A Simple Guide To Donating Money To Campaign Candidates
This guide is not intended to be a complete recitation of the law, but it provides preliminary guidance for those making contributions to State and Federal campaigns.
I. State Level Maryland limits the amount of money individuals and corporations and organizations may contribute to candi- dates for State office. Preliminarily, an individual may only contribute a total of $10,000 to ALL candidates, (including PACs) for any State office during the four-year election cycle. Within that limitation is a second important limitation, no indi- vidual may give more than $4,000 to any one candidate during the same cycle. Thus, during the period of Janu- ary 1, 1999 to December 30, 2002, if one has a law firm PAC to which $4,000 is contributed during that period, one can only contribute an additional $6,000 to all can- didates. If one were to make a $4,000 contribution to a PAC and a $4,000 contribution to a candidate for County Executive, one is left with only $2,000 to contribute to any other candidate or candidates or PAC.
within this group is contributions for Judgeships, and/or contributions to State Political parties. One may contribute $10,000 to all candidates and one’s corporation or law firm may do the same, as may one’s spouse. A husband and wife, therefore, may contribute a total of $20,000 for all candidates during the cycle but must be careful to distinguish the source of the contribu- tion. If, therefore, both names are on a check book, the contributor must sign the check and clearly indicate them- selves on the check as the only source of the contribution. Purchasing a ticket for a campaign fundraiser is a contri- bution as are in-kind contributions such as printing lawn signs for the campaign. It is an unequivocal violation of the law to use others to make contributions on your behalf. It is a crime, there- fore, to ask one’s secretary to contribute $1,000 to a
candidate and then to reimburse the secretary from personal or corporate funds. Businesses doing over $100,000 per year in State Govern- ment Contracts have special reporting requirements regarding the contributions of their principals. Be aware that today all candidates are required to file their
reports electronically and all filings are posted on the State Board of Elections internet site. The SABEL software accumulates all donations made by any particular contributor, so contributions in excess of $4,000 to any particular candidate or more likely, $10,000 to all candidates will be flagged by the SABEL soft- ware.
http://www.elections.state.md.us/ No political contributions of any type are tax deductible.
II. Federal Level Included
All contributions must be from individuals, no corporate, LLC or PA checks of any type are acceptable.
One may contribute $1,000 to any particular candidate for both
the primary and general election, totaling, therefore, $2,000. One may give, for example, $1,000 to a Congressional candidate in the primary and an additional $1,000 for the general election. One may only give $1,000 to any Presidential candidate for the primary but the general election is typically funded by the tax check-off and an additional amount may not be given unless the Presidential can- didate has opted out of the Federal funding process. One may only give a total of $25,000 every two years directly
to all Federal candidates in any elections in the entire country, which is commonly called “hard” money. One may give unlim- ited amounts of money to the National political parties, commonly known as “soft” money. If you need more information, you may investigate the State
Board of Elections’ web site at
http://www.elections.state.md.us, or you may call Dan Clements at 410-539-6633.
32
Trial Reporter
Fall 2001
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48