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The Leadership Institute
2003-2004
Business and Association
PAC Study
Contents
Using this PAC Study
Useful knowledge about PACs
About this Study
FAQs
View 2003 - 2004 Study Data
View 2005 - 2006 PAC Study
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Using this PAC Study
Federal law prohibits use of information obtained about individual contributors from the
Federal Election Commission for fundraising or "any commercial purpose." But an FEC publication points out, "This restriction
applies only to the use of individual contributor information, not to the use of names and addresses of political committees."
Data from the FEC regarding political action committees (PACs) may be used freely by anyone,
including news reporters, scholars and the general public. Among the obvious uses are: to publicize, to study, to praise,
to condemn, or to solicit contributions.
A candidate may use this study to identify PACs most likely to be sympathetic and then “go
hunting where the ducks are.�
Morton C. Blackwell, President
The Leadership Institute
The body of this report consists of tables which provide data, including rankings by giving
categories regarding the giving of the 1101 business PACs which gave $25,000 or more to congressional campaigns in 2003-2004.
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Useful Knowledge about PACs
Although business PACs seem certain to survive any current attempt to destroy them, abundant
experience proves they are far more easily influenced than any other type of PACs.
Labor union bosses have such tight control over their organizations that few of their
decisions, about their PACs or anything else, are ever effectively challenged from within. Ideological PACs, right
or left, usually have very predictable, clear, and unshakable ideas of what is in their interest.
Business corporations and professional and trade associations are, shall we say, more
flexible in their PAC decisions. They are responsive to any of the following possible influences on them:
Stockholders, employees, customers, boards of directors, clients, members, partners,
colleagues, politicians, news media and the general public.
Often those who make decisions in business PACs are Washington lobbyists who have risen
in life by trying to make almost everybody happy. Most tend to be non-confrontational. They love to be loved and fear
to be hated.
As this study and our previous studies amply demonstrate, business PACs tend to contribute
to incumbents rather than to challengers or candidates for open seats. They are more interested in influencing incumbents,
or at least in having access to incumbents, than they are in influencing the outcome of elections. Some knowingly help their
enemies, feeding the alligator in hope of being eaten last.
Prudent or not, the business PACs have every right to act as they do, as all the money they
dispense is voluntarily given to them. Their very nature makes them responsive to many sources of influence on their behavior.
One purpose of the FEC's legally-required public disclosure of PAC financial data is undoubtedly
to give citizens knowledge they can use to influence a PAC's future decisions.
Armed with information in this study, stockholders, employees, customers, boards of directors,
clients, members, partners, colleagues, politicians, news media and the general public will be better able to decide for themselves
what actions, if any, they should take regarding business PACs in which they are interested.
In 1979, after publication of my PAC study of the 1977-78 election cycle, I was visited by two,
three-piece-suited officials of the National Forest Products Association. They came to my office to explain why a forest
industry PAC just had to give to the re-election campaign of a famous, very liberal congressman from Illinois.
Those forestry officials were sweating because conservative members of their association had
chewed them out. In subsequent election cycles they, and others, changed their behavior significantly.
In another case that same year, a major stockholder in a big supermarket chain got so hot she
nearly peeled the paint off the wall at the corporate headquarters because she didn't like what she learned in my study about
their PAC's giving pattern. They too changed their behavior.
For different reasons, journalists and candidates will find this study useful. Journalists can
use this data to reveal to the public the patterns of giving of business interests. Candidates can use the same data to target
their solicitations to business PACs most likely to support them.
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About this Study
The records of political fundraising and expenditures files at the Federal Election
Commission (FEC) are open to the public. Staffers there do their best to help inquirers. But even the FEC's
computerized database of financial data is not 100% reliable. An avalanche of regular financial reports pours
into the FEC from candidates, PACs and party committees.
These detailed reports sometimes contain accidental errors from the thousands of
organizations required to file reports. Computer data entry of these reports is sometimes a source of error.
For example, a $10.00 donation may, by a data entry error, appear on the FEC computer record as a $1000 donation.
I mention the inevitable, if rare, errors to caution readers of this report.
The Leadership Institute's dedicated and careful researcher Mark Bello prepared and
rechecked the tabulations in the body of this study. He had to depend entirely on information from the FEC, where
the information may be imperfect.
Nonetheless, their numbers are usually reliable.
