campaign finance hypothetical

[Brian Pinaire]

Dear all,

A friend posed the question below to me and I am passing it along to the 
list for: (a) whatever feedback you could provide on the problem, and 
(b) whatever distraction or opportunity for procrastination this 
exercise may afford to you.  Off-list replies directly to me are 
probably best:  bkp2 at lehigh.edu

THE QUESTION:

     Drink company sells products in stores and over its website.  
Company wants to start selling a special kind of drink called ?campaign? 
drink where, when you buy it over the website, you can choose to have a 
portion of the proceeds go to the presidential candidate of your choice 
(Obama/Clinton/McCain).  How it would work is once the person is buying 
their case, there would be a button they can click saying ?donate x 
amount of dollars of this sale to the ?Obama? (or whatever) campaign.  
The money, although collected by the drink company, would be forwarded 
to the campaigns in the name of the individual.

     Is this OK under campaign finance laws?  Seems unlikely, but I 
wanted to hear from others.  Can the drink company gather the money and 
then send it to the campaigns and still have it be a donation from the 
individuals, and not from the drink company?  What if the money went to 
the DNC or RNC instead, would that be OK?  My initial take is that the 
?problem? here is that the company is taking the money in, so that it 
isn?t a direct donation to the campaigns from the individuals.  Do you 
agree?  Even if under the law the money is coming technically from the 
company, is there is limit to the donations from companies to either 
candidates or to the parties?

     In the alternative, could the company on its website instead just 
put links to the campaigns? donation websites?  (I would think so).  
Finally, the company wants to donate actual cases of its campaign drink 
to the campaigns - is there some kind of limit on such gifts?  (I would 
think so).  END OF QUESTION

Any feedback would be appreciated.  Regards,

Brian Pinaire

See THE CONSTITUTION OF ELECTORAL SPEECH LAW (Stanford, 2008)

-- 
***********************************
Brian K. Pinaire, Ph.D.
Political Science
Lehigh University
9 W. Packer Ave.
Bethlehem, PA 18015