WASHINGTON — Elrick Williams' niece Carlyn likely is one of the youngest contributors to this year's presidential campaign. The 2-year-old gave $2,300 to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
So did her sister and brother, Imara, 13, and Ishmael, 9, and her cousins Chan and Alexis, both 13. Altogether, according to newly released campaign finance reports, the extended family of Williams, a wealthy Chicago financier, handed over nearly a dozen checks in March for the maximum allowed under federal law to Obama.
Several campaign lawyers said campaign donations from very young children would almost certainly run afoul of campaign finance regulations, although older children would likely meet donation requirements. Either way, the number of checks from underage givers appears to be on the rise.
"It's not difficult for a banker or a trial lawyer or a hedge-fund manager to come up with $2,300, and they're often left wanting to do more," said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, a self-described nonpartisan, nonprofit research group that tracks money in politics, and its effect on elections and public policy. "That's when they look across the dinner table at their children and see an opportunity."
Asked about the Williams family giving, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, "As a policy, we don't take donations from anyone under the age of 15." After being asked by the Post about the matter, he said the children's donations will be returned.
Although campaign finance laws set a limit of $2,300 per donor per year, they do not explicitly bar donors on the basis of age. And young donors abound in the fundraising reports filed by presidential contenders this year.
For example, a supporter of Republican former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Susan Henken of Dover, Mass., wrote her own $2,300 check, and her 13-year-old son, Samuel, and 15-year-old daughter, Julia, each wrote $2,300 checks.
Samuel used money from his bar mitzvah and money he earned "dog sitting," and Julia used baby-sitting money to makethe contributions, their mother said. "My children like to donate to a lot of causes. That's just how it is in my house," Henken said.
Helen Maloof Aranda's two children, ages 10 and 16, donated the maximum allowed to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's Democratic presidential bid - some of the more than $32,000 in contributions that Maloof family members gave Richardson.
When reached at the family's Santa Fe beer distributorship, Aranda said, "We just support him."
Just how much campaign cash is coming from children is uncertain - the FEC does not require donors to provide their age.
Congress tried to outlaw political contributions from those under age 18 as part of the Mc-Cain-Feingold Act in 2002, but the Supreme Court struck down that provision as an infringement on the constitutional rights of minors. With that ruling in mind, the Federal Election Commission wrote new regulations two years ago that tried to balance what it considered a legitimate desire among some children to make political contributions against the possibility that parents would seek to pad their donations by funneling money through children.
The regulations established a three-step test to determine whether a contribution is acceptable: It must be made with the child's money, the parent can not reimburse the child for making the donation, and the contribution has to be knowing and voluntary.
That last part of the test is the one that would seem to rule out a 2-year-old, said Michael Toner, a former FEC chairman who helped draft the rules.
Paula Madison, a Los Angeles entertainment executive who is one of Elrick Williams' sisters (he referred calls to her), said Williams had not been regularly involved in political fundraising but got excited about the notion of seeing a black man elected president. He talked to every member of the family about his desire to help Obama. One relative served as a trustee for a fund set up for Williams' children, nieces and nephews, Madison said.
They believed that because a trustee was legally responsible for handling the children's money, that trustee could make the donations on their behalf.
Lawrence Noble, a former FEC general counsel, said the involvement of a trustee can help prove that the child used his or her own money - which is important - but does not, on its own, make the contribution legal.
Information for this article was contributed by Alice Crites and Madonna Lebling of The Washington Post.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 10/25/2007