Reform After the IRS Scandal? Don’t Bet on It.

… In survey questions that Conor Dowling and I fielded in 2012 via the CCES and the CCAP as part of work on a forthcoming book, we asked respondents a series of questions designed to assess their knowledge of the legality of various activities during presidential elections. …

Our findings are hardly suggestive of a public with high knowledge of campaign finance regulations, even after Citizens United. If knowledge is a precondition for perceived salience, it should not be surprising that public attention to the IRS scandal is lagging compared to similar previous news stories. On the whole, it seems unlikely that partisan-motivated IRS scrutiny of organizations seeking an obscure tax exemption will give much momentum to reformers seeking to address electioneering among 501©(4)s. [cont.]

Michael Miller (U. of Illinois, Springfield), The Monkey Cage

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