by Jonathan Patton

Created on: December 06, 2007   Last Updated: March 19, 2008

Absolutely. The basis for our government's authority is respect for the rule of law that was established by the Constitution. The first amendment of the Constitution guarantees that citizens' right to free speech will not be infringed. The Supreme Court, in Mcconnell v. FEC upheld this principle by declaring the provision banning contributions by minors that was contained within the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. I just have a few points I'd like to discuss-

1. Citizen minors have a Constitutional right to make campaign contributions. If we infringe upon that right, we have effectively ignored the principle of the rule of law. The purpose of the first amendment was to restrict government authority- by banning the rights of citizens to participate in government, we give the government more authority and power than it is entitled to.

2. Citizen minors who have jobs pay federal income taxes. That might not seem like a big deal-but do they have representation? They cannot vote, if they cannot donate to candidates, they lack all forms of representation in government. Taxation without representation- one of the main reasons our nation was created, and there are those who so quickly forget this? Restricting the right of minors to be involved in government is equivalent to taking away the right to publish articles online. Free speech is one of the building blocks of our nation, to brush it aside so unquestioningly seems, at best, foolish.

3. There is an insignificant amount of harm from allowing minors to contribute. In Mcconnell v. FEC, the FEC was unable to present a sufficient number of documented cases in which fraud had occurred through a minor's ability to contribute to an election campaign. Quite simply, very little fraud actually occurs through this channel. Therefore, considering that the harm to principle of not allowing minors to make contributions is much greater than the harm presented by fraud, the justification from a cost-benefit analysis falls on the side of the Supreme Court's decision- that minors have the right to make such contributions.

Our government was restricted in it's power for a purpose. Granting the government the ability to arbitrarily choose who can or cannot exercise the right of free speech leads us down a dangerous path- a path traveled by other nations such as the Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, or Hitler's Germany. Minors have every right to make campaign contributions if they so choose, and the government has no place to deny them that right.

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