History of PACs in The United States
In 1947, as part of the Taft-Hartley Act, the U.S. Congress prohibited labor unions or corporations from spending money to influence federal elections, and prohibited labor unions from contributing to candidate campaigns (an earlier law, the 1907 Tillman Act, had prohibited corporations from contributing to campaigns). Labor unions moved to work around these limitations by establishing political action committees, to which members could contribute.
In 1971, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). In 1974, Amendments to FECA defined how a PAC could operate and established the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to enforce the nation's campaign finance laws. The FECA and the FEC's rules provide for the following:
- Individuals are limited to contributing $5,000 per year to federal PACs;
- Corporations and unions may not contribute directly to federal PACs, but can pay for the administrative costs of a PAC affiliated with the specific corporation or union;
- Corporate-affiliated PACs may only solicit contributions from executives, shareholders, and their families;
- Contributions from corporate or labor union treasuries are illegal, though they may sponsor a PAC and provide financial support for its administration and fundraising;
- Union-affiliated PACs may only solicit contributions from members;
- Independent PACs may solicit contributions from the general public and must pay their own costs from those funds.
Federal multi-candidate PACs may contribute to candidates as follows:
- $5,000 to a candidate or candidate committee for each election (primary and general elections count as separate elections);
- $15,000 to a political party per year; and
- $5,000 to another PAC per year.
- PACs may make unlimited expenditures independently of a candidate or political party
In 2010, the United States Supreme Court held in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that laws prohibiting corporate and union political expenditures were unconstitutional. Citizens United made it legal for corporations and unions to spend from their general treasuries to finance independent expenditures, but did not alter the prohibition on direct corporate or union contributions to federal campaigns; those are still prohibited. Such organizations seeking to contribute to federal candidate campaigns must still rely on traditional PACs for that purpose. However, they may spend money independently of campaigns without forming a PAC.
See section Super PAC backlash.
Read more about this topic: Political Action Committee
Famous quotes containing the words united states, history of, history, united and/or states:
“Madam, I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damn business.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“We are told to maintain constitutions because they are constitutions, and what is laid down in those constitutions?... Certain great fundamental ideas of right are common to the world, and ... all laws of man’s making which trample on these ideas, are null and void—wrong to obey, right to disobey. The Constitution of the United States recognizes human slavery; and makes the souls of men articles of purchase and of sale.”
—Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932)
“In it he proves that all things are true and states how the truths of all contradictions may be reconciled physically, such as for example that white is black and black is white; that one can be and not be at the same time; that there can be hills without valleys; that nothingness is something and that everything, which is, is not. But take note that he proves all these unheard-of paradoxes without any fallacious or sophistical reasoning.”
—Savinien Cyrano De Bergerac (1619–1655)