The Twenty-Fourth
$24 — and not a dollar more.
Twenty-four dollars — for the amendment that ended the poll tax, and the cap that levels the gift.
The maximum contribution is twenty-four dollars — a deliberate echo of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, which in 1964 abolished the poll tax and established that no citizen's voice in a federal election may be conditioned on the ability to pay. The $24 cap fixes the ceiling of financial influence at a height any participant can reach — a wage-earner, a retiree, and a thirteen-year-old with her own saved money alike. No one may give more; everyone may give all.
"I give $24 — no more than my neighbor can, no less than I am free to. In the spirit of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, I refuse to let the size of a gift stand in for the size of a voice."
