Redding Tea Party to join IRS lawsuit

The Redding Tea Party is joining a lawsuit by the American Center for Law and Justice against the U.S. Internal Revenue Service over what it believes is harassment by the agency, Erin Ryan told me yesterday.

"We are throwing in with the IRS as a class action," she said.

The ACLJ, which focuses on constitutional law, says it is representing nearly 20 tea party organizations nationwide against what it calls "a coordinated attempt ... to intimidate and silence these organizations in this election year."

The legal organization explains in a news release:

The ACLJ says IRS information demands sent to Tea Party groups include probing questions that violate the free speech and freedom of association rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

"This appears to be a coordinated attempt to intimidate Tea Party organizations by demanding information that is outside the scope of legitimate inquiry and violates the First Amendment," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. "These organizations have followed the law and applied for tax exempt status for their activities as Americans have done for decades. The problem here is the IRS has gone beyond legitimate inquiries and is demanding that these organizations answer questions that actually violate the First Amendment rights of our clients. The IRS is demanding that groups reveal the internal workings of their organizations - including the identification of members, how they are selected, who they associate with, and even what they discuss. This intimidation campaign is as onerous as what the IRS did to the NAACP in the 1950's and is simply unacceptable. We will aggressively defend our clients and are prepared to take the IRS to court if necessary."

The ACLJ says the IRS information demands sent to the Tea Party groups are not in response to complaints of wrongdoing, but instead in response to applications by the organizations for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status.

Sekulow, who served as a trial lawyer with the Office of the Chief Counsel for the IRS earlier in his career, said many of the questions are simply inappropriate and fall well outside the scope of legitimate IRS inquiry. A sampling of the problematic questions are posted here.

The ACLJ is also calling for Congressional oversight hearings on this issue. In just two days, the ACLJ has heard from more than 30,000 Americans urging Congress to conduct hearings concerning the IRS actions in this matter.

Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), focusing on constitutional law, is based in Washington, D.C.

As I reported here last month (and as has gone largely unreported elsewhere locally), the Redding Tea Party was among dozens of groups that got letters from the IRS demanding such things as lists of donors, volunteers, financial support for and relationships with political candidates and parties, and even printed copies of their Facebook pages.

Ryan told me then that the letter came after the IRS has "stalled us for two years" in the RTP's attempt to apply for status as a 501(c)4 organization, which, as Fox News pointed out, differs from a 501(c)3 organization in that donors cannot deduct contributions from their taxable income. "The list of requirements will require the evaluation from my kindergarten teacher," Ryan told me in an e-mail.

President Obama-sympathizing media on both the national and local levels have mostly ignored this dispute. But what other countries can you think of that use official arms of the government to intimidate opposition groups in election years? Russia, maybe? Venezuela, perhaps? These are not countries known for valuing personal freedom and civil liberties, and their citizens cannot be considered free people.