Inspired by Colbert, MN student creates super PAC

You're never too young to have your own super PAC.

Billy Czerwinski isn't old enough to vote, but the seventeen-year-old Minnetonka High School student created Americans for a Better Yesterday, Tomorrow for a school project on campaign finance laws. He wanted to show just how easy it is to establish a super PAC - and just how unregulated the fundraising entities are.

If the PAC's name sounds like humorist Stephen Colbert's Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, that's by design, said Czerwinski.

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Minnetonka High School student Billy Czerwinski created the super PAC Americans for a Better Yesterday, Tomorrow as part of a school project on campaign finance laws. Tim Post/MPR News

"It's vaguely patriotic," he said.

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Czerwinski, who lists himself in Federal Election Commission filings as the PAC's Supreme Leader, says he doesn't have plans to raise money with the PAC. Rather, he wants to make a point.

"It bothers me that they don't have to share" all their information, Czerwinski said.

Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on candidates, as long as they don't coordinate with the candidate's campaign. PACs are required by law to say who their donors are and how they're spending their money.

But Czerwinski said he doesn't buy those non-coordination rules. He'd like to see super PACs more tightly regulated.

"There are so many loopholes in the laws and so many ways to get around them," he said.

Czerwinski will be heading off to college this time next year. He hasn't chosen a school yet, but will study political science wherever he ends up.

And Czerwinski's post-college career plans?

"I actually want to be a politician someday," he said.