A modest proposal
"those who don't (by waving the fee as the operators do for some charities) are guilty of contributing to political parties that might be supported by their customers but perhaps not so popular among their shareholders."
I take it that the inference here is that the network operator could be seen to be supporting a particular party by not taking a cut of the donation (as they would for, say, a reality TV vote).
If that is a concern, perhaps a truly non-partisan charitable cause could be found - surely there must be such a thing - and the cut taken and diverted to said charity. Cancer research comes to mind, because it takes a special kind of person to publicly say bad things about it...
...not that an American lawyer hasn't already taken the trouble to do exactly that: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/18/carreon_sues_oatmeal_operation_bear_love/
Finally: I think that donating via text sounds great but will likely lead to exactly the sort of circumvention of already breaking-at-the-seams US campaign-funding legislation that the author fears.