A Very Useful Clarification on "Corporate" Money
One of the many things I find irritating about the coverage of campaign finance, and the activists who continue to come up with worse and worse "reforms" for said system, is how people will look at a disclosure report, note all the employers listed (as required by law) and then pompously pronounce that Corporation XYZ gave X amount of dollars to Candidate Doe.
It makes for a dramatic headline and story. The problem is it's completely wrong. Corporations cannot give to federal candidates - there's no vagueness on this issue. It's one of those "1 or 0" situations - i.e. it's either one way or another, with no in-between answer. In this case the answer is "0". Yes individuals who work for those corporations can give, but those are just individuals deciding what they want to do with their money. But that tends to be less dramatic and exciting than the former analysis.
There is a very well written analysis at the National Review which discusses this issue quite eloquently.
Special thanks to the Rick Hasen's well written Election Law Blog for highlighting this article.
© 2003-2006 Greg Dewar | All Rights Reserved | Originally Published at www.schadelmann.com
