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Both parties are guilty of 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.
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.
Here is where the law gets fuzzy:
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.
That last part of the test is the one that would seem to rule out a 2-year-old, said Michael E. Toner, a former FEC chairman who helped draft the rules. “If they are 16 or 17, they’re clearly old enough to know what they’re doing, as compared to someone who is, say, 10 years old. . . . I don’t know any 2-year-old who is capable of making that kind of decision.”
So who is it that is going to verify every contibution made? Well some campaigns are self checking this:
This is the second time in two months that the Obama campaign has returned contributions from young children. The first involved donations from Maryland developer Aris Mardirossian’s two children, Matthew, 8, and Karis, 7; each contributed $2,300 to Obama’s primary campaign and $2,300 more for a possible general-election contest.
Although the campaign immediately returned the money, Mardirossian, who along with his wife also gave maximum contributions to Obama, said he saw no need for the campaign to do so.
“My children are very engaged in politics, Mardirossian said. “The whole family is engaged. Every Sunday we get together, all the cousins, everybody comes and talks about politics. The children sit down and listen to the debates and everything.”
Helen Maloof Aranda offered a terse explanation when asked how her two children, ages 10 and 16, came to donate the maximum allowed to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s Democratic presidential bid — some of the more than $32,000 in contributions that Maloof family members gave Richardson.
“We just support him,” Aranda said when reached at the family’s Santa Fe beer distributorship.
Unless the campaign is putting forth an honest effort to follow the law, this will continue.
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson’s Website, , Right Truth, The Populist, The Pet Haven Blog, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Adeline and Hazel, Pursuing Holiness, Pet’s Garden Blog, third world county, Right Celebrity, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Adam’s Blog, Webloggin, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, Nuke’s, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, High Desert Wanderer, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe. 
25 Responses to “Is It Skirting Campaign Finance Law When A Two Year Old Donates To A Campaign?”
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What a totally joke the money is coming from some bin laden loving rat, Barack is just a rat inside this government and he is working to take down the USA From the inside with the help of pigs living here who are getting billions from the muslim rich who hate the ideals of the USA.
See it for what it is..total Evil.
How low will the Democrats stoop?
1- “muslim rich who hate the ideals of the USA.”
But there is a difference in the perception of “muslim rich” amongst US conservatives, right?
If people get stoned and tortured with other pervert Shariah cruelties in Iran it is worth to be commented in a forum like this- if it is done in Saudi-Arabia no Republican ever cared…
3, You would be surprised, idiot. We’ve condemned the treatment of people in Saudi who have converted away from Islam. We’ve also decried the treatment of Coptic Christians in Egypt by Muslims who kidnap their women, force them to convert, and marry them off to deserving muslims, even if the women had been married with children to a Copt.
We never see you condemn ANYTHING done in Allah’s name.
“Both parties are guilty of this”
Pam, I appreciate the honesty of thisd post.
“How low will the Democrats stoop?”
Perhaps you should ask “How low will the Republicans stoop?”, Rocky. The term “physician, heal thyself.” comes to mind here for some reason.
Honestly, the Republicasn have absolutely no right to take any moral high ground- they’ve long relented it.
4- “We never see you condemn ANYTHING done in Allah’s name.”
I’m a christian married to a muslim wife. It is not my duty to speak in favor of Islam or Allah nor to condemn radicals who don’t have anything in common with me nor my wife- it is my duty to defend my family from verbal attacks of Dorks like you, PCD.
“It is not my duty to speak in favor of Islam or Allah nor to condemn radicals who don’t have anything in common with me nor my wife-”
But Mattthias, they have something in common with your wife- her religion!
As a Christian it is absolutely my duty to speak against men like Oral Roberts and Leroy Jenkins who perverts my religion, and I do so on a regular basis!
6, you are so hurt from “Speaking truth to (your) power”. Maybe your parents are still changing your diapers?
Again, you demand we tear down our own, but you don’t see why it is hypocritical of you not to. That is why you are so stupid.
Again, as long as someone says they pray to Allah, you have no criticism of them, no matter how many they kill.
