Political Action Committees (PACS)

Brief History of PACs

Labor unions were the first primary sponsors and promoters of PACs, and the largest early PAC was the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education. Corporations learned about the utility of PACs from unions and began aggressively organizing PACs in the 1970s. Corporate contributions to candidates for federal office had actually been banned since 1907 by the Tillman Act, though the act had often been violated. In fact, the Watergate scandal surrounding the Nixon reelection campaign in 1972 involved illegal corporate contributions to the Committee to Re-elect the President. That scandal led to the passage of the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act, which more tightly regulated contributions and political expenditures. By imposing a contribution limit on PACs, this act also implicitly validated the PAC mechanism and reinforced its legitimacy.

Due to the growing concern over illegal corporate contributions and the shutting off of that pipeline to candidates, along with the congressional approval of PACs, more corporations from the late 1970s onward began organizing PACs. The Public Affairs Council, the association of corporate public affairs professionals, was especially instrumental in promoting the formation of corporate PACs and in training PAC administrators.

Types of PACs

The law allows for two types of PACs, an affiliated PAC and an independent PAC. Affiliated PACs may be organized by corporations, labor unions, and nonprofit organizations. Among corporations, large firms and those in regulated industries tend more often to form PACs. Political advocacy groups such as environmental organizations, professional associations, and business associations also form affiliated PACs. Three of the largest association PACs are those of the National Realtors Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Trial Lawyers Association.

Independent PACs are not affiliated with any preexisting organization and are self-standing organizations. They are usually organized by like-minded individuals with the aim of promoting a particular ideology or cause. The earliest independent PAC, which contributed money to only liberal candidates, was the National Committee for an Effective Congress. Two PACs organized to contribute to only conservative candidates were the National Conservative PAC and the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress. Emily's List was organized to raise money on behalf of women congressional candidates, and the League of Conservation Voters raised money to contribute to congressional candidates who were strongly committed to protecting the environment.

To facilitate the selection of the appropriate recipients among incumbent candidates, independent PACs would also create rating systems based on congressional voting patterns to determine which legislators were the most pro-environment, pro–free markets, proconservative, proliberal, prolabor, prodefense, or probusiness. Beyond independent PACs, other organizations and publications also produce vote-rating systems, and the Business-Industry PAC exists primarily to advise corporations and business associations on which probusiness candidates to support. To determine which challengers might be worthy of support, PACs will either interview or send questionnaires to such candidates in an attempt to ascertain their positions on issues crucial to the PAC, since they have no prior voting records.

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