Washington Post, New Group Hopes to Divert Campaign Contributions to Charities:

Eric M. Zolt [a tax professor at UCLA] has come up with a unique approach to getting money out of politics: Instead of contributing to their favorite candidates, donors would send their money to charities instead. Zolt is co-founder of a company called Repledge, which is seeking approval from the Federal Election Commission to run an ambitious experiment aimed at reducing the amount of cash sloshing around in the U.S. political system.

Here’s how it would work: Donors from each party would pledge a certain amount during fund drives at the firm’s Web site. Once the time expired, Repledge would divvy up equal amounts from each side to be given to charities chosen by the donors. Any remainder would be given to political candidates. Thus, if supporters of President Obama pledged $60,000 and backers of Mitt Romney promised $50,000, $100,000 would be distributed to charity and the remaining $10,000 would go to the Obama campaign.

The idea is to provide a way for donors disgusted with money in politics to keep their cash out of the system, while ensuring that they aren’t hurting their favored candidates in the process. “It’s Match.com for political opposites who would still like to support their candidate but are disappointed with the tremendous amount of funds going into campaign finances,” said Zolt. …

But before it can give its idea a whirl, Repledge must gain approval from the FEC. Commission lawyers have drafted two opinions for the panel’s consideration: One would allow Reepledge to go forward, but another would block the effort on the grounds that, because Repledge is a private corporation, the approach would “violate the prohibition on a corporation facilitating contributions to candidates or political committees.”