According to an audit by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, the Community Rehabilitation Center in Jacksonville overbilled Medicaid by nearly $1.4 million. Reggie Gaffney, a former Jacksonville Port Authority board member, runs the nonprofit, which provides medical services for mental illness, substance abuse, and HIV/AIDS for low-income residents.

Brown’s daughter, Shantrel, is a lobbyist for Arlington-based Alcade and Fay, whose clients include the nonprofit. Community Rehabilitation Center has paid $185,000 to Alcalde and Fay since 2005.

Such arrangements aren’t unusual in Congress. According to a 2012 report by government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, 44 members have family members who lobby or are employed in government affairs.

Brown requested nearly $3 million in earmarks for the Community Rehabilitation Center between 2008 and 2010, when Congress banned earmarks, the Florida Times-Union reported in 2010.

Of those requests, Congress approved $147,000. However, the tax dollars did not go directly to the nonprofit health center, but rather “streetscape improvements and renovation” for Pearl Plaza, the shopping center in Jacksonville where the nonprofit is located.

Gaffney and several other Community Rehabilitation Center executives own three for-profit businesses that lease space in the plaza.

Gaffney and the health center did not immediately return request for comment, but in 2010 he said that the for-profit businesses provided job training.

When the connection between Gaffney, Brown, and her daughter was revealed by the Florida Times-Union in 2010, Gaffney said he was “unaware of Ms. Shantrel Brown’s involvement with securing funding for the agency.”

Gaffney has contributed $5,300 to Brown since 2003. Brown’s office did not return requests for comment.

“It is most unfortunate that there always seems to be a negative connotation concerning member earmarks,” Brown wrote in 2010. The money “will be utilized to renovate the Pearl Street Plaza to allow it to house additional businesses, including vocational rehabilitation programs.”

Authorities seized a house in April used by the Community Rehabilitation Center for its veteran program. The house—donated by the group Allied Veterans of the World—was seized after a judge ruled it was purchased by Allied with illicit proceeds from illegal gaming centers.

Allied is accused of housing illegal gambling stations in storefront cafes, raking in more than $300 million over six years.

Gaffney said he had no idea illicit funds were used to purchase the house.

Rep. Brown was present at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the house.

Brown and her daughter have both faced ethical questions in the past.

Brown’s campaign committee paid her daughter’s husband, Tyree Fields, $5,500 for political consulting work in 2006.

A congressional ethics committee investigated Brown in 1999 after a $50,000 Lexus purchased by African banker Karim Pouye was registered to Shantrel Brown.

Brown failed to disclose a $10,000 donation from a secret Wisconsin bank account that her friend Baptist leader Henry J. Lyons allegedly used for money laundering during her 1996 re-election campaign. The House Ethics Committee eventually cleared Brown.

Brown paid a $5,000 fine to the Florida Ethics Commission in 1993 after it found she used legislative staff members as employees in a travel agency she owned.

In another instance, Brown’s campaign treasurer quit after discovering his name had been forged on campaign reports, leading to a rebuke from the Federal Elections Commission.

Austan Goolsbee caused a mini-scandal in 2010 when he told reporters during a background press briefing that Koch Industries—the company of libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch—paid no income taxes.

“So in this country, we have partnerships, S corps, we have LLCs—we have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax,” Goolsbee told reporters in August 2010. “Some of which are really giant firms. You know, Koch Industries, I think, is one, is a multibillion dollar business, and so that creates a narrower base because we got literally something like 50 percent of the business income in the U.S. is going to businesses that don’t pay any corporate income tax.”

Conservative lawmakers and activists said Goolsbee’s statements not only unfairly singled out the president’s political opponents and used confidential IRS documents to do so.

“Almost 3 years since his remarks and the inspector general’s investigation of those remarks, we still don’t know what Mr. Goolsbee really relied upon nor has it ever been explained why Mr. Goolsbee was talking about Koch in the first place,” Koch Industries legal counsel Mark Holden said in an email.

