Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Hoisted By Their Own Petard
« Time To Grab Your Wallets | Main | Democratic Presidential Primary »Campaign donations are a form of speech protected by the first amendment of the Constitution. For years, McConnell has been the champion of protecting this basic right. Whenever people on the left want to limit campaign contributions, McConnell has fought vociferously against it.
Thus I find it really amusing when stupid campaign finance laws come back to bite the left.
With two wealthy candidates running in the Democratic primary, it's possible that a complex federal campaign-finance provision called the Millionaires' Amendment could come into play for the first time in Kentucky.
The Millionaires' Amendment is governed by a series of mathematical formulas that can give voters -- and reporters -- flashbacks to high school calculus. It can be triggered if a candidate dumps a certain amount of personal funds into the campaign.
Those thresholds in U.S. Senate races vary from state to state according to population. And if a candidate's own money surpasses those thresholds, then that person's election opponents might be eligible to accept more from individuals than the $2,300 per-person, per-election limit.
What are the possible thresholds and what do they mean for McConnell?
In a Kentucky U.S. Senate race, the first key threshold is $559,000 in personal money pumped into a campaign. That would allow an opponent to collect up to $6,900 from donors -- three times the regular $2,300 limit.
If a Kentucky Senate candidate crossed $1,118,000 in self-financing, an opponent could be eligible to accept up to $12,600 from each donor.
And the $2,795,000 threshold allows an opponent to receive unlimited financial help from national party organizations.
These measures won't kick in immediately because the formula takes into account how much the campaigns have relevant to each other. But if either millionaire can't raise the necessary funds, they will be limited in how much they can put into the race. If they go over the threshold in the millionaire's law, it will trigger a devastating effect. It will allow McConnell to be able to raise millions more from previous donors. Allowing him to either keep pace or outstrip his opponents.
Therefore McConnell will have more than enough resources to take on whichever millionaire wins the primary. Giving him yet another advantage over his opponent in the fall.
