Corporate PAC donations

What it is

Many large companies run a political action committee (PAC) that collects voluntary donations and gives them to candidates for Congress. Each gift is reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). This feed lists the gifts from company PACs, with the company behind the PAC and the candidate who received it, linked to the member's page when the candidate is a member of Congress.

Who files it

The PAC, on its regular report to the FEC: monthly or quarterly, plus extra reports around each election.

How current

The FEC rebuilds its files weekly and we collect them daily. A gift appears only once its report is filed, so the most recent weeks are always incomplete.

Terms

PACA political action committee: a fund that pools voluntary donations and gives them to candidates. A company's PAC collects them from the people it is allowed to ask, mainly its executives, shareholders and their families. The company pays the running costs, but the gifts themselves are those donations.FECThe Federal Election Commission, which collects the reports political committees must file about the money they raise and spend.Connected companyThe company the FEC lists as the sponsor of the PAC. We match that name to a company that files with the SEC; PACs whose sponsor we cannot match are shown only under Everyone.RefundA campaign sometimes gives a PAC's gift back, for example when it exceeds a limit. The PAC reports that as a negative amount. Refunds are left out unless you ask for them.

Worth knowing

Each row is dated by the day the PAC reports for the gift, which can differ from the day the report was filed. We match a PAC to a company by the sponsor the FEC lists for it, which we could do for roughly half of the gifts: set Companies to Everyone to see the rest. Only gifts are counted: memo lines, which repeat an amount already counted on another line, and independent expenditures are left out. Money a campaign gives back to the PAC is a refund, shown only when you choose it, as a negative amount. A rare gift can appear twice when a PAC repeats it on an amended report. The gifts come from donations to the PAC, not from the company's own funds.

All of this comes from public filings.