Dirty Money, Dirty Diapers
How dirty is some of the money being raised for political campaigns this year? Well, at least some of it may have come out of a well-used diaper. You be the judge.
Elrick Williams's toddler niece Carlyn may be one of the youngest contributors to this year's presidential campaign. The 2-year-old gave $2,300 to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
So did her sister and brother, Imara, 13, and Ishmael, 9, and her cousins Chan and Alexis, both 13. Altogether, according to newly released campaign finance reports, the extended family of Williams, a wealthy Chicago financier, handed over nearly a dozen checks in March for the maximum allowed under federal law to Obama.
Such campaign donations from young children would almost certainly run afoul of campaign finance regulations, several campaign lawyers said. But as bundlers seek to raise higher and higher sums for presidential contenders this year, the number who are turning to checks from underage givers appears to be on the rise.
"It's not difficult for a banker or a trial lawyer or a hedge fund manager to come up with $2,300, and they're often left wanting to do more," said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. "That's when they look across the dinner table at their children and see an opportunity."
Asked about the Williams family giving, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, "As a policy, we don't take donations from anyone under the age of 15." After being asked by The Post about the matter, he said the children's donations will be returned.
Although campaign finance laws set a limit of $2,300 per donor per campaign, they do not explicitly bar donors based on age. And young donors abound in the fundraising reports filed by presidential contenders this year.
That is a loophole that should be closed. While I fully agree that people should be able to donate, only people who are legally qualified to vote should be allowed to. I don't care which party is involved, either, this is something that should not be tolerated. (As the article points out this is a bipartisan problem). The article goes on to describe the attempts to close this loophole over the years.
Congress tried to outlaw political contributions from those under age 18 as part of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002, but the Supreme Court struck down that provision as an infringement on the constitutional rights of minors. With that ruling in mind, the Federal Election Commission wrote new regulations two years ago that tried to balance what it considered a legitimate desire among some children to make political contributions against the possibility that parents would seek to pad their donations by funneling money through children.
The regulations established a three-step test to determine whether a contribution is acceptable: It must be made with the child's money, the parent cannot reimburse the child for making the donation and the contribution has to be knowing and voluntary.
I'm no fan of McCain-Feingold, but I really don't see how someone who is not legally entitled to vote should be legally entitled to give money. Jim Addison over at Wizbang takes a somewhat different tack:
No matter how many times we've changed those laws and "tightened up the loopholes," donors keep finding new and different ways to evade the limits, which are completely arbitrary. Of course they do - with the federal government spending $3 trillion every year and Presidents and Senators and Congressmen having a big say in who gets what of it, there are thousands of people and groups who wish to cultivate friendships with elected officials, and one of the best ways to ensure a politician remembers your name is to write his/her campaign a honkin' big check.
That's why I'm against limits of any kind. The only restriction on donations to federal candidates should be that they come from American sources - citizens, or corporations headquartered in America - and be instantly and fully disclosed before the money can be used by the campaign. If George Soros wants to give Dennis Kucinich $1 billion to run for Moonbat-in-Chief, let him - so long as it's publicly posted before it can be spent. If Halliburton wants to underwrite a Cheney campaign, why not? - as long as we know where his money comes from, we can take that into consideration before voting.
I agree that the more byzantine the donation restrictions become, the more convoluted the methods determined people use to find some way around them. I also think it is not unreasonable to simply ask that only people who are entitled to vote should be entitled to donate. (That doesn't mean the donor has to actually even be registered to vote, incidentally - just eligible.)
