Running with the PACs

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COVER STORY

How political action committees win friends and influence elections

Like electronic images gobbling dots across a video screen, the PAC-men darted among the elegant rooms of the National Republican Club on Capitol Hill. At a fund raiser for Congressman Eldon Rudd of Arizona, they dropped their checks into a basket by the door or pressed them into the candidate's palm, before heading for the shrimp rolls and meatballs. Downstairs, other PAC-men crowded into a reception for Delaware Congressman Tom Evans, which featured piano music and White House luminaries. A few stopped in at the party for Deborah Cochran of Massachusetts. Because she is a long shot challenger, they mainly left business cards rather than checks. But still she came out ahead; the cost of the event was picked up by the National Rifle Association.

Although Congress has adjourned and most members have headed home for the final stretch of the 1982 campaign, candidates can still be found buzzing back to Capitol Hill. They know that Washington is where the money is these days, or at least where one dips into the honeypot of contributions from political action committees (PACs). In a circular chase that is dominating congressional politics as never before, the candidates are courting the PACs, and the PAC-men are courting the candidates. "Harry Truman said that some people like government so much that they want to buy it," says Democratic Congressman David Obey of Wisconsin. "The 1982 elections will see Truman proved right."

There is nothing inherently evil about PACs: they are merely campaign committees established by organizations of like-minded individuals to raise money for political purposes, a valid aspect of the democratic process. In the wake of Watergate, Congress amended the federal election laws in 1974 to limit the role of wealthy contributors and end secretive payoffs by corporations and unions. The new law formalized the role of PACs, which were supposed to provide a well-regulated channel for individuals to get together and support candidates. But as with many well-intended reforms, there were unintended consequences. Instead of solving the problem of campaign financing, PACs became the problem. They proliferated beyond any expectation, pouring far more money into campaigns than ever before. Today the power of PACs threatens to undermine America's system of representative democracy.

This year there are 3,149 PACS placing their antes into the political pot, up from 2,551 in 1980 and 113 in 1972. The estimated total of funds they will dispense for campaigns this year: a staggering $240 million. There is Back Pac, PeacePac and Cigar-Pac. Beer distributors have a committee named—what else?—SixPAC. Whataburger Inc. has one called Whata-Pac. The Concerned Rumanians for a Stronger America has a PAC, as does the Hawaiian Golfers for Good Government. And so do most major corporations and unions.

By law a PAC can give $5,000 to both a candidate's primary and general election campaigns, while an individual contributor can give only $1,000 to each. Presidential elections are financed by federal funds, so most of the money is channeled into congressional, state and local races. Since PACs tend to run in packs, a popular candidate, particularly a powerful incumbent, may raise more than half his war chest from these