To keep this study manageable, we focus here on the 1,101 largest (contributions
totaling $25,000 or more) of the "economic interest" PACs, which include the business corporation PACs and the
professional and trade organization PACs. Also included were the large ($25,000 or more) PACs that we judged to
have primarily economic or professional reasons for being. In some cases, inclusion was a close decision.
PACs of law firms were included. PACs organized by gun owners to support the right
to keep and bear arms were not included as they are primarily non-economic in their purpose.
But the PAC of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, in a close decision, was
included because they were deemed largely motivated by on their economic interest.
All 1,101 PACs studied were business-related and gave or expended $25,000 or more in
the 2003-04 election cycle. The tables in the body of the study include only donations to U.S. House and Senate
candidates.
In sum, these 1,101 largest business and association PACs gave
$217,622,531.00 million to
federal candidates. They gave $70,687,069.00 to Democrats and
gave $146,189,261.00 to Republicans.
The business and association PACs here studied accounted for the great majority,
close to 90%, of business and association PAC giving in the 2003-2004 election cycle. The 1101 PACs studied ranged
in size from the Realtors PAC, total given $6,589,226, to five PACS which gave our minimum of $25,000 apiece.
Special Thanks to: Chuck Cunningham, John Gizzi, Tim Goeglein, Richard Lessner,
Mark Mix, Grover Norquist, Larry Pratt, Roman Rice, Paul Weyrich
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F.A.Q. (Frequently Asked Questions)
The main body of this study lists the 1101 business and association PACs which gave or
spent $25,000 or more in 2003-04. By the wonder of computers, readers of this study may view the data in alphabetical
order by name of the PAC or ranked by the PACs percentage of giving in any of the categories measured in the study:
Size of giving
Giving to Republicans
Giving to Democrats
Giving to incumbents
Giving to challengers
Giving to candidates for “open� seats
Giving to liberals
Giving to conservatives
How many PACs are listed per page ?
We list 20 PACs per page, with the exception of the last page. There is only 1 listed on
the last page, as we have 1101 PACs in this study.
How many pages are there in the study ?
This study contains a total of 112 pages.
What does the single red arrow in the upper left-hand corner do ?
Clicking on the arrow will take you to the following page of the PAC study.
What does the double red arrow in the upper left-hand corner do ?
Clicking on the double arrow will jump you 20 pages further into the PAC study.
What do the “PAC Name�,� “Total� and “Size Rank� titles mean?
The “PAC Name� column includes an alphabetical listing of each PAC's full name as filed with
the Federal Election Commission. Let’s use the Abbott Laboratories Employee PAC to guide us through a brief demonstration
of each column’s practical applications.
In alphabetical order, Abbott's PAC will be the fourth PAC listed on the first page of this
study. The subsequent column is titled Total. This column lists the total amount contributed by each PAC during the
2003-04 election cycle. According to our study, the Abbott Laboratories PAC contributed a total of $394,254 during
this time frame.
Following this column is one entitled Size Rank. This column assigns a numerical ranking to
each PAC depending upon the total amount they gave. The $394,254 Abbott Laboratories PAC distributed during this time
frame earned it a ranking of 128th among the 1101 PACs in our study. Note that ranks may be misleading as more than one
PAC may have given the same amount. PACs that gave the same figure will have successive ranks. For example:
ranks 1, 2, and 3 are given if three PACs gave the same amount.
The PAC’s name is written in red lettering on the opening page of the study. What happens if I click on the PAC name?
You are transferred to a different page describing that PAC’s giving patterns in more depth.
This new page includes a wealth of information, such as:
§ The PAC’s party affiliation, if any
§ A list of every federal candidate the PAC has contributed to, along with the exact amount the PAC has donated
§ Specific percentages of the PAC’s contributions that have gone to Republicans, Democrats, incumbents, challengers and open seat races
Abbott, for example, directed 80% of its’ contributions towards Republican candidates and
20% of its’ contributions to Democratic candidates in the 2003-04 election cycle.
What happens if I click on the white lettering at the top of a column?
Clicking on a words in white lettering at the top of a column will re-organize the PACs
according to the criteria of that column. Clicking on the white words “Size Rank� at the top of the column will result
in all PACs being listed according to their size rather than the alphabetical listing we start with.
What do the “% Rep.� and “Rep. Rank� titles mean?
These columns list the respective percentages of each PAC’s donations to Republican candidates
and its rank among the 1101 PACs in terms of the percentage of its contributions which went to Republicans.