Goolsbee himself has yet to clear the air; in a tweet last week, he offered yet another explanation as to how he received the confidential IRS filings of Koch Industries.

“There was no secret info on koch bros. It came from here,” Goolsbee tweeted, linking to a St. Petersburg Times article. “But was a mistake–one of the other Koch bros.”

The White House consistently denied that it peeked at Koch Industries tax documents, but it has offered shifting explanations for where Goolsbee got his info.

An administration official told Politico the White House got the information from testimony before the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) and from Koch’s own website.

When then-White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked to name the sources, he dithered.

“I don’t know the answer off the top of my head on that,” Gibbs said. “Again, I can see if there’s better information on that.”

The White House later said Goolsbee was just repeating something he recalled reading.

Holden said there has still never been a satisfactory explanation.

“Mr. Goolsbee’s May 14th tweet offers up yet another alleged reason for what he relied upon when he discussed our confidential tax information back in 2010,” Holden said in an email. “Like the other alleged sources for our tax information that he and the White House claimed he relied upon back in 2010, the 2003 newspaper article he now refers to in no way discusses Koch Industries or our tax information.”

Holden also said the philanthropist businessmen are waiting on a government report of the disclosure.

“In addition, we have never seen the final inspector general’s report concerning these issues,” Holden said.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general launched a probe into Goolsbee’s comments, but that report was never made public.

Goolsbee did not return requests for comment.

The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, a conservative nonprofit group, filed a FOIA request in 2010 through investigative journalist Lynn K. Walsh seeking all IRS documents related to the agencies tax-exempt division specifically mentioning the Tea Party.

IRS headquarters responded in 2011 that it “found no documents specifically responsive to your request.”

However, the May 14 inspector general report found that the “first Sensitive Case Report [identifying Tea Party groups] was prepared by the Technical Unit” in April of 2010.

The report’s timeline chronicles the existence of numerous 2010 emails, memoranda, and policies related to the targeting of conservative organizations.

According to the IG timeline, an email was sent on July 27, 2010 “updating the description of applications involving potential political campaign intervention and providing a coordinator contact for the cases.”

“The description was changed to read, ‘These cases involve various local organizations in the Tea Party movement [that] are applying for exemption under 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4).’”

The IRS determinations unit developed a “be on the lookout” listing on Aug. 12, 2010, “in order to replace the existing practice of sending separate e-mails to all Determinations Unit employees as to cases to watch for, potentially abusive cases, cases requiring processing by the team of specialists, and emerging issues.”

The language of the listing was identical to the July 27, 2010 email.

“Either IRS Headquarters was entirely incompetent in maintaining awareness of prominent policies and documents within the IRS, or it deliberately covered up the existence of anti-conservative IRS policies. Either is terrifying,” Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center, said in a statement. “Legal action is necessary to ensure that the IRS does not lie to taxpayers in this manner in the future.”

The 1851 Center was one of many conservative organizations targeted by the IRS. When the 1851 Center applied for tax-exempt status in May 2010, the IRS demanded the organization “explain in detail your organization’s involvement with the Tea Party.”

As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the IRS submitted inappropriate questions to numerous conservative groups, demanding information such as donor lists and reading materials.

The revelation, which confirmed nearly a year of suspicions among conservative groups and lawmakers, has been roundly denounced as a breach of core constitutional values.

“Obviously that behavior is intrusive and abusive, and most importantly it’s not a standard question,” said Ken Boehm, the cofounder of the National Legal and Policy Center. “You don’t see things like that being applied across the board or even close. At it’s base, its an equal protection thing.”

The conservative Leadership Institute produced more than 23,000 pages of documents and spent more than $50,000 defending itself against what it says was a “harassing” IRS audit. The IRS requested information on the Leadership Institute’s interns, including their future employment.

Bloomberg reported that the IRS sought information from the Hawaii Tea Party on its relationship with the institute. Specifically, the IRS wanted to know if Dylan Nonaka, former executive of the Hawaii Republican Party, had trained the Hawaii Tea Party.

