Money in Us Politics: Lobbying, Pacs, Super Pacs and Campaigns Funding

ESSAY, American Political Institutions and Business Practices

By Xavier Mojal Garcia (11158821)

Why is money important in politics? What is its role? What are the problems

associated with money in politics? Should anything be done about it?

Money talks nowadays in politics. Large amounts of money move from the wealthiest

people in America, corporations or interest groups to finance directly or indirectly a

candidate campaign, a party, or to influence public policy.

Let’s first talk about the role of money in campaigns. Candidates, whether republicans

or democrats, whether they’re competing in their own party’s primaries or in a election

processes at different levels, need to raise money for campaigning, and this money

certainly has to come from private sources. This money usually comes from individual

donors (50%), both small and big donors, but also from PAC’s (25%).

PAC’s (Political Action Committee) are organizations representing business, labor or

ideological interests, directly linked to a party or a candidate that campaigns for or

against a candidate and that have limits on spending and funding. In particular, they

can give up to $5000 to a candidate committee per election, $15000 annually to any

national party committee, and $5000 to any other PAC. They can also receive up to

$5000 from any individual, PAC or party committee per year. However, since July

2010, following the outcome of a federal court case named ‘SpeechNow.org vs.

Federal Election Commission’, a new kind of political action committee was created,

the Super PAC. The difference with respect to the PAC’s is that Super PAC’s can raise

money indefinitely from unions, corporations, associations and individuals, as long as

they are not officially tied to a specific party or candidate and the donors names are

published. However, although Super PAC’s are not officially a party or candidate’s

platform, they indeed use large amounts of money to campaign against a candidate...