Could anger at the IRS unite Democrats and the tea party?

The Maryland Democrat announced Wednesday that he is suing the agency, as well as the Treasury Department, to demand a change in the way they evaluate nonprofits that proclaim themselves to be “social-welfare” organizations.

The IRS currently allows such organizations—a class of power players known as “tax-exempt 501(c)4s,” whose ranks include Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the Obama-aligned Priorities USA—to dabble in political advocacy, so long as they keep such activities secondary to their general charitable work.

But Van Hollen says that such a “primary charitable, secondarily political” arrangement leaves open a loophole for overtly political organizations to exploit benefits intended to be reserved for charities. Chief among those benefits is that 501(c)4s do not have to disclose their donors, and so corporations, unions, and other groups can pour money into advocacy efforts without fearing public backlash, or indeed any public scrutiny at all…

Van Hollen said that his primary goal in the suit was campaign finance transparency, but he hoped that the suit’s ancillary consequences could pull in allies from the opposite end of the political spectrum.