Meet the Parents of the Super PACs
By David Keating and Edward Crane
If you are looking for the villains who created the so-called Super PACs, look no further. We are the guilty parties.
We are two of the winning plaintiffs in SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission, which was decided by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2010. Contrary to the belief that Citizens United created Super PACs, SpeechNow.org made such groups possible and legal.
As Jan. 31’s disclosure of the supporters of Super PACs showed, the majority of funding for almost all of them comes from individuals. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the Supreme Court did not alter the $5,000 limit on individuals combining their efforts through traditional political action committees to promote a federal campaign. But SpeechNow.org recognized the right of individuals to give unlimited funds to any such committee organized solely to make independent expenditures (although the contributors and their contributions must be disclosed). What Citizens United did was to affirm the right of corporations and unions to make such independent expenditures.
