Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, a Democrat who has crusaded against the loosening of campaign finance rules, is suing the Trump administration to block it from eliminating a mandate that politically active nonprofit groups disclose the identities of their major donors to the government….
But in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Montana, Mr. Bullock and his administration alleged that the Trump administration had flouted proper government process in eliminating the disclosure requirements. The suit asked the court to issue a judgment voiding the new I.R.S. policy….
The Montana litigation claims that the federal government failed to follow the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that has been the basis for other suits charging the Trump administration with improper or capricious rule making. The suit accuses the I.R.S. of evading important regulatory requirements, like the mandate to seek public comment before rewriting government rules, and of rewriting policy under the guise of adjusting what the I.R.S. termed a “revenue procedure.”
Mr. Bullock said that because Montana currently uses I.R.S. information to administer nonprofits at the state level, the abrupt policy shift could hobble its ability to conduct oversight and collect revenue.