How to Form a Super PAC
Registering a super PAC is simple but compliance is complex
By Doug Mentes, Esq. | Reviewed by Canaan Suitt, J.D. | Last updated on April 15, 2024Use these links to jump to different sections:
- What Is a Super PAC?
- What Are the Requirements to Operate a Super PAC?
- How Do You Register as a Super PAC?
- What Are Independent Expenditures?
- Find an Experienced Attorney to Create Your Super PAC
For any individual or organization that doesn’t want to be hamstrung by federal laws on campaign contribution limits, a super PAC (Political Action Committee) is the answer.
What Is a Super PAC?
Super PACs resulted from the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decisions in SpeechNow.org v. FEC and Citizens United v. FEC. Their impact on federal campaign spending has exploded since, contributing billions of dollars each election year.
Federal law limits the amount of political campaign contributions that individuals and other political committees can make to candidates and other political party committees. The current cap is $5,000 every calendar year for individual contributions to most PACs. Federal law also bans contributions from corporations, trade associations, and labor organizations to candidates and other political party committees—except through a separate segregated fund. A super PAC gets around those requirements since it may raise and spend unlimited amounts of funding from labor unions, individuals, corporations, or labor organizations.
What Are the Requirements to Operate a Super PAC?
To operate as a super PAC, there are two basic requirements. First, the super PAC cannot contribute to a candidate’s political committee, a political party committee, or to a PAC that contributes to candidates or political party committees. Second, the super PAC cannot coordinate any of its spending with a candidate or political party committee.
There are individuals or entities super PACs may not accept contributions from, including foreign nationals, federal contractors, national banks, or federally chartered corporations.
How Do You Register as a Super PAC?
Like most other PACs, super PACs register with the FEC by filing a Statement of Organization: FEC Form 1. Although not mandatory, the organization can file a letter with the FEC that gives notice that it intends to raise and spend unlimited funds in an election cycle. The final requirement is to appoint a treasurer who is responsible for reporting receipts and disbursements to the FEC.
Although super PACs must report their donors who contribute $200 or more per election cycle, it can accept contributions from almost any corporation or LLC, which often allows those donors to remain anonymous.
What Are Independent Expenditures?
Super PACs are referred to as independent expenditure-only committees because their spending decisions must be made independent of any political candidate or political party committee. An independent expenditure is an expenditure for a communication that:
- Expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified federal candidate
- Is not coordinated with a candidate, candidate’s committee, party committee, or their agents
When a super PAC pays for a communication that is coordinated with a candidate or party committee, the communication is an in-kind contribution to that candidate or party committee and potentially in violation of federal election law.
Avoiding coordination, or the appearance of coordination, is the area of most concern for super PACs. The organization must prevent nonpublic information from moving from a candidate or political party committee or their agents to the super PAC in a way that might influence the decisions of those running it.
Find an Experienced Attorney to Create Your Super PAC
If your organization wants to increase its influence over an election or referendum, forming a super PAC can potentially do just that. Although setting up the organization is simple, understanding compliance, campaign finance laws, and state election laws is not. Setting up an appointment with an experienced corporate attorney is the best place to start.
For more information on this area of the law, see our overviews of business organizations and business and corporate law.
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