Photograph by Barbara L. Salisbury/MCT via Getty Images

A supporter has her picture taken with newly elected Rep. Marc Veasey during the Lone Star Project Inauguration Celebration, on January 20, 2013 at the Hill Country Barbecue in Washington, D.C.

Updated at 3:15 pm EDT with Ken Emanuelson’s response:

That fight for Texas — an attempt by Democrats to turn a red state blue — goes beyond the battle for Hispanic voters, and beyond the boundaries of the Lone Star state itself.

Rep. Marc Veasey, an African-American congressman from Texas, is recruiting members for “Battleground Texas,” the Democratic Party’s organization there, with an outtake from a talk that a Texas Tea Party organizer gave recently.

What are Republicans doing to get black people to vote, organizer Ken Emanuelson was asked at a forum in Dallas. “Well, I’m going to be real honest with you,” he said. “The Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they’re going to vote 9-1 for Democrats.”

“Well, I am going to be real honest with you, Mr. Emanuelson,” Veasey writes in his appeal for Battlefield Texas. “The Republican Party discounts communities of color at their own peril and attacks like these only serve to embolden us for the long road ahead.”

@bluebryan24 Yeah, that’s me.

— Ken Emanuelson (@mrclean2012) June 4, 2013

And, asked to explain his comments, Emanuelson did today:

At the recent Battlefield Dallas meeting on getting out the vote, I misspoke.

I was asked a question by Bishop John Lawson as to what the Republican Party should do to increase voter turnout in the African American community.

In response, I expressed a personal opinion about what the Republican Party “wants.” That was a mistake. I hold no position of authority within the Republican Party and it wasn’t my place to opine on behalf of the desires of the Republican Party.

What I meant, and should have said, is that it is not, in my personal opinion, in the interests of the Republican Party to spend its own time and energy working to generally increase the number of Democratic voters at the polls, and at this point in time, nine of every ten African American voters cast their votes for the Democratic Party.

That said, I’ve been very clear, time and time again, that the Republican Party absolutely must expand and build bridges into all communities. I reiterated that same opinion at the same meeting. For whatever reason, Rep. Veasey chose not to include that information in his email, but I look forward to opening a dialogue with Rep. Veasey on this issue.

Original post is Tea Party Activist: No Thanks for Black Voters Voting Democratic by Political Capital.

Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) speaks to a reporter after a news conference on May 16, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, an erstwhile Republican presidential hopeful and proponent of the anti-tax Tea Party movement, says she won’t run for re-election yet may consider future opportunities in politics.

“I have decided next year I will not seek a fifth congressional term,” Bachmann, of Minnesota, said today in a video posted to her  congressional campaign website. “My future is full, it islimitless and my passions for America will remain.”

Bachmann, 57, dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination last year after a sixth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. In her video, she said that eight years was long enough for one person to serve a congressional district and that her decision to step aside wasn’t related to inquiries into her presidential campaign and its staff.

“Be assured that my decision was not in any way influencedby any concerns about my being re-elected to Congress,” Bachmann said. “I want you to be assured that there is no future option or opportunity, be it directly in the political arena or otherwise, that I won’t be giving serious consideration if it can help save and protect our great nation for future generations.”

Bachmann organized the Tea Party Caucus in the House shortly before the 2010 midterm elections.

The Federal Election Commission and the Office of Congressional Ethics are looking into the finances of that Republican presidential primary bid. Bachmann also faced a challenge for reelection next year from Jim Graves, a Democrat who came within 1.2 percentage points of defeating her in November.

Original post is Bachmann Bowing Out in Minnesota by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Christina King, left, and Lynne Sherrer, center, hold signs during a Tea Party Internal Revenue Service (IRS) demonstration on May 21, 2013 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is adding his voice to those trying to tie the ongoing Internal Revenue Service scandal to the new health-care law, which will expand coverage to more than 25 million uninsured Americans.

McConnell, of Kentucky, called for delaying the law’s implementation until an investigation of the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny was completed. The IRS will help enforce the new health-care legislation.

“We’re going to have Americans worrying that they might be discriminated against too, just for having an opinion,” McConnell said today on the Senate floor. “And you know what? We’re not going to be able to tell them not to worry. Because we don’t yet know the truth ourselves.”

