They aren’t old enough to legally buy a beer. They can’t vote or join the Army, and they can barely get a driver’s license.

But Zach and Payden Hall, 17 and 15 years old, run their own political action committee: Do Hard Things 2010. The two registered their PAC with the Federal Election Commission just two weeks ago, and already have a website, complete with a graphic-laden introduction urging young conservatives to become more politically active.

The Halls are also emblematic of a small, but growing trend of young people — particularly college students — creating and operating federal PACs.

“Right now, I can’t vote,” Zach Hall said. “If I call my legislator, I won’t have a voice, but I decided young people do have a voice … they can volunteer for candidates who support the issues they support.”

The goal of the Do Hard Things 2010 PAC is not to make contributions to candidates, but to help fund a project called Camp Nashville and “get conservative teenagers to come to Nashville and help out in primary races so they can go back to their home states for the general election,” he added.

Using a political action committee to fund such a project is rare but not unheard of. Nor is it against the law. In Hall’s case, the idea stems from the family’s campaign experiences.

Zach volunteered for his first campaign at age 9. The family as a whole has volunteered for a number of campaigns in multiple states. And in 2008, the Halls helped run their father David’s unsuccessful campaign for Tennessee’s state Senate.

Because Zach was not “of legal age,” his older siblings, Dymon and Allie Hall, ages 22 and 20, filed to be the PAC’s official treasurer and assistant treasurer, respectively, with the FEC, said Allie Hall.

While the older siblings handled the FEC paperwork, all four share responsibility when it comes to running the PAC. And despite the political savvy of the Hall family, setting up the PAC was not easy.

“The hardest part is just getting started,” Allie Hall explained. “Initially when we just got started we knew we had a general idea about what we wanted to do.”

They knew far less about the numerous federal forms required to establish a PAC and the need to open a related bank account.

“I remember going to many different banks,” Zach Hall said. “When you said you wanted to fill out an account for a federal PAC they give you blank stares.”

Just because creating a PAC is complicated doesn’t mean children and young adults can’t successfully sustain them, though.

For example, one of the largest college student-run PACs is Students for a New American Politics (SNAP), founded by a group Yale undergraduates in the wake of the 2004 election.

“The founders considered starting a nonprofit, because we generally give money directly to students, not campaigns, but the lawyer [they consulted] said because the work was explicitly political…it made more sense” to form a PAC, explained John Riley, a senior at Yale and SNAP’s communications director. “Abiding to the rules PACs abide by ensures we wouldn’t cross any legal boundaries.”

SNAP has raised nearly $104,000 since its founding in 2005, according to a Center for Responsive Politics review of federal campaign finance records, and during the last three campaign cycles, it has contributed more than $57,000 to federal candidates, nearly all Democrats. However, SNAP doesn’t make direct cash contributions, but rather it makes in-kind contributions by providing stipends to financially enable college students to work on campaigns.



“Virtually all of the money we raise goes straight to students,” Riley said. “We will endorse candidates and then run a fellowship program and assign them to the campaigns and fund them up to $2,500.”

Other student-run PACs raise more modest sums than SNAP, and often coalesce around partisan campus clubs like college Republicans or college Democrats.

The College Democrats of New York is described on its website as “the official college outreach arm of the Democratic National Committee … affiliated with the College Democrats of America.”

However, CDNY does not receive any funds from the state or national party. Instead, it raises funds independently through its PAC.

Like SNAP, the CDNY PAC helps enable students to work on campaigns by reimbursing travel and other costs, explained Michael Shillawski, a senior at Cornell University and treasurer of the PAC. The PAC has raised around $5,000 since its inception and in addition to in-kind contributions has made one direct contribution to Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.), elected during a special election in 2009.

Like the Hall family, college students face hurdles when setting up a PAC.

“There isn’t a real quality guidebook as to how to start a PAC,” Schillawski said. “It really requires someone who is willing to learn the ropes and pour through what materials are available.”

But running a college PAC also presents its own set of challenges. College organizations have to contend with near 100 percent turnover every four years, something that can make them difficult to sustain.

“We basically have to find freshman and get them really involved, to get them to stay for four years to keep the organization going — from communications, to the political arm, to fundraising,” Riley said.

The complexity of a PAC means that there is “the constant requirement that you have to train the next group to work, to understand the regulations so that they can stay in compliance,” Schillawski said. “There is a lot of institutional knowledge that needs to be kept, and the difficult thing for any type of college organization, especially PACs, is we don’t have the resources to go out and retain an accountant.”

