Complying with a new federal law, Political Animals registered with the Internal Revenue Service by the August 1 deadline.
Like other so-called “527” groups, so named after a section of the IRS code, Political Animals could operate politically related campaigns without disclosing its identity, contributions or expenditures.
Congress targeted such groups in July campaign finance legislation because special interests used the 527 tax status to run political ads with complete anonymity. The law was intended to shed light on who was behind these groups and where the funding came from.
But the law isn’t producing exactly the kind of disclosure the sponsoring lawmakers, such as Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., intended. And until provisions of Section 527 are clarified – by Congress, the IRS, or the courts – it will remain unclear whether some of these tactics skirt the law or simply flout it.
A Public i examination of the first filings with the IRS, including that of Political Animals, has found several ways that 527 groups have circumvented the intent of the disclosure law by providing incorrect or misleading information on the required IRS form or by using the services of a “political treasurer.”
Kinde Durkee is a California political treasurer who is listed as the custodian of record, treasurer or contact person for Political Animals and 104 other groups – all of them Democratic, many of them minority group- or candidate-based, some of them single-issue groups. She manages such organizations as Coalition for a Democratic Majority, the California Lexington Group and Hispanic Unity USA, the organization involved in a Playboy Mansion fund-raising flap. Democratic Party officials publicly threatened Representative Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., with retribution if she held her fund-raiser at the mansion during the Democratic National Convention. She later moved it and collected $500,000 for Hispanic Unity USA.
