REPROBATE UPDATE

Upon further reading of the daily dispatches from Detroit regarding the FBI's seizure of records from the law offices of personal injury lawyer Geoffrey Feiger, it looks like the feds suspect Feiger's law firm of having strong-armed employees, and their wives and children, into making contributions to the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign last year.

Allegedly, one of Feiger's partners would instruct an employee to make a maximum campaign contribution of $2,000 in his name, his wife's name, and then in the names of each of their children.  The firm would then reimburse the employee for the contributions.  This would be an illegal way for an organization like Feiger's law firm to bundle campaign contributions and skirt the limits on the amount an individual can donate to a candidate for federal office.

If that happened, it's pretty sleazy.  Even if Feiger can make the case that he didn't know his partner was illegally bundling contributions, that doesn't speak well of his ability to manage a clean office.  I think that would be a minimum qualification for the state's top cop job which Feiger wants.

That said, I think the laws limiting how much you or I or Feiger can contribute to a political campaign should be abolished.  So long as all contributions are publicly disclosed and in the form a check or money order, what does it matter how much a person gives a candidate?  The crooked politicians would still be crooks and the honest ones would still be honest and, as always, it's up to the voters to decide the matter regardless of how much money flows through a campaign.

Plus, it's a canard that there's too much money going into U.S. election campaigns.  We actually spend very little on them compared to other types of publicity and advertising in this country.  All that capping contributions does is make it a lot harder for an outsider to get his message out to voters, because it is much more difficult for him than the established politician with all his connections and mailing lists to raise money in the form of thousands of small contributions.

Nevertheless, coercing employees in order to circumvent a lousy law is still reprehensible, and if Feiger had anything to do with the illegal bundling to support the Kerry-Edwards campaign, then he is a reprobate.