The IRS is tasked with making sure Americans carry insurance or pay a penalty, a key part of the health-care law. The law makes insurance more affordable and spreads out the risk to companies by creating a larger pool of customers, including younger, healthier Americans who won’t need medical services as much as older, sicker residents. The law is modeled after the measure successfully championed by then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

“The Supreme Court declared the individual mandate – the core of Obamacare – to be a tax, so IRS involvement is going to be an unavoidable part of any rollout,” McConnell said. “It needs to be halted.”

McConnell called for the law to be repealed, joining House Republicans who have tried 37 times to repeal all or part of the statute. Republicans have yet to offer an alternative that would extend health insurance to millions of Americans now without it.

The head of the IRS office handling the health care law, Sarah Hall Ingram, was in charge of the office supervising nonprofits until December 2010 — before the IRS began taking a closer look at groups applying for 501(c)(4) status with “tea party” in their name. The 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status would enable them to hide their donors even if they engage in political activity.

Original post is McConnell Joins Effort to Tie Health-Care Law to IRS Scandal by Political Capital.

“Does my colleague from Florida believe that the House of Representatives, dominated by Republicans, are going to raise the debt limit?” McCain asked Rubio.

The Senate and House have each passed a budget resolution. Now the chambers must agree to go to conference to bridge the gaps between the Democrat and Republican fiscal plans. Democratic leaders in the Senate must ask for unanimous consent to appoint conferees to the budget.

The list of Senators who have objected to these requests reads like a Tea-Party all-star lineup: Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sens. Cruz of Texas, Rubio of Florida, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky have all objected to allowing conferees to the budget unless Democrats guarantee not to raise the debt limit or increase taxes.

“We’re talking about a minority within a minority,” McCain said today about his Tea Party-affiliated colleagues. In a rare moment of bipartisanship, he joined Democrats in lamenting that “we can’t go to conference unless we agree not to raise the debt limit.”

McCain ceded the floor after informing the chamber that “the majority of my colleagues on this side of the aisle” want to complete work on the budget.

“What we’re saying here on this side of the aisle is we don’t trust our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol who are in the majority,” he said.

Cruz responded quickly by saying, “Let me be clear: I don’t trust the Republicans and I don’t trust the Democrats,” in regards to handling the raising of the debt ceiling.

Rubio echoed Cruz, pointing out that America’s fiscal well-being “is not a trivial matter.” Republicans’ request to Democrats is not “some ridiculous thing,” he said.

“I’m not asking that the key lime pie be made the official pie of the United States,” Rubio said.

Only one Democratic senator added his voice to the floor fray: Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin interrupted to observe that members of the minority party “seem to be at odds.”

Original post is McCain, Tea Party Senators Squabble Over Budget Procedure by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, left, and former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman confer during a break in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee May 21, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has again sued the Internal Revenue Service over its regulation of nonprofits incorporated under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.

The watchdog group is asking the U.S. District Court to direct the IRS to draft rules governing 501(c)(4) organizations, such as Crossroads GPS, founded with the help of Republican strategist Karl Rove, and Priorities USA, which was created by former aides to President Barack Obama.

In an earlier lawsuit and in a rule-making petition, CREW has argued that tax law, which requires 501(c)(4)s to be “operated exclusively” for social welfare, is at odds with IRS regulations that say such organizations only need to be “primarily engaged” in social welfare.

CREW filed the lawsuit as the Senate Finance Committee held its first hearing about the ongoing IRS scandal in which the agency targeted for extra scrutiny groups with “patriot” or “Tea Party” their names.

“Now that the entire country has been educated about this previously obscure tax matter, this lawsuit may finally spur reform,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW. “The current IRS scandal directly stems from the problematic regulation.  Only by changing it can we be sure we won’t see a repeat of the current debacle.”

Original post is Watchdog Group Files Second Lawsuit Against IRS by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

IRS protesters on May 21, 2013 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Tea Party activists organized the protest against the Internal Revenue Service saying they improperly targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Almost three-fourths of Americans think it was “inappropriate” for the Internal Revenue Service to target Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll out today. A majority of respondents said the government was harassing those organizations.

The survey of 1,001 adults showed 74 percent opposed the targeting of the Tea Party organizations that sought nonprofit status, while 20 percent said it was appropriate. Fifty-six percent said the government deliberately went after the groups while 31 percent said it was a bureaucratic mistake. Nonprofits incorporated under Section 501c4 of the U.S. tax code face limits on their political activity.