Despite the challenges, more groups are starting PACs. University of California-Santa Barbara is home to the newest college PAC. The College Democrats established the UCSB Campus Democrats PAC in mid-March.

“Many organizations express wanting to have a PAC, but not many get around to doing it,” said David Cunningham, a sophomore at UCSB and the group’s treasurer.

The PAC was started mainly “to keep us out of jail,” Cunningham said. “We had a big fundraiser to raise a couple thousand dollars a couple weeks ago. It’s pretty much essential…mainly, we were just getting serious about fundraising and doing more things.”

The UCSB College Democrats frequently work with the local and county party organization, and occasionally hold joint fundraisers. “Without a PAC,” Cunningham explained, many activities “can be illegal.”

The PAC predominately targets local Democrats as potential donors, and having a PAC enhances the group’s legitimacy: “There’s plenty of money out there that Democrats want to give to college students, so its an excellent way for us to tap into those resources,” Cunningham said.

The UCSB Campus Democrats PAC spends most of its money to fund voter registration and outreach programs, and to get new college students involved with the group.

“We’re always trying to grow, always trying to register voters. That’s the most important thing we do: get students out to vote,” Cunningham said.

While having a PAC may increase legitimacy and increase the fundraising capacity of college groups, USCB Political Science Professor Eric Smith doesn’t see PACs run by students as becoming a major factor.

“I think they’re doing it more out of curiosity and interest than to be a major financial force and influence,” he said. “I talked with the folks who set up the PACs here and it was a pretty interesting thing to do. I don’t think they see themselves raising tens of thousands of dollars. They’re concerned about getting all the paperwork right.”

However, there is potential to raise thousands, especially in California.

Besides contributions, the UCSB College Democrats also receive money from the state California Democratic Party to register voter through the so-called “bounty program.” Under the program, third-party groups like the College Democrats go out and independently register voters. For every voter that registers as a Democrat, the state party will pay the College Democrats a $3.50 “bounty.”

“We register voters, and if the person checks Democrat then we turn the card or a copy of the card into the state Democratic Party. Then they will give us a bounty,” Cunningham explained. The California Republican Party run a similar program.

“The program is an effective tool for local activists to register voters and raise funds for their own organizational activities,” Tenoch Flores, the communications director for the California Democratic Party wrote to in an e-mail Capital Eye. “Participating organizations must be registered with the state party and are required to verify that new voter information is both accurate and truthful. There is a strong incentive for ensuring high-quality new voter acquisitions — mostly that we need accurate and reliable numbers in order to build a registration advantage.”

Phone and e-mail messages left with California Republican Party were not returned.

In at least 8 states such programs are illegal, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

What makes the program controversial is the incentive for fraud. Because third-parties are paid per voter registration card instead of a flat payment, there are incentives to turn in forged voter registration cards.

“The good news is it’s providing a monetary incentive to give reason for people to go out and register people. And registering people is a good thing. The bad news is that like any monetary incentive it can encourage people to cheat,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway of the student-run PAC phenomenon is that it is evidence of the close relationship between college students and the political parties. Like the California bounty program, PACs are becoming another way for politicos and the major parties to fund college students who frequently participate in the canvassing and voter registration all but necessary to win campaigns.

“A lot of politicians understand the relationship between college students and their campaigns, we go out every weekend and canvass for them,” explained Schillawski. “So they are often willing to cut a small check to us to develop that grassroots network. Being a PAC adds a legitimacy to that relationship, so they are comfortable making a contribution to the PAC, and we can make in-kind contributions — which is something a 501(c)3 [nonprofit] can’t do.”

As young politicos across the political spectrum continue demonstrating an avid interest in the mechanics of electioneering, their interest could translate into rise in the number of PACs run by young people.

And that’s fine by them.

“If young people…have a passion in them,” Zach Hall said, “if they want to make their voices heard, I think starting a PAC is a great avenue for that passion.”



For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: [email protected]

·

·

·

·

·

Support Accountability Journalism At OpenSecrets.org we offer in-depth, money-in-politics stories in the public interest. Whether you’re reading about 2020 presidential fundraising, conflicts of interest or “dark money” influence, we produce this content with a small, but dedicated team. Every donation we receive from users like you goes directly into promoting high-quality data analysis and investigative journalism that you can trust. Please support our work and keep this resource free. Thank you. Support OpenSecrets ➜

Read more OpenSecrets News & Analysis: