How To Form a Super PAC

A super PAC may raise and spend unlimited funds on independent political expenditures, but it cannot contribute to federal candidates or political parties or coordinate its spending with them.

For legal advice in forming a Super PAC, or on campaign finance law generally, consult with an experienced attorney.

What Is a Super PAC?

Super PACs emerged after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s decision in SpeechNow.org v. FEC and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 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 because it may raise and spend unlimited funds from labor unions, individuals, corporations, or labor organizations.

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What Are the Requirements To Operate a Super PAC?

To operate as a super PAC, there are two basic requirements:

1. 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
2. The super PAC cannot coordinate any of its spending with a candidate or political party committee

Super PACs may not accept contributions from certain individuals or entities, including foreign nationals who aren’t lawful permanent residents, 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 identifying information for contributors whose aggregate contributions exceed $200 during a calendar year, corporate and LLC contributors may not disclose their owners, but the super PAC generally must disclose the contributor’s name and address.

What Are Independent Expenditures?

Super PACs are called independent expenditure-only committees because they must make spending decisions independently 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 coordinated with a candidate or party committee, the communication is an in-kind contribution to that candidate or party committee and may violate federal election law.

Avoiding coordination, or the appearance of coordination, is the biggest 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 with campaign finance laws and state election laws is not.

Setting up an appointment with an experienced business attorney is the best place to start.