Bill Would Regulate Robocalls during Election Campaigns

On Feb. 12, Senate Rules Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced S. 2624, the Robocall Privacy Act of 2008. The bill would place restrictions on how and when prerecorded messages, known as robocalls, can be made 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election. The bill would only affect prerecorded calls, not calls made by volunteers at phone banks.

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Ohio Restrictions on Voter Registration Drives Overturned

On Feb. 11, a federal judge in Ohio issued a permanent injunction blocking enforcement of a state law restricting voter registration activities. The Ohio law in question in Project Vote v. Blackwell limited the ability of third parties such as nonprofits to register citizens to vote in the state. Voting rights advocates hailed the decision as a victory for minority, disabled, and low-income voters who often rely on nonprofits to help with registration.

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New IRS Fact Sheets

Feb 15, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has released two important fact sheets for tax exempt organizations. One is on the IRS complaint process, and the other is on the examination and compliance checks process. The referral form to make a complaint against a tax exempt organization can be found here.

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House Democrats Hold Out For Conference, while GOP Walk Out To Protest

Feb 15, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

Revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) remain at a stand still. The House turned down a 21 day extension of the temporary Protect America Act, law governing electronic surveillance, with a 229-191 vote. Rather than taking action on the Senate's bill that would provide retroactive immunity for companies, House Democrats will let the law expire holding firm for a conference of the bill. The President asserts that this will put our nation at risk.

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Inconsistent Enforcement: IRS Findings in NAACP and All Saints Church Cases

A comparison of two high profile IRS investigations into allegations of election intervention - the All Saints Church and NAACP cases -highlights the vagueness of the regulation and the inconsistency of IRS enforcement. According to OMB Watch's analysis, the facts and circumstances of the All Saints Church and NAACP cases are very similar, but the IRS findings were very different.

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SpeechNow.org to File Lawsuit

Feb 14, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

As expected after the Federal Election Commission (FEC) issued a draft advisory opinion in January that SpeechNow.org cannot accept unlimited contributions from donors, the group plans to now file a federal lawsuit. SpeechNow.org is challenging the campaign finance law that requires that they become a "political committee" in order to advocate for or against candidates.

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