Sunlight Foundation

  1. Bauer, Obama's new ethics point man, had double standards on 527s

    By Bill Allison Aug 13, 2010 3:08 p.m.

    At a May 3, 2000, press conference, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., announced that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had filed a lawsuit, prepared by its counsel, Robert F. Bauer, alleging that Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was using a series of nonprofits and political committees (called section 527s, after the section of the tax code under which they're created) to circumvent campaign finance laws, extort money from donors, and evade disclosure. Kennedy and Bauer presented the charges, based for the most part on media reports about DeLay's fundraising tactics, as an unprecedented assault on campaign finance law. "Money laundering," Bauer elaborated on one of the main charges, is "the way in which he avoids public disclosure and washes the fruits of his illegal fundraising operation through these unregistered organizations, which do not disclose the source or object of their expenditures." 

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