Under Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules, a Leadership PAC is known as a "nonconnected PAC." In January 2008, the FEC reported 1,300 "non-connected" PACs but did not break out Leadership PACs. The FEC prohibits Leadership PACs from directly supporting the candidacy of the official who organized the PAC but it can provide indirect support: it can pay for travel, political consulting fees, polling, and so forth.
Leadership PAC numbers and expenditures from the 1998 to 2008 campaign cycle follow and demonstrate that this tool has been used by Republican elected officials more than Democratic ones.
Number of Leadership PACs
Leadership PACs are bound by the same rules as any other PAC: a congressman can accept only $1,000 per election from an individual and $5,000 per election from a political action committee (PAC).The campaign cycle reflects the bi-annual election cycle, eg, November 1996 - November 1998 is known as the 1998 cycle. The numbers below are minimums, as leadership PACs are a subset of non-connected PACs and the FEC does not provide data on the sub-group.
- 1994 : 38
- 1998 : 120
- 2000 : 167
- 2002 : 201
- 2004 : 230
- 2006 : 291
- 2008 : 298
2004 Election Cycle
Number of PACs making contributions: 230Total Expenditures: $27,882,794
Total to Democrats: $7,532,003 (27%)
Total to Republicans: $20,248,514 (73%)
2002 Election Cycle
Number of PACs making contributions: 201Total Expenditures: $24,622,947
Total to Democrats: $10,017,039 (41%)
Total to Republicans: $14,574,408 (59%)
2008 Campaign Cycle*
* Data effective 30 June 2008Number of PACs making contributions: 298
Total Expenditures: $21,180,707
Total to Democrats: $9,336,749 (44%)
Total to Republicans: $11,843,958 (56%)
2006 Campaign Cycle
Number of PACs making contributions: 291Total Expenditures: $41,938,963
Total to Democrats: $12,249,787 (29%)
Total to Republicans: $29,482,207 (70%)
2000 Election Cycle
Number of PACs making contributions: 167Total Expenditures: $16,895,541
Total to Democrats: $5,608,891 (33%)
Total to Republicans: $11,266,166 (67%)
1998 Election Cycle
Number of PACs making contributions: 120Total Expenditures: $11,124,669
Total to Democrats: $3,041,153 (27%)
Total to Republicans: $8,080,516 (73%)
Brief History of PACs
In 1944, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) created the first political action committee to support labor union issues; unions were prohibited from directly contributing to candidates by the Smith-Connally Act. Business groups later formed PACs. Members of Congress began creating leadership PACs in the 1980s.Other Money: 527s
A 527 political group is named for the section of the IRS code that regulates political organizations. However, a 527 organization can raise unlimited soft money from anyone.According to Public Citizen, "Virtually every congressional leader has his or her own soft money 527." Moreover, from July 2000 to June 2001, the top 25 politician 527s raised more than $15.1 million. And the contributions tended to be large: "just 15 percent of total contributions came in amounts of less than $5,000." It was loopholes like this one that led to the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. New regulations were implemented in 2004.
CIF reports that federal 527s raised $76.9 million in 2007
