Candidate-Organized Political Action Committees: The Subversion of Federal Campaign Regulation

The 1988 presidential campaign has already begun. With it has come widespread circumvention of federal campaign regulation. Potential presidential candidates have formed political action committees to promote their candidacies, and in so doing have dodged the letter and frustrated the spirit of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA). Although this type of evasion occurred in earlier elections, it has burgeoned in the current campaign.

As a result, we are in the process of electing a president without the benefit of critical safeguards against excessive candidate spending and fundraising.