As an electoral candidate, isn't Yang precluded from conducting his "UBI experiment"?

Question

In the US Democratic Party’s presidential primary debate a few days ago, candidate Andrew Yang announced his campaign will conduct a 1-year experiment with Universal Basic Income - by paying USD 1000 to 10 families for a year. He encouraged people to sign up for this on his website, which currently says "Win $1000 a month!"

Now, obviously the campaign is not paying a lot of people money; and you don't need to vote for Yang to qualify, but - isn't this kind of promising money illegal in a political campaign? Also, regardless of the law - is this not considered too inappropriate? Too "bread and circuses"? I mean, I know that US politics is awash with money - light money/dark money, soft money/hard money, PACed money, bundled money, SuperPACed money and so on and so forth; but still, I found it weird that Yang would just outright put that forward.

_{(PS - I realize this question is half-way between Politics.SX and Law.SX)}

Answer 1

For what it's worth, Yang's [team] said

“It’s something that has not been done before, so we relied heavily on our legal team, and we feel confident moving forward after talking to them about it,” says the aide to Yang’s campaign. “Our legal team has walked through all FEC compliance issues and given us the go [ahead].”

Asked about the possible criticism of vote buying, the aide said the campaign does not view it as vote buying.

The contrary opinion is present in that TIME article and it's the same as what has been quoted by K Dog.

A couple of law professors have been quoted by CBS as siding with Yang on this matter, i.e. they thought it wasn't a law violation.

So my conclusion is that insofar we don't know how this [potential] dispute will end, until some authorities (courts, FEC and what not) do rule on this (and that might be subject to appeals, etc.)

And a nearly funny quote:

"The campaign tactic raises numerous novel legal questions," said Paul Ryan, Vice President of Policy and Litigation at Common Cause. "If only we had a quorum at the FEC, so the Commission could provide guidance on this cutting-edge, novel use of campaign funds!"

Answer 2

Results: Questionable, will ultimately be decided by the FEC and/or the Courts (the FEC doesn't currently have a quorum, so does not even have enough members to rule on allegations of wrongdoing or issue any punishment, so probably nothing will come of it).

Yang's team obviously believes this to be legal. But a few groups have voiced skepticism.

Andrew Yang's $1,000-a-month 'Freedom Dividend' lottery is now open “He’s using campaign money and the problem is federal law prohibits campaign money from being converted to the personal use of any person,” said Adav Noti, a top lawyer at campaign finance watchdog Campaign Legal Center, who once worked for the Federal Election Commission.

“It sure looks like giving people $1,000 cash in exchange for nothing is converting campaign funds into the personal use for those people and that is not lawful.”

...

“Yang’s proposed Freedom Dividend giveaway of campaign cash would violate the personal use prohibition of federal campaign finance law,” said Craig Holman, an expert at the watchdog group Public Citizen. “This expense has no campaign purpose and the fact that Yang is already making a similar expenditure out of his own pocket shows that it is irrespective of his campaign.”

Also, I didn't explore any unauthorized/illegal running of lotteries, sometimes called number running.

Answer 3

No probably not illegal.

1. Andrew Yang is actually an independently wealthy guy. He can probably just finance it himself, without ever using his campaign funds.

2. The idea is so next level that I don't think it has ever been contemplated, and therefore is unlikely to be prohibited by law.

Answer 4

So long as it is not financed by campaign donations and is not tied to any specific voting requirement, it doesn't seem to violate any laws.

Vote Buying:

Buying votes is illegal. However, the wording on it is that one may not pay someone "either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate". So long as the funds are not issued on condition of promising to vote for Yang, and have an equal opportunity go to someone who doesn't currently support him as to one who does, then it doesn't run afoul of this.
It's certainly a viable tactic to make someone like the candidate more, but so long as there are no political strings attached, it seems valid.

Compare to the wording against vote buying with congressional appropriations, which prohibits "interfering with, restraining, or coercing any individual in the exercise of his right to vote at any election."

Campaign funds

First of all, it's entirely possible that Yang will be paying this out of his own personal funds. If so, then it would be unrelated to his campaign funding, but the laws on gift taxes would apply. The per-year limit to a given person is currently $15,000, though, so giving 10 people each $12,000 won't trigger any taxes (which Yang would be responsible for, anyway).

As for using campaign funds directly, I couldn't find anything on the FEC's website for candidates which explicitly covers this. The closest might be the rules around personal use, which seems to be a catch-all. With a few exceptions, "if the expense would exist even in the absence of the candidacy or even if the officeholder were not in office, then the personal use ban applies."
It's unclear whether giving away money would be considered personal use of the recipient (which is banned) or whether it would be fulfilling a campaign promise, and thus a campaign activity (and thus permitted). The FEC would need to clarify this one way or the other.

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All the usual caveats apply to this - IANAL, I am not an expert in this field, and anyone can try to make a case against anything in the courts. It's very possible I missed some relevant law, or that a good lawyer could make a solid case as to why this is problematic.