8.4: Influencing Elections

Interest groups also attempt to influence the actions of government officials by participating in the electoral process. By definition, interest groups do not nominate their own candidates for office, but they can and do endorse, donate to, advertise on behalf of, volunteer for, and otherwise support candidates and parties they expect to act favorably to them if elected.

Investing in unelected politicians is a somewhat risky strategy, because politicians can’t do much for the interest groups that support them if they lose their elections. For this reason, most interest groups concentrate their energies on lobbying rather than electioneering. However, electioneering efforts by interest groups can easily seem bigger than their lobbying efforts, because the former happen largely in public (with slick television ads and large events) whereas the latter take place mostly behind closed doors.

A political action committee (PAC for short) is a special type of interest group, established specifically to raise money and spend it on political campaigns. PACs can be formed by candidates, campaigns, parties, other interest groups, or individual citizens. Much of their electioneering activity involves advertising on behalf of candidates or parties. PAC contributions are limited by law: an individual voter, for example, may only donate a maximum of $5000 per year to PACs.

Related to the PAC is the super PAC. Like PACs, super PACs raise money to spend on political campaigns, largely on advertising. Fundraising rules for super PACs are much laxer than for PACs: an individual can donate as much money as he or she wants to a super PAC without breaking the law, enabling super PACs to raise and spend far more money than PACs. The catch is that super PACs cannot coordinate directly with candidates or parties, even though they are working toward the same goal.

The precise legal definitions of PACs, and super PACs — as well as the laws that govern them — are extremely complex. The main thing to understand here is that political actors choose which type of group to form strategically based on their goals and the abilities and legal limitations of each type.

Super PACs emerged in 2010 as the result of the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC. Citizens United, a nonprofit organization which produces conservative and pro-Republican documentaries, had attempted to release its film Hillary: The Movie on video-on-demand prior to the 2008 presidential primaries (when Hillary Clinton was challenging Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination). The Federal Election Commission blocked the film’s release on the grounds that Citizens United had not abided by campaign finance rules governing political advertising. Citizens United contended that, because they were not formally affiliated with any particular party or candidate, they should be exempt from these rules limiting their First Amendment freedom of speech.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Citizens United, and in doing so created the concept of a super PAC (though it did not coin that term) by establishing that other organizations like Citizens United could enjoy same leeway to raise and spend money on political advertising as long as they did not affiliate or coordinate with a candidate or party. Two years later, super PACs outspent PACs in the 2012 election cycle, as they have done in all but one election cycle since (as depicted in Figure 8.2 below).

Skyrocketing campaign spending has raised concerns about the influence of money in politics. Critics claim that Citizens United v. FEC opens a loophole for the wealthy to purchase political influence by contributing to super PACs. Supporters of the decision argue that overturning it would give the government too much power to stifle political speech using campaign finance laws, and that the political inequality created by Citizens United is outweighed by the freedom of speech it preserves.

Figure 8.2: Total PAC and super PAC spending by election cycle, 1990–2022 (Source: Open Secrets)