If Mike Bloomberg Is Nominated As Vice President, Can He Fund The Ticket?

I asked a veteran campaign finance lawyer for his thoughts:

A presidential candidate (who doesn't take public funds) can spend as much of his own money on his own candidacy, but given that the Presidential and VP candidates run as a ticket, the legal question would be whether the FEC (if we ever have an FEC again) would attribute Bloomberg's spending as as VP candidate as going towards electing his Presidential running-mate (and therefore would be subject to the contribution limits). It's a totally open and novel question.

Comments

I wondered the same thing about if Romney is chosen as the running mate of another Republican. Very interesting question.

Posted by Joel | January 14, 2008 11:04 AM

Why is this considered novel? Weren't Bush-Cheney 2004 & Kerry-Edwards 2004 established as joint fundraising committees where both the presidential and vice-presidential nominee could pool their election funds? Why would their be a barrier in the case of personal contributions?

Posted by dry_fish | January 14, 2008 11:07 AM

Obama/Bloomberg '08

Bookmark this post.

You heard it here first.

To answer your question, I think he can.

Posted by RothNRA | January 14, 2008 12:17 PM

Hello, Marc, commenters-

Marc raises an interesting question. Per dry fish's point, which is a good one:

Unless you spend your own money (an exception which has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court), no individual can donate more than the max-out total (currently, $2300 for the primary and $2300 for the general).

The clear intent of the law is that a candidate may not benefit from unlimited donations unless it is his/her OWN money. While I agree that it's a novel question, the logical and fair ruling from a court should be that a wealthy VP candidate can NOT fund the ticket as a whole. At best, the VP should be allowed to spend unlimited sums ONLY to promote himself or herself as VP (and I would disagree strongly with even allowing that.)

Posted by ElectionNightHQ.com (McCain site) Publisher | January 14, 2008 1:07 PM

ElectionNightHQ --

A for instance: The Gore-Bloomberg 2008 committee (a joint fundraising committee between an independent presidential candidate and vice-presidential candidate) has a COH of $500M, comprised of $100M raised for Gore for Pres., and a personal contribution of $400M for Bloomberg for VP. If the committee decided to aggressively invest in a lawn sign strategy, what's your read on the maximum it could theoretically spend on lawn signs?

(a)$100M on separate signs for Gore and $400M on separate signs for Bloomberg
(b)$100M total on Gore-Bloomberg signs (a 1:1 match from each half of the account, with the Gore half being the limiting agent)
(c)$500M total, with the rationale that bloomberg funds can be spent on anything that says bloomberg for vp even if it mentions another candidate.

Posted by dry_fish | January 14, 2008 2:44 PM

It seems to me this was addressed in the 1980 campaign. Ed Clark was the Libertarian candidate for President, and David Koch was chosen as his running mate precisely because of his ability through his family's oil money to fund the campaign. I'm not aware of any penalties that were assessed against the campaign because Koch's contributions exceeded the maximum.

Posted by Don K | January 14, 2008 3:09 PM

Hello, dry fish-

A very good question -

This is a unique situation, because president/vice president is the only federal office where there is more than a single candidate. All House and Senate seats are determined by single-member districts or separate statewide elections.

To the best of my knowledge, every voter in America must vote for the presidential ticket as a whole. Therefore, since they cannot split their ticket, any pro-Bloomberg money would benefit the team as a whole. The compromise view, as I had described, would be to permit unlimited spending on behalf of the VP. But by definition, the top of the ticket couldn't be mentioned.

Accordingly, the three views you labeled a),b),c)-

I'd answer none of the above. All mention Gore (or any hypothetical candidate). The $400K from Bloomberg would have to exist in a separate acct to begin with... at most, it could only be used to promote his own candidacy...

Just my opinion...

Posted by ElectionNightHQ.com (McCain site) Publisher | January 14, 2008 3:14 PM

Related question, what if Obama, who hasn't accepted limits, picks Edwards, who has, as his VP.

Posted by Mark from Cleveland | January 14, 2008 3:40 PM

Mark-

Interesting point. However, back when everyone took the limits, it didn't stop Reagan and Bush, who had run against each other in the same way that John Kerry and John Edwards had, from running on the same ticket...

I would assume that the top of the ticket would control. Obama wouldn't be bound by them. If it were the opposite, Edwards would be...

Posted by ElectionNightHQ.com (McCain site) Publisher | January 14, 2008 4:00 PM

Mark, that's irrelevant - Edwards only accepted limits for the primary. Even an Edwards/Obama ticket (sadly unlikely) would not be bound by spending limits.

Posted by Shadow Wolf | January 14, 2008 4:00 PM

Assuming Bloomberg could fund a joint ticket with him as vice president, could he also finance a ballot access campaign where he knew (and perhaps announced in advance) that he would occupy the second spot?

Posted by LeeMortimer | January 19, 2008 3:53 PM

I have some experience with election law and from that I would argue:

the law is unclear and what is not clearly prohibited is thus permitted.

This would be true of any time, place, or manner restriction affecting political speech.

Posted by Mark in Austin | January 22, 2008 8:59 AM