What is a PAC (Political Action Committee) and how did they come about? Columbia Law Professor Richard Briffault explains.
From Super PACs to Dark Money, Interview with Richard Briffault
American political campaigns are increasingly financed by Super PACs and shadowy nonprofits. Some believe that too much money being funneled by special interest groups and wealthy donors opens the door to corruption and influence buying. Professor Richard Briffault explores campaign finance laws and the key issues of contention to get to the bottom of this complicated debate.
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TRANSCRIPT
Richard Briffault: PAC stands for Political Action Committee. That dates back to the 1940's when Congress imposed limits on the ability of labor unions to participate in election campaigns. And so what the leading labor union of the time, the CIO, came up with was the idea of we won't spend our union treasury money. What we'll do is we'll contact all of our members and we'll let each of our members kick in some money to a separate fund called the Political Action Committee. And instead of using union treasury funds, individual members will be pushed to make contributions into the fund, and we'll use that fund.
