2011 sees super PAC explosion

More super PACs have formed so far this year than in all of 2010, suggesting the novelty breed of political committee is on track to become a dominant force this cycle.

On Tuesday, for example, the 79th super PAC of the year registered with the Federal Election Commission — one more than had registered during 2010, a POLITICO analysis of federal records indicates.


And since late September, super PACs — which may raise and spend unlimited sums of money to advocate for or against political candidates — have been forming at a rate of about one per day. That’s only happened during one other similar period since the frenzied days immediately preceding the 2010 midterm election.

After together spending more than $65 million last election cycle, campaign finance watchers expect super PACs will easily pump nine figures worth of cash into federal races.

“It’s now the hot, new thing, and my reaction to all of this is, ‘All right!’” said former Federal Election Commission Chairman Brad Smith, who supports campaign finance deregulation and founded the nonprofit Center for Competitive Politics. “Super PACs broaden the playing field. They generate more political speech. Incumbents can’t just chase competitors away with a big war chest because these independent groups can act quickly and nimbly.”

But Paul Ryan, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, warned that the proliferation of super PACs may lead to outside special interests, not candidates themselves, primarily controlling the trajectories of political elections.

“They’re going to raise far more money this election cycle than outside groups ever have in history,” Ryan said. “And as that happens, super PACS are going to eviscerate the effectiveness of contribution limits. They’re becoming shadow candidate campaign operations.”

Super PACs are becoming increasingly specialized, too: A recent spate of them, formally known as independent expenditure-only committees, exist only to support the fortunes of a single candidate through advertisements and other communications. This effectively grants wealthy donors the ability to support favored candidates with unlimited cash after maxing out their federally limited contributions to the candidate’s official campaign committee.

Strong Utah PAC, a single-candidate super PAC supporting Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), which formed Monday, is the most recent such committee. It adds itself to a list that includes committees backing Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson and Jon Huntsman. Priorities USA Action is a super PAC that isn’t technically supporting President Barack Obama alone, but is run by two former White House aides in Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney.

While more super PACs have to date supported Republicans, an increasing number, such as Priorities USA Action, House Majority PAC and those sponsored by several unions, are already spending money early in the current election cycle to back Democrats.

Super PACs are but one of several flavors of political organizations that may raise and spend unlimited sums of money thanks to the Supreme Court’s January 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and a March 2010 federal court decision in SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission. Corporations and unions may also use their treasury money to directly and independently support or slam political candidates, although corporations in particular have only rarely done so, choosing instead to donate political cash to nonprofit groups or super PACs.

While super PACs are mandated by law to disclose their donors, nonprofit organizations organized under the Internal Revenue Services’ 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) codes are not similarly required. This means groups such as the right-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Crossroads GPS, as well as left-leaning Priorities USA — a sister organization of the Priorities USA Action super PAC — may afford their donors a veil of anonymity while using their money to play politics.

During the 2010 election cycle, independent outside organizations, including super PACs, spent more than $304 million on independent communications, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Of that money, about 43 percent could not be traced to a source donor.

Ryan predicts that during 2012, many large, politically active organizations will form both super PACs and nonprofit organizations, thereby giving prospective contributors an option of whether to announce their donations publicly — an attractive self-promotional tool for some — or occlude it. He likewise envisions a scenario where nonprofit corporations will regularly begin transferring their undisclosed contributions to super PACs.

“Corporate America will likely launder its unlimited money through intermediary groups to keep it anonymous,” Ryan said, adding that he expects “we’ll see corruption scandals arise out of the 2012 election cycle.”

If Congress cares so much about unlimited money, Smith said, it has the power to increase the limits on how much money — now $2,500 per person, per election — an individual may contribute to a candidate.

“That,” he said, “could water down the power of super PACs real fast.”