The Role of Super PACs in Elections
How political election campaigns are funded at the federal, state, and local levels is referred to as campaign finance. Federal campaign finance is regulated by Congress and the Federal Election Commission, also referred to as the FEC. Presidential candidates can use both public and private financing anywhere from the primaries to the general election. However, in recent presidential elections funding has been almost entirely private, which is partly due to the restrictions placed on public funding.
Supreme Court cases such as Citizens United v. FEC, and the allowing of unlimited campaign contributions have led to campaign spending reaching astounding levels, even though there was a decrease in the 2016 election (which may or may not indicate a further decline trend). The 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush had less than $200 million per candidate. Yet in the 2012 Obama-Romney election, there was $600,000,000 to $800,000,000 spent per candidate. However, most of this change does not come from an actual significant increase in official campaign spending, but in super PACs, and factors such as population and income growth, as well as inflation.
Super PACs became influential after the aforementioned 2010 Citizens United case which allowed for unlimited corporate campaign spending. Also known as independent, expenditure-only committees, super PACs accept unlimited contributions which are then used in efforts of supporting candidates and defeating others. However, contributions may not be made directly to that candidate or party, so donors are reported to the FEC, but there is no legal requirement for original source of funds to be communicated. Super PACs will also spread their influence through television and radio ads, although it hasn’t been statistically proven that they produce more negative ads than any other political group. Supporters of super PACs argue that they allow for freedom, while opponents argue that unlimited funding only leads to more corruption.
Do super PACs breed corruption, or is each citizen able to participate freely to have the same impact as any other individual? While the Supreme Court has ruled super PACs to be constitutional since it can be considered a limitation of freedom of speech to set boundaries on an individual’s support for a candidate, the issue lies in who is participating in them. According to the Washington Post, it is a very small group of about fifty “megadonors” who contribute forty-one percent of funds raised by super PACs. Furthermore, there is not an even distribution across parties for donators—thirty-six of the fifty megadonors support the Republican party and have therefore given millions of dollars to influence the election. While this is a concern, the common belief that money always buys elections isn’t as historically supported as one would think. In the 2016 election for example, Hilary Clinton raised significantly more money than Trump, especially coming from super PACs, yet it wasn’t enough to win the election. Additionally, when analyzing candidates such as Bernie Sanders, even though he didn’t win the election, he experienced exceptional success even though the majority of donations made to his campaign were small, online donations. Therefore, the ability of small, everyday donors to revolt against the megadonors shows that the 2016 election was in reality, very democratic.
In conclusion, not only would it be unconstitutional to limit a person’s ability to participate in government through super PACs, but there’s nothing saying that the consequences of super PACs outweigh the positive effects. Super PACs encourage political competition, which helps the democratic system by ensuring high-quality and competitive elections. Moreover, while many complain about an increase in political spending, that funding often goes toward informing voters about political issues, which also increases the quality of elections.
Sources:
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/02/17/why-super-pacs-are-good-for-democracy
http://time.com/4182502/campaign-finance-reform/
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/