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California tea party group files class-action lawsuit against the IRS, seeks damages for discrimination, citing 'intensive and intrusive scrutiny' in tax-exemption process

A California tea party group sued the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, saying it was among the conservative organizations the federal government targeted for special scrutiny because of its political positions. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, seeks the certification of a class action, which could open the floodgates for as many as 300 other right-wing groups to join the legal effort.

NorCal Tea Party Patriots, based in Colfax, California, told the court that the IRS discriminated against it because of the beliefs of its members, subjecting it to 'a lengthy and costly delay in recognition of their tax-exempt status, and the required disclosure of the personal political beliefs, writings, thoughts, and activities' of its members.

NorCal's website describes its members as 'volunteers who simply love their country and want to save it from a tyrannical takeover.'

Ginni Rapini, the group's founding president, told KGO-ABC7 in San Francisco last week that the IRS made unreasonable demands when she applied for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status for the organization.

'They wanted every email I had ever sent out,' she said. 'They wanted the transcripts of every speech from any speaker at any event, meeting or anything that we had had.'

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Ginni Rapini leads the NorCal Tea Party Patriots, which is suing the IRS over behavior for which the IRS has apologized. For more than two years during the Obama presidency, the agency targeted conservative groups for unusual auditing when they applied for tax-exempt status

NorCal has organized protests at the California state capitol, events that the IRS asked about, demanding copies of leaflets and letters to legislators

Like hundreds of other groups, she waited for more than two years while her application sat in the IRS's Cincinnati, Ohio office, never hearing from the agency why it was being delayed. NorCal's tax-exempt status was granted in August 2012, nearly 29 months after the application was filed.

The delays were unreasonable, according to the federal lawsuit, 'because if their tax-exempt status had been ultimately denied they would have been forced to retroactively file tax returns and pay taxes and penalties for up to two years while their applications were pending.'

  More... Documents: IRS letters harassing conservative groups came from Washington, DC headquarters and from California offices, despite Inspector General's focus on Cincinnati employees Document: IRS ordered conservative educational group to turn over a list of high school and college students it trained Revealed: The 55 questions the IRS asked one tea party group after more than two years of waiting - including demands for names of all its donors and volunteers Congressional hearing turns into IRS smackdown as disgraced former commissioner and Treasury Inspector General face tea-party scandal questions IRS official in charge during tea party targeting is now directing the agency's Obamacare office

In addition to the IRS, NorCal's lawsuit leaves open the possibility of naming as many as 100 'John Doe' defendants, allowing for the future addition of individual government officials and political figures.

The group says the IRS violated the Privacy Act of 1974, which prohibits federal government agencies from keeping more records than they need to fulfill the legal requirements of their missions.

The Act also requires the IRS to 'maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment' unless a federal law requires it, or the individual gives permission.

Cincinnati attorney David Langdon filed the lawsuit on NorCal's behalf, He works with Citizens for Community Values, a 'Judeo-Christian moral values' group that crusades against pornographers and strip clubs

The IRS demanded the answers to an extensive list of questions from NorCal, similar to those seen by other tea party groups, requiring it to turn over copies of leaflets distributed at all its rallies, letters it sent to members of Congress, the names of all its donors and the amounts they contributed.

In its lawsuit, NorCal also claimed the IRS violated its rights under the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

'[T]he IRS engaged in systematic discrimination based upon the speech, expressed viewpoints, and association of NorCal Tea Party Patriots, its members, and similarly situated groups,' according to the lawsuit.

'It subjected them to harassment, unfair delay, denial of governmental benefits, and impaired their ability to participate in the political process.'

It's unusual for class actions to be certified against the U.S. government, and NorCal's effort could be hamstrung by the fact that while the IRS centrally managed the tax-exempt application process from its Cincinnati office, some tea party groups received demand letters from offices in other states.

At least two groups received letters from IRS offices in California, and another received letters from an IRS office in Washington, D.C.

Tea Party groups in more than 40 states could ultimately join the class-action lawsuit against the IRS if a federal judge rules that it can proceed

NorCal Tea Party Patriots says it's a grassroots group composed of 'volunteers who simply love their country and want to save it from a tyrannical takeover'

NorCal's attorneys are standard-bearers on the Christian conservative wing of Republican politics. Cincinnati attorney David Langdon represents Citizens for Community Values, a group whose goals are to 'promote Judeo-Christian moral values and to reduce destructive behaviors contrary to those values.'

