Photograph by Greg Johnston

Cayman Islands

Social welfare nonprofits, which can keep their donors secret, are a lot like Russian nesting dolls: Open one, and you’ll find a smaller version inside.

That’s what courts in California discovered last year when they tried to figure out who paid for TV ads attacking Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax increase plan. The courts forced an out-of-state nonprofit to reveal its donors only to find out that the ad money came from … another out-of-state nonprofit. That’s where the trail ended.

Prompted by a revelation last week that the Internal Revenue Service improperly targeted Republican-leaning nonprofit applicants, Congress is plunging  into the thicket of tax rules governing those entities. Hearings continue next week.

Campaign-finance watchdogs such as the Sunlight Foundation, Democracy 21, Common Cause and the Campaign Legal Center are imploring lawmakers to look broadly at whether politically active nonprofits are misuing their tax-exempt status. A Bloomberg story today highlights two groups — one Democratic and one Republican — that appear to be gaming the system by buying campaign-style ads and doing most of their work in election years.

There’s yet another way social welfare nonprofits participate in politics: They move dark money, Cayman Islands style. Sometimes a nonprofit gives money to a political committee that can more freely spend on politics, in effect keeping the real donors hidden. Bill Allison, editorial director of the Washington-based Sunlight Foundation, has called that phenomenon a “campaign-finance haven.”

Those tactics can bump up against stricter state campaign-finance laws, as was the case in California with the Americans for Responsible Leadership.

Two days before the November 2012 election, a California Supreme Court judge ordered the nonprofit based in Phoenix to reveal who gave it the $11 million that it in turn contributed to a business group opposing Brown’s California tax initiative.

Americans for Responsible Leadership reported that it received its money from the Center to Protect Patient Rights — another nonprofit with secret donors.

An October 2012 Bloomberg News investigation of the Center to Protect Patient Rights, also based in Phoenix, revealed that it raised $62 million for the 2010 elections and parceled out most of its money to other nonprofits.

The center’s donors remain a secret.

Original post is Nonprofits: Cayman Islands of Political Money by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images

People march through the streets of Oxnard, California, for immigration reform and to honor the legacy of Cesar E. Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers of America, on March 24, 2013.

At the rose-adorned grave-site of Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association, widow Helen Chavez had one wish for the visiting President Barack Obama.

“I would like to make sure and request that you get immigration reform passed,” she said at that encounter last fall, according to Arturo Rodriguez, a longtime associate of the late farmworkers’ leader and now president of the United Farm Workers, recounting Obama’s reply: “He said, `You know what, Mrs. Chavez, I promise you I will get that done.”’

While the Obama White House hasn’t taken the public lead on an immigration bill shaped by a bipartisan group of senators working its way through the Judiciary Committee — wary that any bill with Obama’s name on it will become a target for Republican opposition — the president has blessed the bill as within the bounds of the sort of comprehensive legislation he wants: Offering a path to citizenship for some 11 million undocumented workers already in the U.S., while securing the nation’s borders and instituting a sensible program of guest-worker visas for lower- and higher-skilled workers alike — including farmworkers.

During negotiations over the farmworker provisions of the bill led by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Republican Marco Rubio of Florida, the UFW’s Giev Kashkooli says, the Obama administration’s Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture and Labor were instrumental in guiding which one of the many proposals on the bargaining table would work and which ones wouldn’t. The agencies provided good “technical assistance,” he said, “on what was possible and what was not possible.”

At the center of the farmworkers’ concerns in what could be the most significant immigration legislation in a generation is the provision enabling those who have toiled in American fields without legal residency to seek a path to citizenship, Rodriguez says. At least 800,000 and as many as 1.1 million families  stand to benefit from that, he says.

“We’re very optimistic and very hopeful,” Rodriguez said today, at a breakfast sponsored by Bloomberg Government in Washington. “We developed what I believe is a very important step… to ensure that they gain legal status,” he said. “They’ve earned the right to be able to do that in this country.”

Today, as the Democratic-run Senate Judiciary Committee continues work on amendments to the bipartisan bill, the Republican-run House Judiciary Committee is taking testimony on far more limited legislation involving the guest farmworker program. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, the bill’s sponsor, has spoken out against a path to citizenship for the undocumented, and is more interested in specific legislation enhancing border security and amending the guest-worker visa programs.

Yet the House’s bill is worse than limited, Rodriguez maintains. As Bloomberg’s Alan Bjerga reports on Rodriguez’s remarks, it represents a throw-back to the 1940s and 1950s, he says — evoking the Bracero program in place from 1942-64. Prompted by a need for manual labor during World War II, the agreement between the U.S. and Mexico permitted Mexican citizens to take temporary farm work in the U.S. Initially, 10 percent of their pay was deducted for savings accounts that many of the workers never saw. A Labor Department employee in 1964 called it “legalized slavery.”

