How exactly would the money flow? I don’t know how much of what I described is actually legal. Maybe it would be necessary to give the money to a candidate’s super PAC instead of to the campaign. Maybe there’s other issues I don’t know about. Is there a lawyer, accountant, or other knowledgeable person in the community who could propose a legal means of handling the finances?
What kind of a team would it take to implement this? There would obviously need to be someone to make the website and there should presumably be someone in charge of publicizing it, but what would be required beyond this?
Where else should I send this proposal in hopes of finding people who will implement it?
How important would it be for the organization to be bipartisan? That is to say, how important is it for there to be both Democrats and Republicans running Altruistic Partisanship?
Would it be possible for the fraction of a donation that goes to charity to be tax deductible?
Has anyone heard of someone trying this before? I have conducted several Google searches and browsed Charity Navigator and have found no mention of anything like it. However, if someone attempted to implement this but was (for instance) stymied by an insurmountable legal issue it could be very difficult to find.
What should be the procedure for determining which charities are acceptable? My inclination is to have a standard that any charity which a substantial number of people want to donate to should be acceptable so long as not many people think it would be harmful for that charity to receive money. Thus, I think most environmentalist groups and any organization that deals with guns or abortion (regardless of their stance) should be ineligible for donations via Altruistic Partisanship. There are many different ways of doing this though.
What would be the effect of this on nonpolitical donations that aren’t made through Altruistic Partisanship? Suppose someone donates $200 a year to to charity and $50 (in presidential election years) to the Democratic candidate. It seems plausible that this person would make the $50 donation through Altruistic Partisanship, subconsciously think of it as fulfilling his “giving quota”, and then forgo the $200 donation for the year. While I doubt this would be especially common, it’s the most plausible reason I’ve thought of so far for why Altruistic Partisanship might end up having a negative impact.
How should this be advertised? This would be relatively easy if the sole effect of Altruistic Partisanship was to redirect money from politics to charity, but the existence of this service could encourage people to make political donations they wouldn’t make otherwise. My first thought was to have ads saying things such as “Which would you prefer? Donating $20 to Trump, or sending $20 of Crooked Hillary’s money to charity?” The problem is that this also functions as a fundraising ad for Trump. In addition to possible legal issues, if advertising is done like this then the counterfactual political impact of a donation could be muted. A donation for Trump would encourage Altruistic Partisanship to advertise in order to get donations from Clinton supporters, and if this happened then the basic promise to Trump donors (that a $100 donation for Trump would cause Clinton’s campaign to have $100 less) would be broken. Even if the advertisement itself wasn’t partisan there could still be issues; an ad placed on a liberal website would lead to more donations for Clinton than for Trump and bring the same concerns with counterfactual political impact.
How could this be generalized to work in elections with more than two candidates?
What would the effects of this be on politics? I expect them to be very minor unless this were to become extremely popular (with more than 10% of all political donations running through this). It could make fund-raising slightly more important for candidates since the marginal value of a campaign dollar increases when you have less money to begin with (due to some of it going to charity). It could also reduce the political will to make political reforms that could lead to a multiparty system such as instant runoff voting; Altruistic Partisanship is far less workable in an election with more than two major candidates.
What should it be called? “Altruistic Partisanship” is just a placeholder.
C. Questions
How exactly would the money flow? I don’t know how much of what I described is actually legal. Maybe it would be necessary to give the money to a candidate’s super PAC instead of to the campaign. Maybe there’s other issues I don’t know about. Is there a lawyer, accountant, or other knowledgeable person in the community who could propose a legal means of handling the finances?
What kind of a team would it take to implement this? There would obviously need to be someone to make the website and there should presumably be someone in charge of publicizing it, but what would be required beyond this?
Where else should I send this proposal in hopes of finding people who will implement it?
How important would it be for the organization to be bipartisan? That is to say, how important is it for there to be both Democrats and Republicans running Altruistic Partisanship?
Would it be possible for the fraction of a donation that goes to charity to be tax deductible?
Has anyone heard of someone trying this before? I have conducted several Google searches and browsed Charity Navigator and have found no mention of anything like it. However, if someone attempted to implement this but was (for instance) stymied by an insurmountable legal issue it could be very difficult to find.
What should be the procedure for determining which charities are acceptable? My inclination is to have a standard that any charity which a substantial number of people want to donate to should be acceptable so long as not many people think it would be harmful for that charity to receive money. Thus, I think most environmentalist groups and any organization that deals with guns or abortion (regardless of their stance) should be ineligible for donations via Altruistic Partisanship. There are many different ways of doing this though.
What would be the effect of this on nonpolitical donations that aren’t made through Altruistic Partisanship? Suppose someone donates $200 a year to to charity and $50 (in presidential election years) to the Democratic candidate. It seems plausible that this person would make the $50 donation through Altruistic Partisanship, subconsciously think of it as fulfilling his “giving quota”, and then forgo the $200 donation for the year. While I doubt this would be especially common, it’s the most plausible reason I’ve thought of so far for why Altruistic Partisanship might end up having a negative impact.
How should this be advertised? This would be relatively easy if the sole effect of Altruistic Partisanship was to redirect money from politics to charity, but the existence of this service could encourage people to make political donations they wouldn’t make otherwise. My first thought was to have ads saying things such as “Which would you prefer? Donating $20 to Trump, or sending $20 of Crooked Hillary’s money to charity?” The problem is that this also functions as a fundraising ad for Trump. In addition to possible legal issues, if advertising is done like this then the counterfactual political impact of a donation could be muted. A donation for Trump would encourage Altruistic Partisanship to advertise in order to get donations from Clinton supporters, and if this happened then the basic promise to Trump donors (that a $100 donation for Trump would cause Clinton’s campaign to have $100 less) would be broken. Even if the advertisement itself wasn’t partisan there could still be issues; an ad placed on a liberal website would lead to more donations for Clinton than for Trump and bring the same concerns with counterfactual political impact.
How could this be generalized to work in elections with more than two candidates?
What would the effects of this be on politics? I expect them to be very minor unless this were to become extremely popular (with more than 10% of all political donations running through this). It could make fund-raising slightly more important for candidates since the marginal value of a campaign dollar increases when you have less money to begin with (due to some of it going to charity). It could also reduce the political will to make political reforms that could lead to a multiparty system such as instant runoff voting; Altruistic Partisanship is far less workable in an election with more than two major candidates.
What should it be called? “Altruistic Partisanship” is just a placeholder.