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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (December 2007) |
| This article is part of the Lobbying in the United States series. |
| Political action committee |
| 527 group |
| Campaign finance |
| Campaign finance reform |
| Major industry lobbies |
| Energy |
| Agribusiness |
| Health |
| Organized labor |
| Software |
| Transportation |
| Insurance |
| Major single-issue lobbies |
| Abortion / Women's Rights |
| Environment |
| Federal leadership |
| Foreign and Defense Policy |
| Gun Rights / Gun Control |
| Israel |
In the US, a Political Action Committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to help or hurt government officials or to help pass or undermine legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a matter of state and federal law. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, an organization becomes a "political committee" by receiving contributions or making expenditures in excess of $1,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election.
When an interest group gets directly involved within the political process, a PAC is created. These PACs receive and raise money from the special group's constituents, and on behalf of the special interest, makes donations to political campaigns.
Contributions by individuals to federal PACs are limited to $5000. Corporations and unions may not contribute to federal PACs, though they may pay for the administrative costs of a PAC affiliated with the specific corporation or union. Corporate and union affiliated PACs may only solicit contributions from executives, shareholders and their families (in the case of corporations) or members (in the case of unions). "Independent" PACs not affiliated with a corporation or union may solicit contributions from the general public but must pay their operating costs from these regulated contributions.
Federal Multi-candidate PACs are limited in the amount of money they can contribute to other organizations:
Under federal law, PACs are not limited in their ability to spend money independently of a candidate campaign.
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PoliticalMoneyLine uses the following categories for PACs (The latest totals are available here):
A leadership PAC in U.S. politics is a political action committee that can be established by a member of Congress to support other candidates. The funds cannot be spent to directly support the owner of the PAC's own campaign (such as mail or ads), but may fund travel and make contributions to other campaigns. During the 2006 election cycle, 256 leadership PACs contributed over $37 million to federal candidates.[1]
In the 2004 elections, the top 10 PACs by money spent by themselves, their affiliates and subsidiaries were as follows: