Sebastian Burnham isn’t old enough to vote in the upcoming presidential election, but the 15-year-old teen from Austin, Texas, still wants to show his support. That’s why he founded Progressives For Bernie, a pro-Bernie Sanders Super PAC. That’s right, Burnham is too young to vote, but not too young to legally register and operate an independently financed political advocacy group.
Sanders, himself, has disavowed Super PACs, repeatedly stating he does not want their help to win the election. He has previously rebuffed the efforts of another shady pro-Bernie PAC that managed to entice actor Daniel Craig into dropping a $50,000 donation. Concerns over the organization’s legitimacy were first raised by the Center for Public Integrity, providing Americans with a glimpse into the shadowy world of off-the-record fundraising organizations.
But Burnham’s organization seems to have been created with good intentions. Inspired by Sanders’ grassroots fundraising style, Burnham devised a clever scheme to raise money for the candidate without resorting to deception or diverting funds from the official campaign. When visitors sign up on the website, they’re given affiliate links to online shopping sites. Following these links is supposed to give Burnham’s organization a small commission, which will be used to print flyers and “buy necessary equipment and produce and stream campaign ads targeting crucial Democratic Demographics throughout the web.”
There’s only one problem: Amazon, whose affiliate program Burnham was using to raise funds, isn’t on board. In fact, they’ve told Burnham to stop.
“It has come to our attention that you are not in compliance with the Associates Program Operating Agreement,”
Amazon wrote in an email.
“If you are not in compliance within five business days, we will be forced to terminate the Operating Agreement, close your Associates account and withhold advertising fees.”
Burnham has called the incident a “setback,” but is looking for new avenues to raise money for Sanders. The irony of starting a Super PAC for a candidate like Sanders isn’t lost on Burnham, but he doesn’t believe his organization is particularly harmful.
“I find nothing that Bernie has said that would inspire anyone to believe that our grassroots funding system is somehow unethical or unjustly sabotaging the electoral system,”
Burnham said, adding:
“One of the main problems with the Bernie Sanders campaign at this moment seems to be that large amounts of the electorate, especially among minorities, still have no idea who he is. How much money we can raise, that’s up to the Bernie supporters visiting our website. We’re going to start small.”
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