Respondents split 45 percent to 42 percent on whether the Obama administration was covering up the facts.

By an even larger margin, 55 percent to 33 percent, respondents said the Obama administration was covering up the facts around the attack on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four people, including the U.S. ambassador.

It’s no surprise then that more Americans, 54 percent to 38 percent, said they feel the government is doing more to threaten individual rights than to protect them.

Despite speeches, press releases and hearings, congressional Republicans have not been able to gain politically from the Obama administration stumbles, the poll found. Sixty percent of respondents said congressional Republicans were dealing with unimportant issues, while 51 percent said President Barack Obama was handling issues of importance to them. That mirrored Obama’s approval rating, 51 percent, with 44 percent disapproving.

The poll, taken May 16-19, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Original post is IRS Was Wrong to Target Tea Party Groups, ABC-Post Poll Shows by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Brody/Bloomberg

Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, right, greets Douglas Shulman, commissioner of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, prior to a hearing about tax policies relating to Ponzi schemes before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 2009.

Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, said a formal investigation by his panel will get to the bottom of who at the Internal Revenue Service selectively screened groups applying for tax-exempt status based in part on their ideology.

“We know that IRS officials in Washington tried to stop this behavior,” the Montana Democrat said as he opened the Senate’s first hearing on the work by the tax-exempt unit in Cincinnati. “But who in Cincinnati perpetuated this behavior?”

Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who left the agency in November, will be speaking publicly for the first time since the matter became public May 10.

Shulman learned that small-government groups had been singled out last year. He never told Congress.

“Were they simply holding out until after the election?” said Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee.

Also testifying today are acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who is being forced out of his job, and Russell George, the inspector general who oversees the IRS. They had both testified May 17 before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Read the full story here.

Original post is Baucus: Senate Will Get to Bottom of IRS Case by Political Capital.

Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George, left, and Former Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service Steve Miller testify during a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee on May 17, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

The Internal Revenue Service wrote and planted the question asked on May 10 that led to the IRS scandal, the questioner said in a statement today.

Celia Roady, a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in Washington, said that she received a call May 9 from Lois Lerner, the mid-level IRS official in charge of tax-exempt organizations. Both were planning to attend a tax conference the next day in Washington.

Lerner “asked if I would pose a question to her after her remarks,” Roady said in a statement released today by her firm. “I agreed to do so, and she then gave me the question that I asked at the meeting the next day.”

According to Talking Points Memo, which got a recording of the event, the question came a few minutes after Lerner finished her prepared remarks. It was: “Lois, a few months ago there were some concerns about the IRS’s review of 501(c)(4) organizations, of applications from tea party organizations. I was just wondering if you could provide an update.”

In response, Lerner acknowledged that the agency used words such as “Tea Party” and “patriot” to decide which applications for tax-exempt status should get tougher scrutiny. Lerner apologized for the agency’s actions.

Roady said she didn’t know how Lerner would answer.

Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner who is being forced out, said today in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee that the agency and Roady had talked in advance. He hadn’t said that the IRS had written the question.

Original post is IRS Planted the Question that Started Scandal by Political Capital.

Photograph by STR/AFP via Getty Images

A vehicle and the surround buildings burn after they were set on fire inside the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi late on September 11, 2012.

President Barack Obama, addressing a live television audience from the White House, said the commissioner in charge of the IRS has been removed following the agency’s targeted scrutiny of conservative groups.

“The misconduct uncovered is inexcuseable,” Obama said in a brief statement delivered from the East Room. “Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior at any agency, especially the IRS.”

“We’re going to hold the responsible parties accountable,” he said, announcing that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had accepted the resignation of the acting IRS commissioner, Steven Miller.

The president said “new safeguards” will be put in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again, and he will cooperate with Congress in its oversight “to get this thing fixed.”

“I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that nothing like this happens again,” Obama said in remarks delivered in under three and a half minutes.

The White House has faced widespread criticism for not standing up more quickly to the questions emerging from the fatal attacks on a U.S. mission in Libya, the Internal Revenue Service’s handling of requests for tax exemptions from Tea Party-related groups and the Justice Department’s tracking of Associated Press reporters’ phone calls.

