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What makes a super PAC super?
Traditional political action committees are bound by a $5,000 annual limit on the size of contributions they can accept from individuals and are prohibited from accepting contributions from corporations and labor unions. A super PAC is freed from these restrictions under two conditions: The PAC must neither 1) give money directly to a candidate or other political committees that give directly to candidates, nor 2) coordinate how it spends its money with a federal candidate. As long as those two conditions are met, a super PAC may accept donations directly from corporate or ...
Evolution of money in politics
Here is an interactive timeline of the events that shape money in politics. Click on the dots for more information.
Sources: Campaign Legal Center, Congressional Research Service, FEC, OYEZ, Sunlight reporting
You can embed this timeline on your site:
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Super PACs have spent most on Florida ad buys, so far
While the polls have constantly fluctuated in the last week before Tuesday's GOP presidential primary in Florida, one number has seen a steady rise: the campaign money being pumped into the Sunshine State. Helping to boost the total: The two super PACs supporting frontrunners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have spent more than $15 million in the state. That number makes 38 percent of all presidential super PAC spending that Sunlight is tracking.
About 66 percent of all super PAC spending in the races thus far has come from just two of super PACs, the pro-Romney Restore Our Future ...
PAC Profile: The Tea Party doesn’t need unlimited money to make a splash
It's hard to believe given this year's headlines, but not all of the political action committees making an impact on this year's campaign are super PACs.
While most of the attention has focused on the entities that can accept and spend unlimited money, the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama, a traditional political action committee that's abiding by federal limits on contributions and spending, got plenty of attention when it launched an ad blitz before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses that accused GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney of being a covert liberal.
Ryan Gill, the Campaign to ...
Continue readingWatch it live: Will Super PACs Determine the 2012 Election?
If you can’t make it to Capitol Hill today for today’s Advisory Committee on Transparency event on Super PACs, don’t... View Article
Continue reading1021 Days Later…
It has already begun. And it’s getting worse. Two years ago, on January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court unleashed it,... View Article
Continue readingNo restriction on how Pro-Perry super PAC can spend funds
Texas Gov. Rick Perry's decision to drop his bid for the GOP presidential nomination Thursday raises a tantalizing question: What will happen to the big-spending super PAC that dropped close to $4 million backing his campaign?
Make Us Great Again, the super PAC set up by Perry’s former chief of staff Mike Toomey has yet to file a financial disclosure with the Federal Election Commission, but based on its spending, it appears to be the biggest of the super PACs left orphaned so far by the winnowing of the Republican presidential field. The uncertainty over its fate underscores ...
Continue readingSuper PAC profile: 1911 United—a new kind of committee?
Although one of its founders is a longtime D.C. political insider found by an independent probe last year to have wasted D.C. taxpayers’ money, the pro-Obama super PAC 1911 United claims to have a more populist bent than other independent committees that have sprung up in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
The super PAC plans to focus on seven swing states with high African-American populations and will spend its resources on voter mobilization and training, as well as something more common to independent-expenditure-only committees: advertising.
The group will set itself apart in three ...
Continue readingWill Super PACs Determine the 2012 Election?
The Advisory Committee on Transparency is hosting an event, “Will Super PACs Determine the 2012 Election? Should they be more transparent?”... View Article
Continue readingSuper PAC profile: Citizens for a Working America flies under the radar
Citizens for Working America is not the biggest or the most influential of the super PACs, but it may provide one of the clearest illustrations of how hard it is to track the shadowy organizations that have sprung up to influence elections in the wake of the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision.
The group first surfaced in 2010, when it became one of the big spenders in a successful GOP campaign to unseat House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt from a seat that the South Carolina Democrat occupied for 28 years.
In July, when the PAC, filed its ...
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