The Federal Election Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to recommend that Congress ban political campaigns from guiding donors by default into recurring contributions through prechecked boxes, a month after a New York Times investigation showed that former President Donald J. Trump’s political operation had steered huge numbers of unwitting supporters into repeated donations through that tactic. But commissioners of both parties, including three Republicans appointed by Mr. Trump, came together on Thursday to ask Congress to strengthen campaign finance law to protect online donors. And within hours, a top Democratic senator who leads the committee that oversees federal elections vowed to introduce legislation to do just that. “It’s important that donors be able to exercise their choices freely,” Ellen L. Weintraub, a longtime Democratic commissioner on the F.E.C., said in an interview. “If their money is being taken from them because of some reverse checkoff option they didn’t notice, then they are not giving their money freely.”

Source: New York Times May 06, 2021 15:36 UTC