The IRS also demanded information about the group’s board members, officers, and employees, as well as their family members.

Tax information of other conservative groups, such as Crossroads GPS, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the National Organization for Marriage, were leaked and fell into the hands of political opponents.

Yahoo News reported Wednesday that Media Trackers, another conservative organization, waited more than a year trying to obtain tax-exempt status from the IRS. After reapplying under the name “Greenhouse Solutions,” its application was approved in three weeks.

Media Tracker’s “determination specialist” at the IRS was Stephen Seok in the Cincinnati office. Seok also demanded donor lists from the Richmond Tea Party.

The IRS did not immediately return requests for comment.

The Leadership Institute, which works to train conservative organizers, said on its website that it produced more than 23,400 pages of documents in 2012 in response to a yearlong “harassing” IRS audit.

The IRS admitted last week that agents at its Cincinnati office singled out tea party groups for inappropriate scrutiny between March 2010 and January 2012. An IRS Inspector General report released shortly thereafter found agents asked for such materials as donor lists and reading materials from targeted groups.

The Obama Administration and the IRS Inspector General said the program was limited to low-level officials at the agency’s Cincinnati office.

However, according to the Leadership Institute, the agent investigating the group was Virginia Puddister from the Baltimore office of IRS.

“The IRS’ indefensible behavior is worse than we first thought, as it targeted both new and existing conservative groups in politically motivated attacks,” said Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute, in a statement. “Fortunately my Leadership Institute had the resources to stand up to the government’s bullying and intimidation. Other groups, including grassroots and tea party groups we’ve helped train, did not.”

The IRS notified the Leadership Institute of an audit of its tax return and activities in 2008 on June 1, 2011.

The IRS requested information including a list of 2008 interns and their future employers, how the organization advertises its training sessions, and sample emails between the institute and employers regarding job postings.

The IRS ultimately accepted the Leadership Institute’s 2008 return, but not before the organization spent $50,000 in legal fees defending it, Blackwell said.

Photo of paperwork LI had to submit to compply with IRS audit / Source: Leadership Institute

Other tea party groups drew scrutiny from the IRS because of their affiliation with the Leadership Institute.

Bloomberg reported that the IRS sought information from the Hawaii Tea Party on its relationship with the institute. Specifically, the IRS wanted to know if Dylan Nonaka, former executive of the Hawaii Republican Party, had trained the Hawaii Tea Party.

The IRS also demanded information about the group’s board members, officers, and employees, as well as their family members.

As previously reported by the Washington Free Beacon, tax information of other conservative groups, such as Crossroads GPS, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the National Organization for Marriage, were leaked and fell into the hands of political opponents.

Yahoo! News reported Wednesday that Media Trackers, another conservative organization, waited more than a year trying to obtain tax-exempt status from the IRS. After reapplying under the name “Greenhouse Solutions,” its application was approved in three weeks.

Media Tracker’s “determination specialist” at the IRS was Stephen Seok in the Cincinnati office. Seok also demanded donor lists from the Richmond Tea Party.

“The real questions that needs to be asked is how many other conservative organizations were targeted and how far did this reach?” said Bryan Bernys, vice president of Leadership Institute’s campus leadership program. “I don’t think we’ve got to the bottom of this.”

According to reports, the White House called Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) Wednesday and asked him to reintroduce the Free Flow of Information Act, which shields reporters from being compelled to reveal their sources in court.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Free Flow of Information Act by a 15-to-4 vote in December 2009, but a floor vote was scuttled after the Wikileaks controversy.

The White House is facing fierce criticism from the press following news that the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed the phone logs of AP reporters and editors in an attempt to track down the source of a national security leak.

“This kind of law would balance national security needs against the public’s right to the free flow of information,” Schumer said in a press release. “At minimum, our bill would have ensured a fairer, more deliberate process in this case.”

However, the bill will likely contain a large carve-out for national security matters. The 2009 version of the legislation contained national security exemptions, which were included at the request of the White House.

