Bush flip-flops on 527s

Dubya's stock response to calls that he distance himself from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth [sic] — a 527 organization airing ads that even Republican leaders say are "dishonest and dishonorable" — is to call for a ban on all 527 groups, including ones like MoveOn.org that support John Kerry.

That isn't what the GOP called for in June 2003, when they challenged McCain-Feingold all the way to the Supreme Court.  At the time, GOP point man Sen. Mitch McConnell argued in this brief, written by our old friend Kenneth Starr, that the GOP should be allowed to give money to 527s… and that the law which now prohibits the GOP from funneling money to Swift Boat Veterans was a violation of the First Amendment.

In the brief, McConnell and Starr argue that the laws preventing donations from the GOP to 527s "deeply compromise the speech rights of the regulated actors," and

In addition to speech rights, section 101 burdens associational rights in ways not implicated in Buckley.   Specifically, by pervasively regulating the relationships among party committees, and between party committees and others, section 101 impermissibly interferes with the associational rights of political parties and their members.  It is beyond question that "[t]he right to associate with the political party of one's choice is an integral part" of the First Amendment freedom of association.

In just over a year, Bush and the GOP have flip-flopped:  From arguing they should be able to fund 527s directly on First Amendment grounds, to arguing that 527s should be banned on… no grounds at all, really, except that Kerry is receiving a lot of support from 527s.

Also worth nothing is this section from the Political Parties' brief in the same suit:

The Libertarian National Committee, Inc. ("LNC"), the governing body of  the Libertarian Party® at the national level, is incorporated in the District of Columbia as a nonprofit corporation governed by IRC § 527.

In other words, the Libertarian Party is a 527.  Bush is proposing to ban it.