WASHINGTON -- In a written response to the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration, senior Internal Revenue Service official Joseph Grant gave an account of why agents created criteria that targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, an explanation that differs from later testimony by another IRS official...

Lois Lerner, the embattled head of the Internal Revenue Service's exempt organizations division, has been placed on administrative leave after invoking her Fifth Amendment rights during a hearing examining the IRS' targeting of conservative groups, according to a report by the National Review Online.

"Due to the events...

WASHINGTON -- Lois Lerner, the director of the IRS division under fire for targeting conservative organizations, strongly defended herself in an opening statement before the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee on Wednesday before invoking her Fifth Amendment rights and being dismissed from the room by Chairman Darrell...

Lois Lerner, the director of the exempt organizations unit at the Internal Revenue Service, plans to invoke the Fifth Amendment during her expected testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Lerner announced her plans to plead...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats on Tuesday used a hearing investigating the unfolding Internal Revenue Service scandal to call for tightening the rules that govern tax-exempt nonprofit groups.

"Once the smoke of the current controversy clears, we need to examine the root of this issue and reform the nation’s vague 501(c)(4)...

Crossroads GPS, the conservative nonprofit that directly spent more than $70 million on federal political campaigns in the 2012 election, believes that it is one of the organizations targeted for further review by the Internal Revenue Service, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

The organization, co-founded by...

WASHINGTON -- Facing questions over the Internal Revenue Service's allegedly focused examination of conservative groups applying for nonprofit tax-exempt status, acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller agreed with members of the House Ways and Means Committee Monday that the agency's criteria for investigation -- names like "tea party" and...

The chief campaign arm of congressional Democrats continued last month to beat its Republican counterpart in fundraising.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pulled in $5.4 million in April, compared to the $5.1 million raised by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The DCCC has raised $28 million over the first four...

WASHINGTON -- The Internal Revenue Service would have an easier time figuring out which groups applying for tax-exempt status are political in nature if Congress passed legislation requiring groups engaged in political campaign activity to disclose their donors, according to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

In an interview with The...

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission is not currently writing a rule to require public corporations to disclose their political contributions, despite a major push by a coalition of progressive and campaign finance reform groups, said SEC Chair Mary Jo White during testimony before the House Financial...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) took to the Senate floor Wednesday to remind Americans that the Internal Revenue Service's inappropriate questioning of conservative groups is "not the only IRS scandal." He said the agency is also "allowing big shadowy forces to meddle in elections anonymously through front...

WASHINGTON -- The Internal Revenue Service inspector general found in a May 14 report on the agency's targeting of conservative groups seeking tax exemption that the regulations for determining eligibility for exemption lack definition and that the IRS provides no "specific guidance" on how to apply...

WASHINGTON -- As the Internal Revenue Service began to use broad search terms like "tea party," "patriot" and "9/12" to target groups seeking tax-exempt status in March 2010, the agency was already facing a major crush of applications for exemption under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.

As...

WASHINGTON -- The head of the Internal Revenue Service's exempt organizations division apologized on Friday for the inappropriate targeting of conservative groups during the 2012 election. The apology by Lois Lerner, first reported by the Associated Press, revealed that groups with the words "tea party" or "patriot" in...

WASHINGTON -- It's spring again and with that comes another season of corporate shareholder meetings and the filing of resolutions looking to change the way those corporations engage in the political process.

In the 2013 shareholder proxy voting season, there have already been more than 120 proposals introduced dealing with...

WASHINGTON -- Two campaign finance watchdogs have filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission asking for an investigation into potential violations of campaign contribution limits originally reported by The Huffington Post.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Campaign Legal Center filed...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) unloaded about the "soul-crushing" fundraising work required to run a political campaign, speaking at a Yale University conference on Monday.

Murphy's blunt words were meant to pull back the curtain on a rarely talked about, but overwhelming part of being...

WASHINGTON -- In October 2011, John Canning, chairman of the Chicago-based hedge fund Madison Dearborn Partners, expressed his displeasure with President Barack Obama to the Chicago Tribune. "It's the populist economic policies of wealth redistribution and government control of all aspects of everyday life that I object to,"...

In downtown New York City on Wednesday, state Sen. Jeff Klein, the leader of the Independent Democratic Conference, launched the first of four public hearings meant to move campaign finance reform forward in Albany. Klein, the New York Senate's co-leader, has introduced a reform bill, which...

WASHINGTON -- All five sitting commissioners at the Federal Election Commission are now serving expired terms, while the sixth seat remains unfilled since a commissioner retired on Feb. 1, 2013.

FEC Commissioner Caroline Hunter's term expired on Tuesday. Until their replacements are confirmed by the Senate, FEC commissioners are permitted...