Word: pac
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...become so expensive that turning down funds from any legal source is difficult. Largely to blame, ironically, are the post-Watergate reforms in the law governing election spending. Amended in 1974 to reduce the influence of wealthy contributors and end payoffs by corporations and unions, the law instead legitimized PACS, enabling individuals to band together in support of candidates. It also gave such groups an outsize voice (a PAC can donate $5,000 to both a candidate's primary-and general-election campaigns, while an individual can contribute only $1,000). The unintended result: in the decade since...
Democrat Steve Severn, who lost his bid for Iowa's Second Congressional District seat in 1980, remembers his first trip to Washington to solicit campaign funds. "I found myself in line with candidates from all over," he says. Each PAC asked the money-hungry hopefuls to fill out multiple-choice questionnaires on issues important to the PAC. If a candidate's views measured up, and he looked like a good shot to win, he got the money. Says Severn: "The process made me sick...
...also moved him to act. In 1983 Severn established LASTPAC (an acronym standing for Let the American System Triumph) to make Iowa voters aware of the moneyed influences entering state campaigns and to support national anti-PAC legislation. "It is the PAC to end all PACs," says Severn...
Through the activities of LASTPAC, Citizens Against PACs and the citizens' lobby Common Cause, PAC is becoming a dirty word and a campaign cudgel. Pressured by PAC-shunning opponents and an anti-PAC crusade by the Boston Globe, the leading contenders in this year's Massachusetts Senate race-Democrats James Shannon and John Kerry and Republican Elliott Richardson-are refusing PAC support. Complains Shannon: "We keep hearing how quiet this race is. Well, without PAC money no one can afford to be on television or in the newspapers...
Candidates who elect to run PAC-less campaigns, however, are still in a decided minority. Only two members of the Senate and eight Congressmen decline to accept PAC contributions.* No wonder: unless a candidate is personally wealthy or politically invulnerable, the highroad can be a short cut to defeat. Democratic Congressman Tom Harkin of Iowa, for example, takes PAC money even though he has voted repeatedly to limit PAC influence. Says a Harkin aide: "To refuse PAC money would be to lay down your sword when you know your opponent...