Political action committee

Federal campaign finance laws and regulations
Campaign finance by state
Comparison of state campaign finance requirements
Satellite spending
Campaign finance agencies
Federal Election Commission
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Political action committees (PACs) are political committees established and administered by corporations, labor unions, membership organizations or trade associations. The general definition is a group that spends money on elections, but is not run by a party or individual candidate. However, PACs can donate money to parties or candidates they support.

There are two types of political action committees, separate segregated funds and nonconnected PACs. Separate segregated funds are either established or administered by corporations, labor unions, member organizations, or trade associations. They can only raise funds from individuals associated with the connected groups. Conversely, nonconnected PACs are not connected to any of those groups and may solicit funds from the public. Nonconnected PACs are financially independent and pay for themselves via the contributions they raise. Separate segregated funds are funded by the organization they are associated with.

In addition, PACs can be broken down into multi-candidate and non multi-candidate categories.

See also: PACs and Super PACS and Satellite spending

Multi-candidate PACs

Multi-candidate PACs are those that have:

• over 50 contributors
• been registered with the FEC for at least 6 months
• (excluding state party committees) donated to at least 5 federal office candidates.

Multi-candidate PACs can contribute:

• $5,000 to each candidate or candidate committee per election
• $15,000 to the national party committee per calendar year
• $5,000 (combined limit) to state, district and local party committee per calendar year
• $5,000 to any other political committee per calendar year

Non multi-candidate PACs

Non multi-candidate PACs can contribute:

• $2,600 to each candidate or candidate committee per election (indexed for inflation)
• $32,400 to national party committee per calendar year (indexed for inflation)
• $10,000 (combined limit) to state, district and local party committee per calendar year
• $5,000 to any other political committee per calendar year

Top PACs in 2013-2014

Open Secrets lists the PACs with the most contributions to candidates in the 2013-2014 election cycle. The top five were:

• National Association of Realtors
• National Beer Wholesalers Association
• National Auto Dealers Association
• Honeywell International
• Lockheed Martin

See also

• 527 group

External links

• Internal Revenue Service Information for Political Organizations