“We can’t afford to go back in history,” Rodriguez said.

Negotiations in the House among another bipartisan group of lawmakers for broader legislation along the lines of the Senate bill are reported at a near-impasse. Yet, “there’s too much momentum at this point,” Rodriguez suggests. “I don’t think Congress can afford to ignore this anymore.”

On Oct. 3, one month before his reelection, Obama traveled to Nuestra Senora Reina de la Paz – Our Lady of Peace — in Keene, California, resting place of Cesar Chavez and home of the union he led until his death in 1993. The president declared 105 acres a national monument to be managed by the National Park Service. He visited Chavez’s grave with his widow and declared the farmworkers’ movement a “story of determined, fearless, hopeful people who have been willing to devote their lives to making the country a little more just and a little more fair.”

In November, Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, which helped him defeat Republican Mitt Romney.

The narrative of the immigration debate under way in Washington suggests that Republicans ultimately will align with Democrats on a long-sought revision of U.S. law because it is in their political self-interest to avert another drubbing.

Yet will passage of an immigration bill repair the Republican Party’s torn relations with Latino voters, following a campaign in which deportation of the undocumented drove the party’s primary contests?

“It’s hard to say what the dynamic would be — how it would change peoples’ thinking,” Rodriguez said. “We’re like everybody else out there,” he said, suggesting that the public at large will thank Congress for taking action on what everyone knows is “a broken immigration system” — and look askance at failure.

Original post is Immigration Bill: Promise with a Prayer by Political Capital.

Photograph by Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo

A Tea Party Express rally prior to the arrival of former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in Phoenix.

The Internal Revenue Service had questions. Lots of questions.

The U.S. tax agency has acknowledged targeting anti-tax groups with “Tea Party” or “patriot” in their names for extra scrutiny — an admission that has Congress asking questions of its own. It’s unclear whether the IRS actions were just inept, or malicious, Bloomberg’s Richard Rubin writes this morning.

IRS surveys sent last year to Tea Party groups across the country included queries aimed at discerning how election-focused the groups planned to be, according to a Bloomberg News review of about a dozen surveys. By law, political activities cannot be the “primary” purpose of a nonprofit.

Yet the IRS also had questions that, to Ohio Tea Party leader Tom Zawistowski,  felt ”a lot like opposition research.” Here’s a look at some of the agency’s lines of inquiry:

Who do you know?

IRS employees wanted to learn more about who was training some of the newly formed Tea Party groups. They asked the Georgia Tea Party about its relationship with Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit formed more than a decade ago by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

“Explain your relationship,” the IRS said in a Jan. 26, 2012, letter. And give us copies of any contracts with and training materials provided by Americans for Prosperity.

A Jan. 26, 2012, letter to the Hawaii Tea Party probed that group’s relationship with the Arlington-based Leadership Institute, which trains Tea Party activists, and with Dylan Nonaka, a Hawaii Republican activist.

Let’s talk about your family

That same letter to the Hawaii group asked about the group’s board members, officers, key employees and family members who work with other groups or might be interested in running for office.

A Feb. 8, 2012, IRS letter to the San Fernando Valley Patriots in California seeks resumes for past and present directors, officers and key employees. The agency also requested information about family and business relationships for each of those people.

Give us paper

Zawistowski and other Tea Party leaders said they were stunned by the amount of paperwork the IRS sought. Most of the surveys reviewed by Bloomberg included a request for hard copies of the groups’ web sites, including pages only members could access, and printouts of social media sites such as Facebook.

The IRS also wanted copies of all handouts and fliers produced by the groups. In some cases, Tea Party groups were asked to compile a dossier of all media coverage and contacts.

About your money …

“Provide copies of any agreements you have with others for provision of goods or services, sharing of facilities or other cooperative agreements, or anything else,” the IRS told the Waco Tea Party in Texas in a Feb. 1, 2012, letter.

Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco group, said the request made her nervous because the same letter included a warning that all responses to the IRS would be made public. She said she worried that vendors aiding the Tea Party would face retaliation.

The San Fernando Valley group was asked to provide the IRS “details regarding all members’ fees and benefits” in addition to fundraising and expenditure information.

And, sorry this took so long

In a Jan. 9, 2012, letter to the Richmond Tea Party, the IRS thanked the group for its “thorough responses” some 14 months earlier. “Unfortunately,” the IRS wrote, “we now have some lapse of time.”

Now they needed more info.

