Miriam Galston‘s WaPo oped:

As the 2016 presidential and congressional races heat up, many people increasingly worry about the large amounts of “dark money” from undisclosed sources being used to finance election campaigns. A recent ill-conceived statement by Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen could make this crisis even worse. A key class of tax-exempt groups, he said, could spend up to 49 percent of their revenue on politics without losing their tax-favored status. Koskinen even suggested that this position corresponds to the intent of Congress.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The commissioner’s statement was inconsistent with the legislation under which the IRS operates, contravenes a long line of judicial opinions and is bad public policy. Here’s why: