A political action committee (PAC) is any organization in the United States that campaigns for or against a candidate, ballot initiatives or legislation. At the federal level, an organization becomes a PAC when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election, according to the Federal Election Campaign Act. At the state level, an organization becomes a PAC according to the state's election laws.
Read more about Political Action Committee: History of PACs in The United States, Categorization of PACs, Keeping Donor Lists Hidden From Voters, The PAC Backlash, Federal Level Backlash, State Level Advisory Requests Pending, Legal Backlash At State Level, Super PAC Backlash, Congressional Backlash, Defending Super PAC Contributions, James Bopp, International Comparison and Response, 2008 Election, 2012 Election (estimates)
Famous quotes containing the words political, action and/or committee:
“Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves,—sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“The absence on the panel of anyone who could become pregnant accidentally or discover her salary was five thousand dollars a year less than that of her male counterpart meant there was a hole in the consciousness of the committee that empathy, however welcome, could not entirely fill.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)