FEC donation limits no barrier to Romney

If you’d like to see why campaign finance reform, or, rather, the lack of it, stands in the way of overhauling the ills of American elections, look no farther than Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

According to the Boston Globe, Romney “is financing the early stages of his potential presidential campaign with a novel, multistate fund-raising operation that is allowing him to maximize legal donations, outflank top Republican competitors, and minimize public scrutiny.”

Here’s how he does it: Romney has a political action committee — the Commonwealth PAC. Federal law limits contributions to federal PACs to $5,000 for individuals.

So Romney sets up affiliates of his PAC in in Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Arizona. So now his well-heeled pals can evade federal contribution limits. In this way, the Globe says, Romney can raise big bucks quickly from relatively few donors. An accompanying graphic to the story shows that some of his top donors have given between $45,000 and $95,000 in this way.

Just when I think that campaign financing can’t be contorted any further around loopholes in the law, along comes this.

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