The White House rose to all three today:

– Obama faced the television cameras this evening after meeting with high-level Treasury officials at the White House today about what the IRS’s inspector general had called “ineffective management” in the screening of requests for tax-exempt status for groups organized under section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code — groups that are supposed to have only limited political activity. IRS employees in Cincinnati screened for the words Tea Party in their scrutiny. The broadcast and cable networks lined up to carry his words live.

– The Obama White House this afternoon released almost 100 pages of e-mail traffic among officials at the White House, CIA and State Department. The e-mails show the Central Intelligence Agency made major revisions to administration talking points after the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya in Benghazi —as they were developed and before they were delivered to Congress and supplied to United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice. See the talking points here.

– This afternoon, the White House allowed that it had spoken with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York about reintroducing a shield law to protect the confidential sources of reporters, following the revelation that the Justice Department had tracked the phone records of AP reporters citing an investigation into a leak with national security implications. The president supports the First Amendment, press secretary Jay Carney said today — a shield law should prove it.

In that scandal-industrial complex, that’s one busy day.

Original post is Charge of the Obama Brigade: IRS, Benghazi, Reporters by Political Capital.

Photograph by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

White House press secretary Jay Carney, rear, is seen on a television monitor during his daily news briefing at the White House.

In Washington, it’s often more the cover-up than the scandal that undoes a president.

“And when it’s over, we’ll be hard-pressed to remember how it began.”

So wrote Jay Carney, then a correspondent for Time magazine, in 2007, in the midst of the Bush administration’s growing second-term problems.

Carney now serves as press secretary for President Barack Obama as potentially disabling second-term crises have arisen on three fronts: The administration’s handling of the fatal attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya, the Internal Revenue Service’s handling of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status and the Justice Department’s surveillance of reporters’ telephone records in a case of purported national security.

The White House was at the center of only one of these matters — public communication about the Benghazi attack. The IRS and Justice Department brought the other problems to the White House’s doorstep — it appears, with the administration maintaining it knew nothing of either affair at the time it was conducted. Yet the White House stands front and center on the question of what might be done about apparent over-reaching of government police power — the Justice Department, on the receiving and giving end here, has opened a criminal investigation of the IRS. And Attorney General Eric Holder is on the Hill today.

The White House, many of its own allies are saying, has been slow to learning the lesson that, in crisis management, the management is often more important than the crisis. And, as Bloomberg and others are reporting this morning, the Obama White House needs an accelerated learning curve.

“There’s an industrial-scandal complex that exists in Washington, D.C.,” says Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant who worked as a special assistant counsel to Clinton. “You need to have some kind of entity within the building that’s capable of managing these situations.”

The administration’s response “sounded exceedingly passive to me,” Robert Gibbs, Obama’s first press secretary, said in an interview on MSNBC. “The tenor of this briefing would be different if the president had spoken about this on Saturday or Sunday and not on Monday.”

As Carney himself put it, with Time co-author Massimo Calabresi, in 2007:

In Washington, scandals metastasize, growing and changing until we can’t remember what they were about in the beginning. A bungled burglary became a cancer on the presidency, forcing Richard Nixon to resign in disgrace. A money-losing Arkansas real estate deal led to Monica, a blue dress and Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Already, the furor over the dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys has shifted focus from the crass but essentially routine exercise of political patronage to the essential project of George W. Bush’s presidency: its deliberate and aggressive efforts to expand and protect Executive power.

Which is why divining the true motives behind the dismissals is only part of the battle under way in Washington. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have spent six years expanding presidential powers at the expense of Congress and the judiciary, from authorizing domestic wiretapping to limiting habeas corpus and changing bills through signing statements. Democrats, in control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in 12 years, are determined to reclaim what they can. And the U.S. Attorneys case gives them powerful new ammunition.

Just getting Karl Rove and other top White House officials to testify could be as important as anything they might say, since it would set a precedent of sorts as Democrats push to investigate internal White House deliberations on everything from Iraq-war contracting to the use of prewar intelligence. Bush is resisting, offering to give only limited interviews with lawmakers with no transcript. Anything more than that, he says, would be an infringement on presidential privilege.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales remains a likely casualty, but the history of past scandals suggests his resignation would not be enough to end the current one. Hearings will be held, subpoenas issued, new investigations launched. And when it’s over, we’ll be hard-pressed to remember how it began.

Original post is Carney: ‘Scandals Metastasize’ — in the Industrial-Scandal Complex by Political Capital.