Private organizations whose members share certain views and work to shape public policy

 COMMERCIALS DUE ON FRIDAY  Upload on You tube prior to class  At class start we will watch and critique political advertisements  MINOR PARTY DEBATE ON MON/TUES OF NEXT WEEK  All are expected to be able to support their individual platform issue  President and VP will be doing all the talking for the political party  If they have nothing to say for your platform you will be asked, if you have nothing to say,YOU will lose the points

 Write this down!!!! IN PLACE OF CURRENT EVENT  Homework: 10 points!  Tonight (AT 8PM) President Obama will be discussing his use of executive order to pass immigration reform  Watch or catch later /ON CABLE NEWS ONLY  State specifically what types of reform are being proposed  State who will be affected  State your feelings about this reform AND your feelings about LAW being passed in this way

 John Lipchik  Interest Groups and Political Action Committees  interest groups interest groups

 Campaign spending  $ spent on radio, television time, professional campaign managers and consultants, newspaper advertisements, pamphlets, buttons, posters, office rent  ALL TO GET THEIR CANDIDATE ELECTED!!!  Sources of Funding  Private funding  Individuals, families (fat cats), candidates own fortunes  Temporary sources—groups that are formed for the explicit purpose of campaign funding (individuals throw a $500 a plate dinner for a political party)  political action committees (PACS)  Nonparty groups  Political arms of special-interest groups and other organizations with a stake in electoral politics

 st election that used advertising and sought donations  1828 –highest contributors get political appointments/ Patronage  st Fed. Regulation of campaigns  st Fed. Disclosure Act  1925 Patronage outlawed  1943 Smith/Connelly Act  Labor unions cannot give directly to a candidate  st political action committee  Labor unions give money to the “labor PAC” and PAC directly gives money to candidate of choice

 1974 Campaign Reforms  Limiting $ amounts, Created Federal Election Committee  Before these reforms CORPORATIONS TECHNICALLY FORBIDDEN FROM DONATING $ TO POLITCAL CAMPAIGNS  1976 Buckley v Valeo– cannot restrict amount of $ that a candidate can spend on own campaign ‘freedom of speech  1979 Soft money-raise $ for registration drives, distribution of campaign material grassroots level, generic advertising  No spending limits   Bipartisan campaign reforms  Continued to try to close loop holes  2009 Citizens United

 Corporations and labor unions cannot contribute to any candidate running for federal office BUT their political action committees CAN  Their purpose is to affect the making of public policy, especially the outcomes of current elections  Over 4000 PACS today  Political arms of special interest groups  Business association, labor unions, professional organizations  Some PACS are “unconnected committees”  Independent entities  Ideologically based

 PACS-  No PAC can give more that $5000 to any one federal candidate in an election  Can give up to $5000 to as many candidates as they want  No overall limit on PAC giving to candidates  “Segregated fund committees”  Raise funs only from their members  Cannot get ANY funding from general public  “Unconnected committees”  Raise funds from the public at large  Individuals can create and fund this type of PAC  Citizens United as an example

 koch brothers exposed koch brothers exposed  What To Do With Your Super PAC  As a super PAC, you are permitted to raise unlimited amounts of money from people including your friends, neighbors and families. But you can also solicit money from political action committees, corporations and labor organizations.  You can use all that money to produce and air TV commercials or take out a massive billboard along a busy highway to roundly criticize a politician you don't like  “It is your freedom of speech”

 PAC founded in 1988  The group promotes corporate interests, socially conservative causes and candidates who advance their goals, which it says are limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security  Citizen’s United put money into campaigns of candidates that they support  Or they put $ into an opponents campaigns to give them an edge over someone they don’t want in office  citizen's united webpage citizen's united webpage  2009 sued Federal Elections Commission  Supreme Court Case  Ruled that corporations have freedoms of speech rights like that of individuals  Argument by court/ Ruling 5 to4  The Bill of Rights protects the “act of speech itself not just the rights of the speaker