A political action committee (PAC) is an organization that raises money from individuals and distributes it to electoral candidates who meet a particular set of criteria. PACs solicit contributions either through individual businesses, consortiums, labor unions, associations, or directly from interested individuals; they then pool their resources to provide their contributors with a greater voice in the electoral process than they would have had separately through contributions to candidates. Their contributions can be made directly to their favored candidate or party or indirectly in the form of paid advertisements supporting their candidate and political position.
PACs were legally recognized in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which authorized businesses, unions, and associations to sponsor third-party organizations that pooled voluntary political contributions of their members or employees. Individuals could also form PACs around sets of common interests or causes. The new statute intended to limit the influence of wealthy interests in federal elections by limiting individual contributions to $1,000 per candidate per election. In light of the representative nature of PACs, they were allowed also to contribute $5,000 to each campaign per election and $15,000 to a national party committee.
Business and labor interests realized that multiple PACs working in alliance could channel even more money toward their preferred candidate. Later, members of single-issue and ideological organizations used PACs to get around the Federal Election Commission (FEC) limitations, by directly advertising their preferences in the media without actually contributing money to their preferred candidate. The Supreme Court concluded, in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), that this kind of “soft” money contribution was protected by the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.
Today, there are more than 4,000 PACs. Though nearly two-thirds represent business interests in the form of corporations, industry consortiums, and professional groups, half of the largest PAC contributors in the 2000 election were labor unions, including the Teamsters Union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Laborers Union, Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union, and the United Auto Workers.
In 2001 Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Representative Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) submitted a Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform bill to the 107th Congress. Nine months later, it passed by a vote of 240-189 in the Republican-controlled House and by 60-40 in the Demo-cratic-controlled Senate. President Bush signed it into law on March 27, 2002. On the same day, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) filed separate suits challenging the soft-money provision, prohibiting independent organizations from advertising their interests during a campaign, as a violation of the First Amendment.
In December 2003 the Supreme Court upheld the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act. Subsequently, a number of organizations claiming tax exemption under Section 527 of the act began to raise and spend money in the 2004 election campaign. These organizations refused to register as “political committees,” exempting these “527s” from campaign finance law contribution limits, source prohibitions, and disclosure requirements. In March 2004 the Republican National Committee filed a protest with the FEC, accusing a number of these groups of coordinating their campaign activities with the Democratic Party. In May the FEC voted not to write new rules governing the spending of these 527 groups, leaving their activities essentially unregulated and leading to the proliferation of such groups in the 2004 election cycle. These new 527s began raising large amounts of soft money (funds not regulated by the Federal Election Campaign Act) for both political parties. In August 2004 the Kerry campaign filed a protest with the
FEC, charging one of these groups, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, with coordinating its campaign activities with the Republican Party. The FEC responded by promulgating a new rule requiring some of these 527s to use at least 50 percent hard money (which was subject to contribution limits, source prohibitions, and disclosure requirements) but leaving open whether these 527s had to register as political committees. In December 2006 the FEC did find three 527 groups in violation of federal law and fined the League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn. org, and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for failing to register as political committees. Then, in February 2007 the Federal Election Commission fined another 527 group, the Progress for America Voter Fund, for its failure to follow the provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act. Controversies over unregulated raising and spending of soft money by these 527 groups have led to calls for the repeal or reform of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act.
Critics of PACs contend that they corrupt the democratic process by giving well-funded special interests too much influence over politicians, thereby granting them an unfair advantage over individual voters. Supporters reply that PACs only pool the resources of the individual contributors that they represent; they do not influence candidates but instead serve as an alternative means for individuals to support or oppose particular candidates.
See also campaign einance; elections.
—Aharon W. Zorea and Stephen E. Randoll
World History
