Congress Shall Make No Law, Robert Frommer
Yesterday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel [article] reported that Rice Lake Mayor Romaine R. Quinn is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 27 for accepting a $1,609 campaign contribution, which vastly exceeded the legal limit of $250.
But Mayor Quinn, who is only 20 years old, didn’t get this contribution from some shady developer or local businessman. He got it from his mom, Penny Hanson.
No, we aren’t making this up.
It turns out that neither the Mayor nor his mom knew about the $250 limit. Although he doesn’t face any criminal liability, Mayor Quinn will probably have to pay a sizable fine.
Campaign finance laws are unconstitutional and counterproductive, but oftentimes that is obscured by their sheer absurdity. Who in the world would think that a candidate might be corrupted by his own mother? People have issues with their parents on occasion, but they typically don’t involve influence peddling. Clean your room; wear clean underwear; choose a nice girl to settle down with—perhaps. Here’s $1,600, now give me that contract for garbage collection—not likely.
Unfortunately, courts typically don’t recognize a “this-is-idiotic” defense. Even when courts do dismiss these kinds of complaints, it’s after the accused is put through the proverbial ringer. That’s a great reason to oppose campaign finance laws: They do nothing to clean up politics, but quite a lot to scare Americans out of speaking. And that’s why we at the Institute for Justice have launched our nationwide Citizen Speech campaign.
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Robert Frommer is Staff Attorney for the Institute for Justice.
Used with the permission of the Institute for Justice.
