Americans for Job Security Fighting Republicans Now?

One of the hidden stories that the media has largely missed in all of the Republican criticism of Democratic 527s is the presence of Republican 501c6s. Where 527s are supposed to be organizations that exist for the purpose of influencing elections (and are distinct from PACs in the language they can use to influence elections among other things), Republican 501c6s nominally exist to represent business interests in the issue sphere. In reality, a host of them operate like 527 "stealth PACs." The difference is that while 527s are clearly legal, the 501c6s may very well be violating their tax status by engaging in the level of electoral activity that they do.

And it now appears that at least one prominent stealth PAC may be nervous about getting called out on it. Americans for Job Security, as good an example of a 501c6 operating outside the bounds of the IRS law as you're likely to find, has been running ads targeting Republicans on asbestos legislation.

Theoretically, this organization should be spending the majority of its funding on lobbying expenses like this one, not on electoral pursuits. This may be AJS covering its ass for this fall, concerned that a revitalized Democratic Party may haul it in front of the auditors and render AJS powerless. This, of course, is just a guess as to the motive here. Because it is clearly a break with the past for AJS to engage in lobbying, much less lobbying that targets Republicans.

--Matt Singer

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