The Atlantic: The Donors Who Love Bernie Sanders A Little Too Much
The Donors Who Love Bernie Sanders A Little Too Much
RUSSELL BERMAN 6:00 AM ET
Bernie Sanders has become known for his legions of diehard supporters, millions of whom have flooded his campaign with small-donor contributions. Yet many of those fans, it turns out, have become a little too supportive of the Vermont senator’s presidential bid.
For months, the Federal Election Commission has been writing to the Sanders campaign with warnings that hundreds of his donors have exceeded the $2,700 contribution limit and that hundreds more may be foreign nationals illegally giving Sanders money. The most recent, and by far the longest, letter came on Tuesday and flagged more than 1,500 questionable donors.
Other campaigns this year have also struggled to track their donors and make sure they are contributing within federal limits. Ted Cruz and Ben Carson also received multiple letters from the FEC flagging hundreds of potentially excessive donors. And in 2008, so did Barack Obama, who, like Sanders, relied on the grassroots support from millions of small-dollar contributors. But the sheer volume of potential violations by the Sanders campaign—the list flagged by the FEC ran 639 pages—appears to be unprecedented, and it suggests that the campaign’s operation has been unable to effectively manage its army of donors.
The notices from the FEC don’t necessarily implicate the campaign in illegal activity or suggest that Sanders’s presidential bid is built on financial fraud. The number of questionable donors and the amount of excessive or invalid contributions still represent a small fraction of the more than $200 million Sanders has collected from more than 2.4 million people. And the letters are only the first step in a lengthy process. They contain warnings that Sanders could face enforcement actions if the campaign doesn’t respond and file amended reports documenting that it has given back excessive or illegal contributions. The campaign has responded to each of the FEC’s previous letters and has refunded hundreds of donations; it has not been fined—although because of the lengthy adjudication process, any penalties are usually levied long after elections. As long as Sanders follows that protocol within the required time period, he wouldn’t face punishment. “It’s a challenge for a campaign that builds up to such a size in such a short amount of time, to be able to handle that,” said Bob Biersack, senior fellow at the Center for Responsive Politics. “I’m not sure how you can avoid this. Because if you get money, you have to disclose it.”
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The irony is that Sanders is running as the ethically pure candidate, and yet he’s the one who has struggled the most to comply with FEC rules. As anyone who has ever watched a Sanders stump speech can recite from memory, the average donation to his campaign is $27, and his supporters would argue that a candidate who raises $200 million in mostly small donations from average people is demonstrating broad grassroots support and is less likely to be beholden to a handful of wealthy financiers and their pet causes.
Hillary Clinton has waged the more traditional big-money campaign, using experienced “bundlers” who collect large checks from donors they’ve encouraged to “max-out” to the campaign. The system is built for that kind of fund-raising. Veteran bundlers know FEC rules to the letter and can instruct donors how much to give and when. Fewer checks—or online donations—of larger amounts are easier to process and track than a flood of $27 contributions from people who may have little-to-no knowledge of campaign-finance rules. “It’s just a different animal,” said Lisa Gilbert, the director of CongressWatch for Public Citizen and a veteran advocate for campaign-finance reform. Clinton and Sanders have raised almost the same amount of money during the primary race, but Clinton has collected it from half as many people. The FEC hasn’t flagged a single questionable donor out of more than 1.2 million to her campaign.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-bernie-sanders-donors-who-are-giving-too-much/482418/
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Nobody wants to see their candidate caught with his pants down and around his ankles.
shaky campaign donation practices. It really exposes him as a hypocrite. His whole campaign schtick is accusing others of corruption, but he can't even answer for his own business and he obviously is trying to avoid complying with the FEC inquiries.
How phony can you get! 
regarding the sheer volume of support he's gotten. 
