Using Children to Skirt Donation Rules

J.J. Jackson* | November 1, 2007

Filed Under Eyes on 2008

Disclaimer: I personally don’t believe there should be any limits on what someone can give to a candidate they chose to support. I do however support full and complete disclosure of all donations.

That being said, now this:

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.

…

A supporter of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R), Susan Henken of Dover, Mass., wrote her own $2,300 check, and her 13-year-old son, Samuel, and 15-year-old daughter, Julia, each wrote $2,300 checks, for example. Samuel used money from his bar mitzvah and money he earned “dog sitting,” and Julia used babysitting money to make the contributions, their mother said. “My children like to donate to a lot of causes. That’s just how it is in my house,” Henken said.

Ok, not exactly apples to apples here. At least Ms. Henken’s children COULD have potentially earned the money and donated it legitimately. But there is no way a 2-year-old could.

It’s sort of like they needed to find something to counterbalance the act by a donor to a Democrat with the act by a donor to a Republican. I’m sure however you could find a Republican donor who cut a check in the name of his 2-year-old however.

But this comparison is like saying Bob who gets paid by his employer and takes the money he is given is just as guilty of a crime as Frank who robs a bank and just runs off with the cash.

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