The FEC is looking into 69 pages of potentially illegal contributions to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.
Dave Levinthal reported:
2/ While it's not uncommon for the @FEC to flag presidential candidates for such accounting issues, particularly those campaigns that raise a ton of money, 69 pages is a lot.
— Dave Levinthal (@davelevinthal) August 29, 2019
Sixty-nine pages of potentially unallowed contributions suggest that the Sanders campaign needs to do a better job of monitoring who is giving, and how much they are giving. This is not on the same scale as the NRA potentially laundering Russian money for Trump or the dark money tactics that are favored by Republicans, but it shows that only taking individual donations does bring about its own set of problems.
The Sanders campaign, much like the Ron Paul campaigns before it, relies on a doner base of repeat givers. Sen. Sanders raised $18 million in the last quarter and has $30 million on hand. The campaign benefits from a Netflix style subscription model that allows donors to make automatic monthly donations of roughly $1 million a month. The problem with low dollar recurring donor models is that they require more oversight than a traditional fundraising model.
Not taking corporate or bundled donations is nice, but the best way to pay for elections remains public financing.
Any model that relies on private money can run into problems.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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