Top of Page Overview Detail Important Note FEC Mission Categorization Examples Actual Industry Groupings (’07) PAC Investigation
PAC Overview: In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group organized to elect or defeat government officials in order to promote legislation, often supporting the group’s special interests.
PAC Detail: A PAC fund is a separate and segregated fund established by an organization for making political contributions. These funds were authorized by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and clarified through subsequent court decisions. PACs allow organizations to contribute money to federal elections, control the disbursement of funds, solicit contributions from an organization’s shareholders and employees, and accept contributions from any lawful source. PACs may contribute no more than $5,000 per candidate per election, but may contribute larger sums for so-called party-building activities. PACs were able to circumvent these limits by soliciting smaller contributions from a much larger number of individuals. PACs have been extremely important in financing past and current elections. Because federal-level political campaigns cost so much to run, candidates who eschewed PAC money could not compete with those who accepted PAC donations, unless they were independently wealthy.
Important to Note: The rapid growth in the number of PACs, the amounts of money involved, and the danger of their supplanting parties have been the subject of concern. Individuals and groups circumvented the legal limits on giving by presenting so-called "soft money" to political parties instead of directly to candidates. Officially, soft money was to be used for maintaining the parties themselves, but parties managed to pass on some of the cash to candidates. Gifts of soft money tended to obligate party managers to PACs and their political goals. Soft Money has been defined as "Political donations made in such a way as to avoid federal regulations or limits, as by donating to a party organization rather than to a particular candidate or campaign."
The Mission of the FEC: "The ultimate mission of the FEC is to assure that the campaign finance process is fully disclosed and that the rules are effectively and fairly enforced, fostering the electorate’s faith in the ultimate integrity of the nation’s political process."
Categorization of PACs: PoliticalMoneyLine uses the following to categorize PACs.
- Agriculture
- Business - Retail, Services
- Communication, Technology
- City/County
- Defense
- Energy, Natural Resources
- Finance, Insurance
- Foreign Countries
- Health Care
- Organized Labor (otherwise known as unions)
- Law
- Manufacturing
- Public Employees
- Real Estate/Construction
- Transportation
- Miscellaneous
- Undetermined
Top 5 - ‘07 Industry Group Actual Cumulative Gifts
Notice the top 5 donating PAC industries are those that are in turmoil (organized labor ~ auto-workers, transportation), developing/growing (health care), resurging (energy, natural resources), or cash-cows (finance, insurance). All reasons to curry political influence to maintain or improve vested industry interests. The amounts shown are accumulated from January-June 2007.
Organized Labor $11,215,219;
Finance, Insurance $10,244,843;
Health Care $7,742,233;
Transportation $4,701,597
Energy, Natural Resources $4,454,615
PAC Examples (from the 2004 Presidential Election) - note the clear number of self-interest groups, such as unions, spending/donating the LARGE amount of cash in hopes of gaining future political persuasion (the ten largest donators contributed over $123.3M):
- EMILY’s List $22,767,521
- Service Employees International Union $12,899,352
- American Federation of Teachers $12,789,296
- American Medical Association $11,901,542
- National Rifle Association $11,173,358
- Teamsters Union $11,128,729
- International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $10,819,724
- National Education Association $10,521,538
- American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees $9,882,022
- Laborers’ International Union of North America $9,523,837
Of course the question comes to mind, how does all this get managed effectively to ensure those that are donating and receiving the donations, are operating within the law? That is where the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is supposed to come in to play. However, POGO (Project on Government Oversight) note in their 28 March 2001 report:
"The building blocks for campaign finance disclosure–identifying who is getting money from whom, and how much–rely solely on the FEC’s databases, yet this basic information is incorrect. The enormous discrepancies between the amount of money the PACs (Political Action Committee) reported giving and the amount of money the House and Senate candidates reported receiving –a total discrepancy of over $12 million, only taking into account incumbents– demonstrate that the FEC is not fulfilling its mission. When the database for the candidate reports is compared with the database for the PAC reports, only six incumbent candidates match–in the entire Congress. Furthermore, FEC’s two websites are neither linked nor concurrently updated. Among the inherent problems, a PAC will often be known by different names because the FEC does not require a standardized method to identify a PAC. Additionally, confusing forms have contributed to the dissemination of incorrect information. The Senate is further complicating the availability of information because it still hand files written reports. This report identifies seven sources of misinformation in the FEC’s data and recommends specific reforms that must be addressed in order for more broad-reaching campaign finance reforms to be successful."
