Good Friday noon, Fellow Seekers,
My buddy Tom Hamburger of the L.A. Times broke a verrrrry interesting story this morning about a curious source of campaign cash that has been flowing to the Hillary Clinton for pres. campaign.
Clinton has raised hundreds of thousands (and when the full tale is told, I expect it will break a million) from New York’s Chinatown, a mostly-poor neighborhood that has never been known for involvement in politics at this level. Many of the donors on the Federal Elections Commission reporting form are listed as waiters, busboys, hairdressers, etc. who seem unlikely sources of $500 to $2,300 campaign contributions.
In a great example of shoe leather reporting, Tom and Peter Nicholas, his partner on this story, went door to door looking for the donors to ask what motivated them to give. They found a great many of the donors do not live at the addresses listed by the FEC reports, many are not registered voters, at least one “donor” said he hadn’t written Clinton a check, and some did not have the legal status (you don’t have to be a citizen or a registered voter, but you do have to be a legal resident alien) to give.
Nicholas and Hamburger weren’t able to solve all the mysteries behind this money, but there is clearly something fishy going on. The Clinton campaign acknowledged as much at the last minute before the story went to press yesterday and said it was checking whether the donations meet legal requirements and would return some of the money.
My takeaway: With the presidential candidates feeling the need to raise unprecedented huge sums, with the latest version of McCain-Feingold erecting new barriers to some of the old ways of raising it, the Clinton campaign — and I don’t doubt that others are doing similar things — are inventing new subterfuges to smuggle improper campaign money past the legal requirements.
Hello, Al Gore.
The whole bundling process is a sham. Figuring out how to turn the $50,000 super-donor check into 25 $2,000 checks is just begging for foul play. What is the difference if Norman Hsu gets 25 people to agree to play along in groups of $50,000 and simply accepting the $50,000 from a single source? Did not Hillary send the Hsu money back to all the bundled donors with a fresh appeal for $2,000 before the 1st primary? If they donate a second time, how is the money any less tainted? I know this is a separate case, but I think it clearly deals with issues brought about by the “need” for candidates to retain their big check writers’ money by way of grouping smaller people who wouldn’t donate to such an extent (if at all).
I think any fix for this situation is to either fiddle with the primary donation rules (which is what sets off the free-for-all before matching dollars kick in in the general election–if they decide to take the money, that is) or set up registered donor accounts where the money has to clear a transparent intermediate before it is put in the campaign coffers. I think $500/citizen on a national donor account would do the trick.
Interesting approach, gump.
Another might be to just go back to the first amendment, let anyone give whatever s/he wishes, but place stringent requirements on disclosure of the actual donors no matter what front organizations they might use.
I think there is a legitimate state interest to cap money in federal elections.
Agreed.
However, it seems to me a hopeless task to attempt to limit the amount of money (or equivalent value in contributions of time), or the multitudinous other means of influencing the outcome of an election which cleverly dodge any law passed, by passing still another law.
It didn’t work in Prohibition, it didn’t work in recent attempts to limit funded free speech, it doesn’t work to offer handouts from the public purse as a reward, and I doubt that even billions of bureaucracy dollars will have even a prayer of working now: no matter what laws are passed unscrupulous agents on all sides will find “legal” loopholes to sqeeze through — some of them deliberately placed there by legislators hoping to benefit.
If we want to limit the dollars spent, we just have to cut off the avenues of spending: NO radio advertising; NO TV advertising; NO airing of debates; NO “equal time” provisions from the FCC, because NO position statements would be allowed. Perhaps it would have to go so far as to prohibit the naming or picturing of any candidate on all those slanted “news” and “news commentary” programs, whether public or private TV channels.
With no place to spend it, the urge to collect huge sums would subside. I suspect no-one but the print media would like this approach, though.
Short of such a ban, I think the old adage “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” would prevail over any attempts to curtail it.
I think you make a fair analogy with prohibition. After all, my main point about Hillary is that candidates will never fail to bend or break the rules. How people spend their money is indeed an expression and it would need to be supplemented by fair play media rules (which you mention.) I guess it goes to show that this is a two way street; as political consumers we set the market for nonsense just as much as it is designed for our consumption.
I am fairly confident that the level of corruption in campaign fund raising is hair raising. This story has some extra bite because it is Mrs. Clinton, and everyone loves to take a swipe at the presumptive nominee form either party.
Unfortunately, it is the aggregate of the allegations that really bothers me. I sometimes feel like there is a parallel between her campaign and President Nixon’s reelection efforts in 1972. She is so far ahead, why resort to anything that could potentially make the papers? While I am mindful that a campaign like this has hundreds (if not thousands) of people who likely could have done this without Mrs. Clinton’s direct knowledge, it is every candidates responsibility to police the people in their employ, and for those who would be President, these actions reflect their willingness to be vigilant.