The dead may not be able to vote, but they can still make campaign contributions — legally. In fact, dead people have donated nearly $600,000 to campaigns since 2009, according to a USA Today report.
Federal campaign rules allow individuals to make candidates and political committees the beneficiaries of their estates, alhough the donations still have to comply with any contribution limits. The largest gift cited in the report was $217,000 bequeathed to the Libertarian National Committee by a Knoxville, Tenn., man (currently being doled out in installment payments). A California woman who died in 2011 designated $38,000 to be donated to the Democratic National Committee and President Obama’s re-election campaign.
With donors who are still among the living, there’s often a suspicion that a large contribution could be a way for a contributor to curry favor with a candidate or push a particular agenda. There would seem to be no such concern with the dead. But if politicians start hiring spiritual mediums to advise their campaigns, we could have a problem.