Take a look around at the politics of today, and you are guaranteed something is amiss in the accountability of donation funds. Indeed, as POGO goes on to say:
"The FEC is clearly disregarding its mission, which is “to assure that the campaign finance process is fully disclosed and that the rules are effectively and fairly enforced, fostering the electorate’s faith in the ultimate integrity of the nation’s political process.” How much faith can one have in a system with a $12 million discrepancy? The fact is, the filing procedure and available data are fundamentally flawed, which means that egregious campaign finance misconduct can slip through the FEC’s system as easily as honest mistakes. While the FEC has responded to a number of issues that were highlighted in POGO’s 1997 report, many of POGO’s recommended reforms remain unaddressed."
Seven main problems with the FEC oversight of PACs are cited by POGO,
- PAC And Candidate Data Is Not Compared
- Confusing forms
- Internally inconsistent data
- Inconsistent PAC names
- Senate contribution information is not readily available
- PACs do not report returned checks
- Partial Amendment filings create confusion
How large is the problem? Read the comparison reported between 1998 and 2001.
"In 1998, POGO completed a report which showed that $1.45 million in campaign contributions were unaccounted for, improperly listed, or otherwise missing within the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) databases. The enormous discrepancies between the amount of money the PACs (Political Action Committee) reported giving and the amount of money the House of Representatives (House) and Senate candidates reported receiving demonstrate that the FEC is not fulfilling its mission. Now, the discrepancies in the FEC’s database, only taking into account incumbents, total more than $12 million."
Where does this all lead? What are the next steps? That’s where you and this blog come in my fellow Americans. Stay tuned by bookmarking…this is where the dirty linen will start to be discovered on the clothes line with leading information and investigative snooping. It’s going to be an interesting political ride, and your comments, insights, and knowledge are welcome. This is where the people of this great country band together in search of the truth. Who do you want leading your country? Someone you can look up to - or someone you can make due with? It’s up to you!
Entry: 01 Aug 2007
Let’s start with PAC Investigations related to the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton in a gross PAC overview.
First, Senator Clinton has 8 PAC entries donating AGAINST her as a candidate. Four donations each from the Illinois Republican Party, and 4 from the Michigan Republican Party - pretty self-explanatory. No need to investigate anything there. Senator Clinton also has many PAC contributions to support her are well, including some "winners" such as:
ANHEUSER-BUSCH COMPANIES INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (Senator - drink much?)
HARRAH’S ENTERTAINMENT INC. IMPACTS PUBLIC POLICY (Senator - gamble much?)
MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT MEDICAL MARIJUANA PAC OR MPP MEDICAL MARIJUANA PAC (Senator - are you in medical need?)
…and a personal favorite as we are all encountering an increasing percentage of late flights, the…
ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL FLIGHT ATTENDANTS (APFA PAC) POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
In addition to these are several legal-profession related PACs (can you really trust an attorney?), financial, and mercantile- exchange PACs. There are also some indecipherable PACs such as Emily’s List (huh?), Help Elect America’s Team (we play sports at the Whitehouse now?), and Excelsior Committee. Certain PAC namings are cryptic at best - they do not provide you a clue as to the intent or origination of the PAC contributors, which smacks of dirty laundry. PACs with names like the "Good Government Fund", or "Building a Majority" sounds as clean as mud. We will pick up our investigation tomorrow, and work backwards from the cryptic PACs to the standard industry classification PACs. But I’ll start a research diary page for this…you can find it by selecting this link here.
