Top donations from deceased individuals
Below is the list of the top 30 recipients of political donations from individuals listed as deceased in federal campaign-finance records between 1999 and 2007.
Democratic National Committee
$224,516
Republican National Committee
$93,143
National Committee for an effective Congress
$73,200
LaRouche in 2004
$64,749
Green Party of the United States
$12,219
Oklahoma Leadership Council
$10,000
Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund
$7,596
California Democratic Council
$5,000
Colorado Democratic Party
$5,000
Council For A Livable World
$5,000
Democratic State Committee Delaware
$5,000
North Carolina Republican Executive Committee
$5,000
Women's Campaign Fund
$6,014
Feinstein For Senate
$2,000
John Kerry For President, Inc.
$2,000
Lincoln Chafee U.S. Senate
$2,000
Nita Lowey For Congress
$2,000
Stenholm For Congress Committee
$2,000
Lydon LaRouche Political Action Committee
$1,850
Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee, Inc.
$1,350
Bob Filner For Congress
$1,000
Chambliss For Congress
$1,000
Sailors' Political Fund (FKA) Sailors' Union Of The Pacific Political Fund
$1,000
Stevens For Congress
$1,000
Sue Kelly For Congress
$1,000
Texas Bankers Association-Bankers Political Action Committee
$1,000
Friends Of John Barrow
$900
Libertarian National Committee
$808
Family-PAC Federal
$750
People For English
$750
Source: USA TODAY analysis of data compiled by the non-partisan CQ MoneyLine.
It hadn't even occured to me that people would be donating money in thier wills to thier favorite political organization. According to CQ MoneyLine's data, deceased gave almost $ 96,000 in federal donations between January 1 and September 30. I just thought this was an interesting way to contribute. Currently, donations from the dead are acceptable as long as they follow the legal limits and thier intentions are clear. Although donations from the deceased are minuature compared to the overall donations major parties, such as the Democratic and Republican Parties, receive, there is a possibility that this trend could grow larger and be exploited.
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4 comments:
personally, I don't think I would want to be giving continuous donations to a party after I'm dead because the parties may shift in their beliefs and what if you don't support their new beliefs? your money will still go to them and you cant change it...unless its possible to have a family member change it.
I wonder if only rich people leave these donations for political organizations in their wills.
I don't think the money is continuous-mostly just lump sums. A similar phenomenon I've heard of is people in their obituaries encouraging donations, occasionally to certain policical factions. And given the size of some of these donations, I don't think this is a rich man's game: probably those without many friends but with strong beliefs could give much of their money this way.
200k for the democrats and 93 for the republicans over an 8 year period? Even for one year, that's like nothing for these parties. Individual candidates running for president get this much in a day. Ron Paul raised $1.2 million in a week, and $5.3 million in a couple of months. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/10/paul_surprises.html And he's only one person in the republican party. While this is interesting and kind of funny in a macabre way, it's really unimportant. Maybe the $808 to the Libertarian National Committee is a big deal to them (it's more than half their budget!), but other than that, this isn't something to get excited about.
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