The liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org is rushing to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s assistance, circulating a petition currently boasting 2,239 signatures to get Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to release 10 years of tax returns.
“We stand with Majority Leader Harry Reid in asking Mitt Romney to release 10 years worth of tax returns,” the petition reads.
Instigated by Nevadan James Walsh, a MoveOn member who made the petition on MoveOn.org’s petition outpost SignOn.org, the group is blasting his petition and plea to members and encouraging them to sign on to Reid’s cause.
“As American citizens, I believe it is our right to see how a person who is running for President of the USA has paid their income tax,” Walsh explained in a MoveOn.org email sent Monday afternoon. “When he ran for governor of Massachusetts he insisted that Ted Kennedy release his tax returns. So please Mitt don’t be a hypocrite, release your tax returns.”
Reid came under fire for claiming, without proof, that Romney had not paid taxes for a decade.
“The word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes in 10 years. Let him prove he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t,” Reid said on the Senate floor.
Republicans and some in the media have hammered Reid for propagating the unsubstantiated claim.
Over the weekend Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, called Reid a “dirty liar” and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham speculated that the Nevada senator was “making things up.”
Romney has denied Reid’s allegations, telling Fox News’s Sean Hannity last week, “It’s untrue, dishonest and inaccurate.”
The petition has a goal of 3,000 signatures.