Obama Fundraising Prompts Questions

The Associated Press reported late October 7 that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-IL) has taken in more than $3 million from donors "...who did not list a home state or who designated their state with an abbreviation that did not match one of the 50 states or U.S. territories...." The AP cited records obtained from the Federal Election Commission in its report.

United States election laws state that citizens of foreign countries are prohibited from donating to political campaigns in the U.S. The majority of contributions, the AP report says, came from donors who said they lived abroad. U.S. citizens living in other countries are permitted to make contributions to U.S. political campaigns.

All of the contributions to the Obama campaign could be within legal guidelines, but at this point there is no real way to tell. This could be much ado about nothing, or the Obama campaign could be unwittingly benefiting from illegal foreign donations. I say unwittingly because federal guidelines allow pretty lax accounting procedures for certain levels of donated money, and unless a campaign is willing to undertake the additional expense and effort involved in surpassing federally established standards, some improper donations are bound to be made.

The AP says that on October 6 the Federal Election Commission provided a list of overseas contributors, but the list only included those donors with state designations. Therefore, the AP says, the FEC listing for the Obama campaign "...was incomplete."

The more than $3 million listed in the AP story does not include contributions of less than $200. This is where those federal guidelines provide some room for illegal donations. Contributions of less than $200 do not have to be itemized until such donations from a single donor reach the federally allowed maximum. Therefore, the AP says, some of Obama's campaign contributions in small amounts could have come from donors overseas. But it is still unclear if the overseas donations would be legal or illegal.

The AP says roughly half of Senator Obama's donations fall into the "unitemized" category, and the Obama campaign does not identify those contributors. In contrast, Senator John McCain lists all contributors, including those not required because of the $200 threshold, on his campaign web site. When asked by the AP why the Obama campaign doesn't do likewise, senior adviser David Axelrod replied, "Obviously we've got a huge database of contributors."

Now, I don't fault the Obama campaign for this for two reasons: first, it's not required by federal law; and, second, it has to be a huge undertaking that would require extensive dollars and hours of manpower. But there would probably be less criticism if the Obama campaign followed the lead of the McCain campaign on this issue.