Buddy, can you spare $65,000?

Jeffrey Birnbaum explains how political campaigns use joint fund raising committees to legally extract big bucks from their most ambitious donors:

Surely a presidential contest between such well-known campaign finance reformers as Barack Obama and John McCain will be free of big donations from fat cats, right?

Not really.

Both candidates have established "joint fundraising committees," which magically -- and legally -- transform what we all thought was the contribution limit of $2,300 per person per election into donations that can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars.

The committees, which have names like "McCain Victory 2008" and "Democratic White House Victory Fund," will funnel funds from rich folks to the candidates' primary campaigns (that's the $2,300 part), to the national party (up to $28,500) and, in McCain's case, to state parties as well ($10,000 each).

An individual can donate up to $65,500 per election cycle to all parties and political action committees. [WaPo]

There's nothing intrinsically unethical or scandalous about this fact. The parties are basically offering one-stop shopping for big donors. There are limits on how much a donor can give to at each phase of the process, but if they give the max at every step, it still works out to a nice chunk of change.

Knowing this, the FEC and watchdog groups like Open Secrets and the Center for Public Intergity should focus on developing new technologies that make it easier for journalists and citizens to track how donations are being bundled. Online campaign contribution databases are already great resources, but they could be even better. I wish someone would come up with a single database that has all partisan political contributions (local, state, federal; PACs, parties, and candidates; primaries and general elections). If that donation information could be combined with relationship mapping like this and geographical info like this, the result would be incredibly powerful.

I'm sure this technology has already been refined for internal use by political fund raisers. It would be great if some public spirited organization could make that technology available to the general public.

Comments

[Eric Jaffa]

The FEC should write a regulation against these joint funds.

They go against the intent of McCain-Feingold.

It is corrupting for a candidate to accept tens-of-thousands of dollars from a person, whether the money stays with his campaign or gets handed out to party organizations.

The rich will be able to get the next president on the phone thanks to these huge donations.

The rest of us won't.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I don't think there's any reason to ban this particular fund raising strategy. If I have a right to give in the primary and again in the general, I don't see why a fund raiser shouldn't be allowed to ask me to do both.

I think the problem is that most people don't realize how much money rich people can still give in total. The answer is to lower the maximum contributions at each stage of the process so that the total amount of money given is more reasonable.

[The Phantom]

Where there is such a strong will to evade any limits that exists, now or in the future, It makes one reconsider the point of view of those who say that limits are useless and that they will never work and that you should not ever try.

Too clever by half.

[Windypundit]

The fat cats and backroom boys will always find a way around the rules, so we'll never be able to prevent money from influencing politicians. Better to leave it relatively unregulated but transparent than to keep tightening the regulations and drive the transactions completely underground.

To paraphrase the NRA, when large donations to office-seekers are outlawed, only outlaws will be able to use large donations to seek office.

Besides, McCain-Feingold is a knife in the heart of the First Amendment. All that's needed to kill it completely is for the FEC to twist the knife by eliminating in-kind donations such as blogs, editorials, and speechs in VFW halls.

[Robert]

I would love to see a homless person with a sign that read "can you spare $65,000?"

www.sweetredwines.info

[The Phantom]

--Besides, McCain-Feingold is a knife in the heart of the First Amendment. --

That's complete bullshit, a Republican talking point. Its a flawed attempt to regulate the influence of money on already-corrupt politicians. Noone's speech is restricted in any way.

[cfrost]

That's complete bullshit, a Republican talking point.

I have to agree with Phantom there. What use is "freedom of speech" if the guy next to you has a bazillion dollar bullhorn and you can only whisper?

As Bob Dylan said: money doesn't talk, it swears.