Political Action Committee / Super PAC
Categories: Company Management
Imagine that all those little dots Pac-Man eats are political contributions from private donors. Congratulations, you now understand PACs.
Political action committees, better known as PACs, are groups that fund-raise and collect money to donate toward political campaigns and elections. PACs can give $5k to a candidate per election, $15k to a party per year, and $5k to another PAC per year.
There are also Super PACs, which can raise an unlimited amount of money to influence elections, but can’t directly donate to a campaign. That makes Super PACs BFFs with politicians, who will basically campaign for them, and alongside them, but keep separate bank accounts. Today, Super PACs are arguably the biggest political influence in U.S. politics.
In 2010, Citizens United v. FEC (a Supreme Court case) said “Yep, corporations are totally people,” allowing corporations to throw dollars at PACs. Lots of people weren’t happy about this, since it gives corporations...or rather, the people running them…incredible influence over who gets voted into what seats, and what laws get passed. (And when we say "corporations," you may think only voices from the right-leaning world, but that's not the case: unions comprise huge influence in PACs, with the Teacher's Union leading the way.)
In general, there’s definitely a solid correlation between dollars spent and voting at the ballot box. That means the size of your voice is proportionate-ish to the size of your political donations. Which is why Citizens United v. FEC was such a big change from the 2002 Campaign Reform Act, which said “no political donations from corporations, unions, and similar groups...k, thx.”
The political playing field was a bit more even back then. Now it’s like the wild, wild west, with Super PACs soaking up endless donations to influence elections.
