The Three Types Of Political Action Committee (Pacs)

A political action committee often referred to as a PAC is “A popular term for a political committee organized for the purpose of raising and spending money to elect and defeat candidates.” PACs generally are created to represent specific interests. The interests different PACs represent vary greatly. Some PACs support business interests, others support labor or ideological interests. PACs first appeared in a significant way after the US Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 that prohibited labor unions and corporations from donating to political campaigns. Labor unions, in an effort to get around the ruling, established what became known as political action committees to which their members could donate.
There are three major types …show more content…
Like nonconnected committees and separate segregated funds, Super PACs must register with the Federal Election Commission and are required to report financials including sources for contributions and expenditures. However, this type of PAC differs from the other types of political action committees because it does not make contributions directly to candidates or parties. Super PACs participate in federal elections directly by attempting to communicate their message through television and radio advertisements or by sending mail usually advocating for a certain candidate or trying to defeat other opposing candidates. An added, and very important, characteristic that makes Super PACs unique is that they have no limits on contributions or sources for …show more content…
This was established by the landmark court case of SpeechNOW.org versus the Federal Election Commission. This court case occurred in March 2010 in the Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. SpeechNOW.org was a non-profit group that sued the Federal Election Commission over the $5,000 contribution limit from individuals. SpeechNOW.org also sued the FEC over whether they should be required to register with the FEC and report financials. SpeechNOW.org argued that the limits on contributions and reporting requirements were in violation of the First Amendment. The court ruled unanimously that individual contributions cannot be limited as it violated both SpecchNOW.org’s and their donors First Amendment right to free speech. The court also upheld the requirement by the FEC for PACs to register and report financials. The court case created what is known as independent-expenditure committees (in a sense PACs that cannot donate directly to candidates). The term Super PAC was first used by Eliza Carney when she said in her June 2010 article that a group called Workers’ Voices was sort of a “super PAC”. The term SuperPAC is now commonplace in American politics when referring to the independent-expenditure