Such a provision would likely not have shielded the AP from the Justice Department subpoena.

The White House’s new push for media shield laws stands in stark contrast to the administration’s actions in court against reporters. Federal prosecutors argued against journalistic privilege in the case of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling.

Prosecutors subpoenaed New York Times reporter James Risen for allegedly incorporating classified information he received from Sterling into a chapter of his 2006 book, State of War. The government indicted Sterling in 2010 for the unlawful disclosure of national defense information.

Federal prosecutors wrote in 2012 that Risen has no “reporter’s privilege” protecting him from revealing his sources.

“Contrary to Risen’s claim, the ‘newsworthiness’ of the information has no bearing on whether he should be required to disclose his source,” prosecutors wrote. “The ‘newsworthiness’ of the information is irrelevant to whether Sterling committed a crime, and it is irrelevant to whether Risen, like any other citizen, must testify concerning his knowledge of that crime.”

The Obama administration promised during its transition period to enhance “whistle-blower laws to protect federal workers.” But in the years since, the administration has charged more people under the Espionage Act—six total—than all previous administrations combined. The Espionage Act has only been enforced three other times since it was enacted in 1917.

Additionally, the Justice Department charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou in 2012 with disclosing classified information to the media. The DOJ charged former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake in another case under the Espionage Act, claiming the former National Security Agency official provided classified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter.

The government’s case collapsed in 2011 and Drake pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor.

Although many states have enacted statutes—commonly called “shield laws”—protecting journalists from being compelled by courts to reveal confidential sources, there is no federal statute.

The Supreme Court ruled in the 1972 case Branzburg v. Hayes that the First Amendment does not shield reporters from federal prosecution. Federal prosecutors have argued Risen had no constitutional standing to invoke reporter’s privilege.

The White House did not return requests for comment.

The report said ineffective management allowed IRS agents to single out Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status with inappropriate questions and requests.

While some conservative groups have come forward to corroborate stories of politically motivated targeting by the IRS, many are also keeping quiet for fear of further retaliation.

“Talk about a chilling effect on speech,” said one person who requested anonymity. “I’m afraid to go on the record because of what the IRS might do to my group.”

The source was a member of a conservative nonprofit that applied for tax-exempt status with the IRS. After waiting nearly a year without any response, the organization reapplied under an innocuous name.

The Cincinnati IRS office—the same at the heart of the current scandal—approved the application in three weeks.

“At that point, we had a history,” the source said. “But as soon as we changed the name, it sailed through.”

An IRS official admitted on Friday the agency targeted conservative groups. Those organizations were subjected to increased scrutiny and requests for reams of information, including donor lists.

The program originated at the IRS office in Cincinnati, according to reports.

The Cincinnati IRS office also leaked sensitive documents from conservative organizations to liberal media outlets.

Investigative news outlet ProPublica received applications from 31 nonprofits from the IRS in November 2012, including nine that had not yet been approved and thus were not supposed to be made public.

All of the confidential applications belonged to conservative groups. One application leaked by the IRS was that of Crossroads GPS, the biggest spender among 501(c)(4) groups in the 2012 election cycle.

ProPublica is itself a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which means donations to it are tax deductible, unlike 501(c)(4) groups such as Crossroads.

ProPublica’s supporters include heavyweight Obama donors, such as DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. Katzenberg was one of President Barack Obama’s biggest donors and fundraisers. Katzenberg and his wife donated $25,000 to ProPublica in 2011.

The Sandler Foundation is ProPublica’s largest donor, giving five grants worth almost $25 million to the news outlet. Herb Sandler, also a member of the shadowy Democracy Alliance, cofounded the Sandler Foundation to “strengthen the progressive infrastructure.”

As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, ProPublica extensively covered so-called “dark money” conservative groups and donors during the 2012 election cycle, such as casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, while largely ignoring similar spending on the left.

Although the Cincinnati IRS office leaked the applications to ProPublica, an official IRS spokeswoman told the news outlet it would be a felony to publish them.