Note that Abbott gave 85% of their donations to Republican candidates. This earned them a
ranking of 160th in terms of percentage of total contributions going to Republicans.
What do the “% Dem� and “Dem Rank� titles mean?
These columns list the percentage of donations given to Democratic candidates and each PAC’s
rank among the 1101 PACs in terms of percentage donated to Democratic candidates.
As you can see, Abbott gave 14% of its total contributions to Democrats, earning it a
rank of 931nd among the PACs included in our study.
What do the “% Incum.,� “% Chall.,� and “% Open� titles mean?
The Percentage Incumbent, Percentage Challenger and Percentage Open columns divide the
PACs based upon the percentage of their total contributions which went to incumbents, challengers, and candidates
for open seats respectively. Abbott, to use our example, gave 81% of it’s donations to incumbents, 6% to
challengers and 12% to those contesting open seats.
Based upon these percentages, every PAC was then ranked. Abbott ranks 808th in terms
of percentage given to incumbents, 173rd in terms of percentage given to challengers, and 343rd in terms of percentage
given to candidates for open seats.
How did you determine which candidates were conservative and which were liberal for the purposes of this study?
The final five columns in the main portion of this study relate to each PAC's giving in
liberal versus conservative contests of 2003-04, as defined by the method described below.
To measure each of the 1101 biggest business and association PACs’ level of giving to
conservative and liberal candidates, it was necessary first to devise a method of determining which candidates could
be properly be described as conservatives and which could be described as liberals.
The best available way to determine which candidates were conservative was to identify
the candidates who received contributions from a variety of known, philosophically conservative PACs. The following
method was used:
1. Several politically knowledgeable conservatives were each asked to list all the PACs that they believed to be the
most representative of the conservative cause, broadly considered.
We asked them to name PACs they believed most notable for their commitment to any or all of the following generally
understood conservative principles:
§ Limited government
§ Free enterprise
§ Strong national defense
§ Traditional family values.
The resulting list of 19 conservative PACs included representation from all the major elements of the conservative
winning coalition. The conservative PACs included were:
§ American Conservative Union
§ Black’s America
§ Business and Industry
§ Club for Growth
§ Conservative Leadership
§ Conservative Victory Fund
§ Eagle Forum
§ Gun Owner’s of America
§ Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
§ Madison Project Inc. Fund
§ National Conservative Campaign Fund
§ National Federation of Independent Business
§ National Right to Life
§ National Rifle Association Victory Fund
§ Restoring the American Dream
§ Right to Work
§ Susan B. Anthony List
§ United Seniors
2. The finances of these 19 selected, conservative PACs were not
analyzed in this study. But, from FEC records, the list of all candidates supported by each conservative
PAC was obtained.
3. Any candidate supported by any three of these conservative PACs
was defined as a conservative candidate for the purpose of this study.
4. Any candidate who ran against one of the defined conservative
candidates was defined, for the special purpose of this study, as a liberal (non-conservative), except in
the very few cases where, in a primary, two or more candidates defined as conservatives were opposing each
other.
5. The next step was the most difficult. Each contribution of
each of the 1101 PACs was examined to see if it went to a candidate on either the conservative candidate
list or the liberal candidate list. The financial support each PAC gave to all the conservative candidates
was totaled, as was each PAC's support of the liberal candidates.
6. Each PAC's combined amount given to all candidates in these
selected, liberal versus conservative races was totaled.
7. Each PAC's total giving to all candidates in the selected liberal
versus conservative races was then calculated as a percentage of its total giving.
Look again at Abbott Laboratories Political Action Committee. Abbott gave 61% of all its donations to
candidates in the selected liberal versus conservative races.
8. Each PAC's percentage of giving respectively to liberals and
to conservatives within the selected races was calculated. Of the 61% Abbott gave in the liberal versus
conservative races, 43% went to conservatives and 56% to liberals.
9. Finally, we calculated each PAC's rank among the 1101 PACs as
measured by its percentage of giving to liberal and conservative candidates in the selected races. Abbott
ranked 249th highest in giving to conservatives in the selected races.
THE LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE
1101 NORTH HIGHLAND STREET
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA 22201
The Leadership Institute is a non-partisan educational organization determined by the Internal Revenue Service
to be a public foundation operating under Sec. 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Institute does not
support or oppose candidates or proposed legislation.
Opinions expressed in this study are not necessarily those of the Leadership Institute.
Contributions to the Leadership Institute by individuals, corporations and foundations are tax deductible.
Copyright © 2005
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