Among its efforts is a campaign against pornographers and what it calls 'sexually-oriented businesses.'

Joshua Bolinger, NorCal's other lawyer, is allied with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group best-known for defending public prayer in court cases nationwide, and for pushing back against same-sex marriage initiatives.

Langdon and Bollinger didn't immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did the IRS's press office.

Citizens for Self-Governance, a conservative group that says it aims to 'return American governmental power to the people' and disperse power and break the cycle of incumbency,' issued a statement of support for he legal effort on Monday.

That group's founder, Mark Meckler, is also a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, a group with national reach. He said that '[w]e stand shoulder to shoulder with all those known and unknown who have been abused by a federal government run amok.'

Catherine Engelbrecht told Fox News host Mike Huckabee that federal government agencies contacted her 17 times with audit and lists of questions after she sought tax-exempt status for her tea party and for a voting rights organization

'IS THIS STILL AMERICA?' Congressman Kevin Brady slammed former IRS acting commissioner Steve Miller for presiding over the political persecution of Engelbrecht, one of his Texas constituents

NorCal's lawsuit comes as Congress is pressuring senior IRS personnel, past and present, for answers about how America's tax collectors came to target citizens of one political persuasion for intensive audits before awarding tax-exempt status.

The Senate Finance Committee will hear from acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George and former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman on Tuesday.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will call George and Shulman on Wednesday, along with Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin and Lois Lerner, chief of the IRS tax-exempt office.

Miller and George have already appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee, testifying Friday.

During that hearing, Texas Republican Rep. Kevin Brady stunned the gallery by asking aloud, 'Is this still America?'

Brady told the story of Catherine Engelbrecht, whose conservative voting rights group True The Vote and tea party group King Street Patriots were among the organizations targeted by federal authorities after it applied for tax-exempt status.

Tea party groups were on the rise and poised to return Republicans to power in Congress in 2010, when the IRS's alleged abuses began. NorCal's website claims groups like it were hamstrung by a politically motivated Obama administration that used its tax authority to push back against its ideological adversaries

Engelbrecht, her organization and her small business, he said, were subject to 17 separate inquiries and audits from federal government agencies.

'She received four FBI inquires,' Brady said, 'and her business received unsolicited audits -  unscheduled audits.'

In 'the first contact we had from the IRS, in the first general round of questions,' Engelbrecht told Fox News Channel host Mike Huckabee, 'they wanted to see every Facebook posting we had made, every tweet we tweeted.'

'At some point those questions cross the line.'

Both President Obama and his chief spokesman, Jay Carney, have been hounded by journalists on the question of what senior White House staffers knew about the IRS scandal and when they knew it.

Carney said during a briefing Monday that White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler was first alerted on April 16, in a 'top line' notice from the Treasury Department, followed by a more in-depth briefing on April 24.

He also said that Chief of Staff Denis McDonough was notified about an Inspector General investigation weeks before it became public, but claimed that neither McDonough nor Ruemmler notified the president.

'Some matters are inappropriate to convey to him,' Carney told reporters during his daily briefing at the White House.

Under mounting pressure, President Barack Obama announced May 15 in the East Room of the White House that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller would be stepping down. It emerged hours later, however, that Miller's term as acting commissioner was already scheduled to end in early June

NorCal's Rapini told KGO-ABC7 that she believes Obama will find a scapegoat to protect himself and his legacy.

'I think he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar,' she said, 'and so he's going to say, "Oh yeah, shame on them." And it's going to be somebody else's fault.'

If the lawsuit survives a motion for dismissal, its fate will rest with a judge picked from among the southern Ohio district's eight full-time jurists. Four of them are George W. Bush appointees, three were appointed by Bill Clinton, and one was appointed by President Obama.

A roster of six other part-time federal judges on semi-retired 'senior status' in Cincinnati includes three Ronald Reagan appointees, two from the Jimmy Carter era, and one appointed by George H.W. Bush.









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