ProPublica decided it had the First Amendment on its side and that the confidential applications were newsworthy.

“As far as we know, the Crossroads application is still pending, in which case it seems that either you obtained whatever document you have illegally, or that it has been approved,” Jonathan Collegio, the group’s spokesman, wrote to ProPublica in December.

Crossroads declined to comment for this article, as well as a Monday article by ProPublica detailing how it obtained the records from the IRS.

Other groups had documents leaked in the midst of a bitter election year as well.

The IRS “inadvertently” published the donor list of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF)—a conservative think tank—on GuideStar in 2012.

The list quickly became fodder for left-wing opponents of the think-tank.

TPPF also declined to comment for this article.

The Huffington Post and the Human Rights Campaign obtained the National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) tax returns in 2012, which showed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney donated $10,000 to the organization in 2008.

“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” NOM’s president Brian Brown said in a statement following Friday’s report. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”

St. Louis reporter Larry Connors also said he was targeted by the IRS following a sit-down interview with Obama where Connors asked tough, probing questions of the commander in chief. The interview visibly angered Obama.

“Shortly after I did my April 2012 interview with President Obama, my wife, friends and some viewers suggested that I might need to watch out for the IRS. I don’t accept ‘conspiracy theories’, but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me,” Connors wrote on his Facebook page on Monday.

Senior Obama administration official Austan Goolsbee singled out Koch Industries, run by libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch, during a 2012 press conference and said it paid no income taxes.

Such tax information is supposed to be private, leading to accusations from Republicans and Koch Industries that the Obama administration illicitly peeked at its tax filings.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said the IRS’ acknowledgement was “not enough” and called on the White House to conduct a government-wide review “aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not underway at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views.”

“Make no mistake, an apology won’t put this issue to rest,” McConnell said in a statement. “Now more than ever we need to send a clear message to the Obama administration that the First Amendment is non-negotiable, and that apologies after an election year are not a sufficient response to what we now know took place at the IRS. This kind of political thuggery has absolutely no place in our politics.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the committee will “hold responsible officials accountable for this political retaliation.”

“The fact that Americans were targeted by the IRS because of their political beliefs is unconscionable,” Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said in a joint statement.

The Associated Press reported Friday morning that IRS official Lois Lerner admitted the agency targeted groups who used words such as “tea party” or “patriot” in their tax documents.

The IRS subjected those groups to stricter scrutiny and lengthy questionnaires, according to several organizations.

“Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale,” the IRS said in a statement following the report.

The American Civil Liberties Union also condemned the IRS’ actions.

“Even the appearance of playing partisan politics with the tax code is about as constitutionally troubling as it gets,” said Michael Macleod-Ball, chief of staff at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “With the recent push to grant federal agencies broad new powers to mandate donor disclosure for advocacy groups on both the left and the right, there must be clear checks in place to prevent this from ever happening again.”

All eight GOP members of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works announced early Thursday morning that they would not attend a scheduled 9:15 a.m. vote on McCarthy.

Lacking a quorum, the committee was unable to proceed on a vote to advance McCarthy’s nomination. The move infuriated Democrats.

“We call on Republicans in the Senate to stop gumming up the works when it comes to the confirmation process,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said of EPA nomination.

“Gina McCarthy is going to become the poster child of their obstructionism,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.). “Gina McCarthy is a woman who deserves this promotion.”

“We invite them back to do their job,” Boxer said shortly before adjourning the meeting. “Maybe some of them slept in this morning, maybe it was a little early for them to get up.”

Republicans say the EPA and McCarthy failed to respond to several requests regarding transparency and her tenure as the EPA’s top air quality official.

“As you know, all Republicans on our EPW committee have asked EPA to honor five very reasonable and basic requests in conjunction with the nomination of Gina McCarthy which focus on openness and transparency,” the Republican senators wrote. “While you have allowed EPA adequate time to fully respond before any markup on the nomination, EPA has stonewalled on four of the five categories.”

