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Legislative Update for February 7, 2014

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This week started off with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) hurling a direct blow to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The study released by that non-partisan group exposed the troublesome ramifications that come with the ACA and what it will cost the American people.

House

On February 5, the House Ways and Means Oversight Committee held a hearing with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen regarding the ongoing investigation of IRS targeting of conservative groups and the newly proposed regulations to silence conservative organizations like Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee.

This hearing was the first one since Koskinen became commissioner, and he appeared to be towing the administration’s line by refusing to say whether he would comply with Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp’s request to provide IRS and Treasury documents that would shed light on these newly proposed regulations.

Chairman Camp has also introduced legislation, The Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act, H.R. 3865, that would prohibit the IRS from enacting these regulations.  Please ask your representative to cosponsor and support this bill.  To find your representative, click here.

For more information about the IRS proposed regulations, click here.

CWALAC joined Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado) on Thursday for his first Google Hangout.  We thanked him for fighting for our families and protecting religious liberties.

Senate

Common Core: Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) introduced a Common Core Resolution (S.Res 345) to amplify the importance of keeping education decision making on a local level. CWA’s State Directors have been working to hold their governors accountable for signing away their constitutional rights and handing power over to the federal government.

To read CWALAC’s press statement, click here.

Action: Call your senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to sign onto Sen. Graham’s Common Core Resolution, S.Res 345.

Iran Sanction Hearing: Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has appeased the administration by not bring up the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act, which currently has 59 co-sponsors, including 13 Democrats, and would expect to pass with more than 70 votes. Instead, the administration is content chasing after a bone that Iran will likely not give up.

Congress has been very clear that they will put the safety of our ally Israel and the rest of the Middle East first, which is the message that was echoed in this week’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, where senators questioned Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary for Political Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, and David S. Cohen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financing at the U.S. Department of Treasury, on nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Action: Call your senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to co-sponsor — and tell leadership to bring to the floor — the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act (S.1881). To find your senators, click here.

To read CWALAC’s letter of support, sent to Capitol Hill, for the Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act, click here.

IRS Proposed Rule: This week, top Congressional Republicans sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner, urging him to keep a level perspective and not to accept the new Obama Administration proposed regulation that would end 501 c4s, including Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has been outspoken on this violation of free speech, speaking on the Senate Floor as a way to alert the American people to what this administration is seeking to do.

Sen. McConnell said Thursday, “And here’s the thing: the administration knows it could never get anything like this through Congress the democratic way, so it’s trying to quietly impose the new regulations through the back door — by executive fiat.”

The new rule would redefine what outside groups can do to silence the voice of conservatives.