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7- “But Mattthias, they have something in common with your wife- her religion!”
You and me also have in common the same hair color with some thousand murderers… we have in common the same shoe size like some thousand child abusers and I personally have exactly the same body size as a million cannibals in history had (…the taller ones
)…
And you are equally a christian like the priests who asked their ministrants to fondle their whatever-parts… and you are also a christian like the north-Irish radicals that terrorized their counter-denomination’s children on their way to school…
So I ask you Ted: HOW DID YOU PROTEST AGAINST OR EXCUSE FOR ALL THOSE YOUR “EVIL FELLOWS”?
“You and me also have in common the same hair color with some thousand murderers… we have in common the same shoe size like some thousand child abusers and I personally have exactly the same body size as a million cannibals in history had (…the taller ones )…”
Anologing physical attributes with religion is comparing apples to oranges Matthias. No one has dome atrocities in the name of hair color.
We are talking about belief systems here.
“HOW DID YOU PROTEST AGAINST OR EXCUSE FOR ALL THOSE YOUR “EVIL FELLOWS”?”
Leroy Jenkins was based in Delaware, Ohio- just 30 miles from my hometown. I have been there, protesting.
I have posted many times against the Catholic Priest who have commited crimes, and I often state the Christianity is it’s own worst enemy.
I spewak out against men like Oral Roberts, who pray upon the elderly’s pension.
I even do so in my cousin’s church and my uncle’s church.
Yes, I am ACTIVE recoginizing the flaws in the people who claim to be of my religion and speak out against those people. I am many times considered “not to be a Christian” becasue I do not complacently accept those action.
So now that you know what I do- what does your wife do? Complaceny is passive acceptance of those actions that she knows are wrong. Do you encourage her to do so?
18- “Anologing physical attributes with religion is comparing apples to oranges Matthias.
…
I have posted many times against the Catholic Priest who have commited crimes, and I often state the Christianity is it’s own worst enemy.”
So, how do you know that my wife didn’t do herself speak against islamist terrorism, right as I did (publically only in this forum!)??
But the point is, that she does not has to feel responsible or has to let herself get insulted for what extremist islamist do- right as nobody demands from you to excuse for what catholic child abusers or IRA terrorists do…
19, Mattias, you yourself have said you wife says nothing to her Imam or anyone else condemning the Islamofascists.
Again, Mattias, you are all mouth when you are sure of no personal retaliation.
18- “what does your wife do?”
She is employed in our community to lead an integration group for muslim women to introduce them to our culture and remove the mental border between muslims and christians!
She does not judge a thick book by its partially dirty cover.
20- “Mattias, you yourself have said you wife says nothing to her Imam or anyone else condemning the Islamofascists”
A) She has no imam
B) I said that she would not have to speak against islamists. Actually she does! But only because she rejects violence & stupidity- not because of her religion!
22, how does she reject stupidity when she married you?
“She is employed in our community to lead an integration group for muslim women to introduce them to our culture and remove the mental border between muslims and christians!
She does not judge a thick book by its partially dirty cover.”
“That doesn’t answer your question, as I turned it upon you. You asked me:
HOW DID YOU PROTEST AGAINST OR EXCUSE FOR ALL THOSE YOUR “EVIL FELLOWS”?”
Now, I am asking you the same regarding your wife.
“So, how do you know that my wife didn’t do herself speak against islamist terrorism, right as I did (publically only in this forum!)??”
Because you said:
““It is not my duty to speak in favor of Islam or Allah nor to condemn radicals who don’t have anything in common with me nor my wife-””
I assumed this also included your wife, by implication within context of the discussion.
“I said that she would not have to speak against islamists. Actually she does! But only because she rejects violence & stupidity- not because of her religion!”
“Rejecting violence and stupidity” in no way condemns the actions of the radical Islamists that are within her religion. All it does is ignores it, and thus pacifully condones it in not only the eyes of the perptrators, but in the eyes of the rest of the world.
People rejects genocide, yet that means nothing in the world if no one speaks against it when it happens.
Imagine if Dr. Martin Luther King took this approach, what the end result would be?