“Because of this, no Republican member of the committee will attend today’s markup if it is held,” they continued. “We do not ask or expect that you will agree with this decision. We do ask and expect that you will follow the rules of the committee and the full U.S. Senate.”

Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) submitted more than 600 questions to the nominee.

Republicans and conservative think tanks have accused the agency of stonewalling information requests, skirting public records laws by using private email addresses, and hiding its scientific data from public scrutiny.

“This is not about policy, and Sen. David Vitter and the other Republicans on the committee understand this,” said Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in a statement. “To hear Democrats claim ‘obstruction’ when Republicans ask simply that EPA come clean before having one of its most secretive officials promoted really takes the cake.”

Horner and CEI have filed numerous Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the EPA seeking communications from top EPA officials, including McCarthy.

Horner’s research first revealed that former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson used a secret email address during her tenure, a practice that Republicans and watchdog groups said violated the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act.

Subsequent emails released through CEI lawsuits revealed several other EPA officials using private email addresses to conduct government business.

Ayotte—seen as a key swing vote—was the only Republican senator in New England to vote against expanding background checks for firearm sales last month.

The National Rifle Association launched an ad supporting Ayotte Wednesday, directly hitting back at attack ads against the senator by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun control group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

An NRA spokesman said the group ran the ad “to thank her for her true support of law enforcement and prosecutors.”

The spokesman also said the NRA will engage in a nationwide mailing campaign to members in the coming days, as well as mailers in New Hampshire and Arizona that will include non-members.

Following the failure of new gun control measures in the Senate, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and other groups, such as President Barack Obama’s Organizing for Action (OFA), launched a campaign against senators responsible for scuttling the legislation.

The groups urged gun-control supporters to travel to town hall events and question Ayotte on her vote.

The New Hampshire Journal documented a large number of cars with out-of-state license plates at one of Ayotte’s town hall meeting.

Groups that joined Mayors Against Illegal Guns included Moms Demand Action, Granite State Progress, Organizing for Action, and the New Hampshire Project For Safer Communities.

The most potent moment for the groups came at a town hall meeting on April 30, where Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook Elementary School principal Dawn Hochsprung, confronted Ayotte.

The strategy paid off in terms of media coverage: The Washington Post headlined an article, “Sen. Kelly Ayotte becomes focus of gun-control groups after voting against background checks”; Politico ran a story titled, “Kelly Ayotte on defense over gun vote”; and the New York Times’ story was called, “In New Hampshire, Senator Finds Her Vote on Gun Bill Is Hot Topic.”

An analysis by the Washington Free Beacon shows MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN mentioned the town hall exchange 48 times between April 29 and May 3. Of those TV hits, the video was shown in 29 instances.

Another town hall meeting where a constituent pressed Ayotte also received extensive play on MSNBC.

“I really don’t understand,” a constituent asked. “It doesn’t make sense to me, what is wrong with universal background checks?”

“In terms of a universal background check, as it’s been framed, I have a lot of concerns of that leading to a registry that will create a privacy situation for lawful firearms owners,” Ayotte replied.

OFA recently published an interactive map showing dozens and dozens of local media hits its rallies have garnered.

Ayotte penned an op-ed in the Concord Monitor Monday defending her record.

“Out-of-state special interests are running false advertisements attacking me and even lying about my efforts to prevent gun-related violence,” Ayotte wrote. “I want to set the record straight: I support effective background checks and in fact voted recently to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.”

The TV spot tells viewers to not believe attack ads paid for by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Instead, the NRA ad highlights Ayotte’s votes for several other Republican amendments that would have strengthened funding for mental health services and increased prosecutions for gun crimes.

An NRA spokesman said the group ran the ad “to thank her for her true support of law enforcement and prosecutors.”

The spokesman also said the NRA will engage in a nationwide mailing campaign to members in the coming days, as well as mailers in New Hampshire and Arizona that will include non-members.

Ayotte was the only Republican senator from New England to vote against the background check bill, which was hammered out by Sens. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.V.).

The bill failed to pass the 60-vote hurdle, with four Democrats also voting against it.