Original post is IRS to Tea Party Groups: Tell Us Everything by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Technicians stand in front of a large television screen as it displays footage of cookies bearing the image of President Barack Obama prior to an election night rally in Chicago, Illinois, on Nov. 6, 2012.

Six months after the 2012 presidential election, you’d think we’d know for sure how many votes President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney received.

It turns out, though, that exact numbers are still elusive because of late revisions to some statewide vote totals.

Colorado election officials updated their statewide total on May 3 to give Obama one more vote, for 1,323,102 total. During a review of election returns, state election officials discovered that the Saguache County elections office didn’t upload its amended vote totals to a vote-reporting website.

North Dakota’s elections office revised its totals on April 23, according to its website. The revision subtracted 139 votes from Obama and 157 votes from Romney in Walsh County, according to a before-and-after comparison by Political Capital, which sent e-mails to state and county election officials that haven’t yet been returned.

In California, Romney received 4,839,956 votes instead of 4,839,958 as originally reported.  The two-vote change was owed to Calaveras County amending its total, according to a document state election officials released April 10.

New York election officials released an amended vote count on April 9, according to their website. Obama won the state overwhelmingly, and none of the changes in any state affected the outcome.

For those of you keeping score at home, Political Capital’s current tally is 65,910,299 for Obama and 60,932,636 for Romney.

Subject to change, of course.

Original post is Obama, Romney Vote Totals Still Changing by Political Capital.

Photograph by by John Moore/Getty Images

A bilingual sign stands outside a polling center in Texas.

That’s the share of eligible Hispanics who voted in the 2012 presidential election.

The voter turnout rate among Hispanics — a burgeoning bloc that leans Democratic — fell from 49.9 percent in 2008, when President Barack Obama won his first term.

The 2012 voter turnout rate for Hispanics compared to 66.2 percent for black voters, 64.1 percent for non-Hispanic whites and 47.3 percent for Asians, according to a report the Census Bureau released last week.

While Hispanic voters in Colorado, Florida, Nevada and other states helped re-elect Obama, the Census report underscored how that bloc hasn’t realized its full potential in elections. Hispanics have lower rates of citizenship and voter registration and participation than non-Hispanic whites.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 48% by Political Capital.

Photograph by Julie Denesha/Getty Images

Eileen Woofford, 84, waited in line to cast her vote at Cleveland Avenue Baptist Church on November 6, 2012 in Kansas City, Missouri.

That’s the share of black voters eligible to vote in the 2012 presidential election who cast a ballot.

Blacks outvoted non-Hispanic whites, who had a 64.1 percent turnout rate, according to a Census Bureau report released yesterday. It’s the first time blacks voted at a higher rate than whites since before 1996, when the bureau began publishing statistics on the eligible voters.

Blacks outvoted whites amid the re-election of President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black chief executive.

The share of all eligible citizens who voted fell to 61.8 percent in 2012 from 63.6 percent in 2008, Census data show.

Bloomberg’s John McCormick has more here.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 66.2% by Political Capital.

White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Barack Obama with former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and former First Lady Barbara Bush at the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, Texas, April 25, 2013. White House Photo by Pete Souza.

Much like the Mark Twain evoked at the president’s last news conference, Organizing for Action wants people to know that the president reelected in November is “not done yet.”

President Barack Obama invited the question when he appeared in the West Wing of the White House on the 100th day of his second term. Things haven’t gone so well, so far, he was reminded. Had he lost his “juice?” he was asked.

“As Mark Twain said, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point,” Obama replied.

So today, six months from Election Day, the day when Obama became the first president since Eisenhower to win two terms with more than 51 percent of the vote and the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to do so, his permanent campaign committee, the OFA organized to press his agenda, maintains it’s not over yet:

Six months ago today, we made history. And we’re not done yet. twitter.com/BarackObama/st…

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 6, 2013

Original post is Obama: ‘Not Done Yet’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

Texas Governor Rick Perry speaks during the 2013 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center on May 4, 2013 in Houston, Texas.

Rick Perry handles an assault weapon pretty well.

That was the video message of the introduction to Perry’s appearance at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston over the weekend. The Texas governor knocked down a few targets for his guests.

The political message was something else: “Welcome to Texas, ladies and gentlemen.”

Where the governor made a run for president in 2012, and might take aim on 2016 as well.

Original post is Rick Perry, Sure-Shot: ‘Welcome to Texas, Ladies and Gentlemen’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

A worker using a handheld transceiver is silhouetted against parked General Motors Co. (GM) Chevrolet automobiles bound for export at the Port of Incheon in South Korea, on April 19, 2013.

General Motors Co. is expected to report its 13th consecutive profitable quarter today, according to a survey of 16 analysts by Bloomberg.

