Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand has announced a plan to give every voter up to $600 in vouchers to donate to a spate of federal candidates.
But those candidates accepting such contributions would have to forgo contributions larger than $200 per donor.
The New York senator’s “Democracy dollars” would provide every eligible voter $100 to donate in primary elections and $100 in general elections to presidential, Senate and House candidates.
Candidates accepting them would have to agree to a $200-per-voter cap on individual contributions. That’s a significant drop from the current per-donor limit of $2,800 in primary elections and another $2,800 in general elections.
Outside political groups aren’t subject to contribution limits. But Gillibrand and other top Democratic 2020 presidential candidates have vowed not to take donations from such groups.
(AP)
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2 Responses
Her best gift to us would be to not run for anything ever.
As a politician, it does seem she has a conflict of interest in advocating a pay raise for herself (of course, the same is true of public employee unions when they advocate increased government spending).
It doesn’t address issue advocacy, so it might pass first amendment review.
It means the government would know who gave money to which candidate (so if you are applying for a government job, do you want the person doing the selecting to know if you donated money to the “right” people).
It would require having a list of eligible citizens, linked to social security numbers, something the Republicans would defintiely support since they believe that many ineligible and non-existent voters are helping the Democrats win elections, especially in blue states.