Is it wrong to make campaign contributions to someone who doesn’t represent you?

Should we be allowed to contribute money to a political candidate for whom we are not a constituent?

That was the question posed to me recently by M.F., a reader from California. M.F. wanted to know if I considered it ethical to make such contributions, such as donating to a U.S. senator’s campaign when one is not a resident of that state.

M.F. does not indicate why she is asking or if she takes issue with U.S. citizens making contributions to candidates for whom they can’t vote. She may be OK with it. She might believe that it should be considered wrong for someone to donate money and possibly try to influence the election in a jurisdiction outside of where they vote.

Currently, it is not illegal for any individual to donate to someone running for office in a jurisdiction outside of where that individual is registered to vote as long as the individual is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident and as long as they don’t exceed any donation contribution limits. (For federal elections such as the hypothetical U.S. Senate race that M.F. raises, those contribution limits are laid out by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) here: https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/contribution-limits/.

Some might make the argument that it’s wrong for non-constituents to stick their noses into another state’s politics. But others might argue that while they can’t vote for that out-of-state candidate, they can show support for someone who might have influence over national policies that ultimately affect all citizens.

While it might be legal to donate to candidates they cannot vote for, contributors shouldn’t expect that their donations will or should in any way shift that candidate’s responsibility to represent the voters who might put them into office. Contributing to a candidate because you believe they might do a good job governing wherever they happen to be governing is OK. Contributing to a candidate to try to buy influence crosses ethical and legal lines, but that’s true whether you are a constituent or not.

There could be occasions when a good deal of money from individual contributors for an election flows in from a particular region outside of a candidate’s prospective jurisdiction. This may raise flags that outsiders may be exerting undue influence where they have no business doing so. The right thing for candidates to do is to make sure they know where the money is coming from and reject money from those whose views they know to be abhorrent.

If you’re going to contribute to a candidate, the right thing is to make sure you are doing so legally and make sure you have no expectations for anything in return other than the hope that the candidate will do their job well. Candidates should commit to not letting any money purchase their votes if they make it to office.

When only 53% of people in the United States believe their elected officials are honest according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, it might be easy to dismiss the expectation that candidates running for office will do what’s right. Nevertheless, they should and voters should hold them accountable even if it takes waiting until the next election cycle to vote them out of office.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2026 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

When do loud talkers on the train cross the line?

Are loud conversations on electronic devices on public transportation wrong?

I live in Boston, and it’s often simpler to travel from here to Manhattan by an Amtrak train rather than fly. The train involves fewer changes and less waiting around. It also gives me a concentrated 3.5 to 4 hours of reading, napping or catching up on email since the Amtrak Wi-Fi is generally pretty reliable.

The Amtrak Wi-Fi is so reliable that several others who were traveling on the train broke out their laptops and phones and used the journey as an extension of their workspace. That seems smart and productive, although some phone conversations could sometimes grow loud and distracting.

I hadn’t purchased tickets for the quiet car or business class on Amtrak, so such conversations were to be expected. Amtrak rules though are that these conversations must be one-sided and require passengers to use earbuds or headphones if they are going to talk on their phones or do video calls.

Again, it may be distracting, but there is nothing wrong with someone using their phone or talking while on the train as long as they aren’t deliberately trying to be rude or obnoxious to fellow passengers. There is, however, an exception that should be considered by any passenger doing business while on the train. My observations are based on my most recent train trip from Boston to New York City.

For most of the trip, a passenger had her laptop out and engaged in business via FaceTime or cellphone throughout. All well and good and something I could have avoided had I tried to grab a seat in the quiet car.

Where this passenger crossed a line, however, was when she was speaking to a colleague or supervisor to register complaints about a colleague. Most of these complaints had to do with that colleague making the passenger feel dismissed or not listened to. That’s OK, too. What’s not OK is that the passenger mentioned the colleague by name – and by full name, presumably because there were others who shared the same first name, and then by name repeatedly through the elongated airing of grievances.

The passenger had to have known we could all hear her. What the passenger didn’t know was if any of us knew the person about whom she was complaining or if we worked for the same company or if we were customers. If the passenger wanted to register such complaints, the right thing would have been to make sure they did so in a way that did not risk violating the privacy of the person about whom they were leveling the complaints.

Even though we can stay connected far more easily now than in the past, I believe that some conversations are better had in private and ideally in person. My aggrieved passenger might have taken a more thoughtful approach by finding a time where their side of the conversation was only heard by the person being complained to.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

 (c) 2026 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.