Once derided as Government Motors after the U.S. government provided needed financing to the Detroit-based automaker, GM earned $6.2 billion last year, its third profitable year since emerging from the bailout and bankruptcy reorganization in 2009.

The automaker’s resurrection could return it to Standard & Poor’s 500 index, a move that would boost its share price.

President Barack Obama’s support for GM — and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s opposition to government assistance — helped the incumbent carry Michigan and Ohio last fall.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 13 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Beyonce and Bibi McGill perform during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on February 3, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

As “The Few, The Proud,” the Marines deserve their reputation with the press as mostly quick to respond with facts to a query — be it on Iraq, Afghanistan, the V-22 Osprey or Hurricane Sandy assistance.

But when it comes to singer Beyonce Knowles-Carter they seem to have a warm and fuzzy mother instinct to protect her — in this case with a heavy-handed use of the Freedom of Information Act’s privacy exemption — the so-called “(B)(6)” — this being the same Beyonce drawing headlines for bawdy bodysuits on tour.

Our FOIA saga began Jan. 23 when we submitted a request for all e-mails concerning the mini-flap over whether she did or did not lip-sync the National Anthem at President Barack Obama’s second-term Inaugural ceremony.

We asked for all documents and e-mails generated between Jan. 21 and 23 — when  “Syncgate ” broke — among the Marine Corps Band, Marine Headquarters PA, the White House and Beyonce’s public relations team. And we did learn how concerned they were about it all — they figured they could beat it if they “hunkered down.”

We were looking for insight into the situation to include the back and forth after an initial Marine Band statement that confirmed she lip-synced and a later one that backed off. We figured there must have been some rich back and forth — maybe even from the West Wing.

Recall that Obama issued a FOIA policy memo in 2009 directing that “all agencies should adopt a presumption in a favor of disclosure.”

We got 172 pages.

The e-mails started in mid-December with back and forth about musical arrangements for the Inaugural ceremony and after the 22nd the lip-sync fallout. They make for mostly non-fascinating reading.

Except for the Marine Corps cover letter to yours truly answering our request, not once was Beyonce’s name mentioned on any single page — not even in reprints of statements initially released to the press that had mentioned her.

Instead, Beyonce was ‘(B)(6)’d.

The exemption “prohibits disclosure of personal information when an individual’s privacy interest outweighs any public interest,” we were told in the letter.

The Department of Justice official FOIA Guide says (B)(6) is designed to safeguard information about individuals “in personnel and medical files and similar files” when the disclosure “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

It quotes a District of Columbia Circuit opinion that directs FOIA professionals to analyze disclosure options because under Exemption 6 “the presumption in favor of disclosure is as strong as can be found anywhere in the Act.”

There didn’t seem to be much analysis at the Marine FOIA office, however.

For example: A Marine spokesperson in January initially released a public statement that said: “We don’t know why Beyonce decided to use prerecorded music,” adding that, while the Marine Band performed live, “we received last-minute word that Beyonce wanted to use the recording.”

The same paragraphs in the emails we received said , “We don’t know why “(B(6)” decided to use prerecorded music…”

Then there was the later statement the Marines issued saying, “The Presidential Inaugural Committee requested the Marine Band accompany Beyonce Knowles-Carter in the performance of the Star Spangled Banner…”

The FOIA-released emails contained the once-public statement, but “Beyonce Knowles-Carter” was “(b)(6)’d” — you get the picture.

This goes on for many of the 172 pages released where Beyonce is clearly mentioned.

Our Jan. 23 request to Marine Corps spokesman Captain Greg Wolf asking for the phone number and email of the Marine FOIA office was similarly redacted with a (B)(6).

Still, our request did generate some buzz, according to a released e-mail.

Wrote one “(B)(6)”d Marine communicator: “I’ve just taken a quick look through the e-mails and think we are fine even if we have to turn them over. They all support our statement (funny how the truth works, isn’t it?) ” The aide continued:  “And I don’t see anything else embarrassing other than a few comments about the challenges of the situation. Because some of the emailing happened from work and some from my laptop, it will be a bit of a logistical challenge to put them together but I’m sure we can figure something out.”

The harried Marine PA staff got some good news Jan. 23, according to another e-mail: “Just need everyone to stay hunkered down for another 24 hours. We have a bona-fide breaking news piece tomorrow that will knock this one off of Drudge.”

Guess they forgot to put a (B)(6) on The Drudge Report.

Late update:

So now Drudge, where the lip-sync story played well, is having some fun of its own.

Original post is Beyonce: B6 in Marine Corps’ Eyes (‘Funny How the Truth Works’) by Political Capital.