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A question from David White of Fredericksburg, VA The power of PACs seem to have reached a fevered pitch. They seem to be small political parties unto themselves. Is there anyway to limit the monetary and political power of these organizations? And how could anyone rationally argue, as Sen. McConell did on the show earlier this week, that PACs are "good for democracy"!?!?
Ellen Miller responds:
One of the great myths of money in politics is that PACs are THE problem. In fact they are only one aspect of the problem of big money in politics.
The reality is:
- PACs accounted for only 40 percent of the campaign dollars collected by U.S. House winners in 1994, and less than 25 percent of the money collected by U.S. Senate winners. Contributions from individuals - most of them delivered in amounts of $250, $500, and $1,000 -- formed the bulk of the funding for most winning candidates in the House and Senate.
- Large individual contributions usually come from the same sources and represent the same interests as PAC contributions. So politicians who publicly refuse to take PAC contributions are often no less beholden to private interests than those who do take PAC contributions.
- If PAC contributions were banned, many of the same vested interests that supply PAC dollars would simply re-route their money as individual contributions, and the people whose only financial clout is through PAC giving (e.g., environmentalists, disarmament activists, and members of labor unions) would then have little or none.
- In presidential races, where tens of millions of dollars in private contributions are raised during the primaries, almost all of it comes from individuals, not PACs. In the 1988 presidential race, PAC money came to less than 4 percent of the total raised by all candidates, and in 1992, the PAC proportion was 1 percent. The same small percentages of PAC money are relected in the 1996 race as well.
- PACs account for an even smaller percentage of the money in state elections than in federal elections. Although PAC money at the state level is on the rise, in all but a few states it accounts for less than one-third of the funding for legislative and statewide races. In the 1995 gubernatorial races in Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, PAC contributions came to less than 6 percent in each state.
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