The Rise of Political Action Committees: Interest Group Electioneering and the Transformation of American Politics (Studies in Postwar American Political Development)

Political Action Committees (PACs) are a prominent and contentious feature of modern American election campaigns. As organizations that channel money toward political candidates and causes, their influence in recent decades has been widely noted and often decried. Yet, there has been no comprehensive history compiled of their origins, development, and impact over time. In The Rise of Political Action Committees , Emily J. Charnock addresses this gap, telling a story with much deeper roots than contemporary commentators might expect. Documenting the first wave of PAC formation from the early 1940s to the mid-1960s, when major interest groups began creating them, she shows how PACs were envisaged from the outset as much more than a means of winning elections, but as tools for effecting ideological change in the two main parties. In doing so, Charnock not only locates the rise of PACs within the larger story of interest group electioneering - which went from something rare and controversial at the beginning of the 20th Century to ubiquitous today - but also within the narrative of political polarization. Throughout, she offers a full picture of PACs as far more than financial vehicles, showing how they were electoral innovators who pioneered strategies and tactics that came to pervade modern US campaigns and reshape American politics. A broad-ranging political history of an understudied American campaign phenomenon, this book contextualizes the power and purpose of PACs, while revealing their transformative role within the American party system - helping to foster the partisan polarization we see today. "This book explores the origins of Political Action Committees (PACs) in the mid-20th Century and their impact on the American party system. It argues that PACs were envisaged, from the outset, as tools for effecting ideological change in the two main parties, thus helping to foster the partisan polarization we see today. It shows how the very first PAC, created by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1943, explicitly set out to liberalize the Democratic Party, by channeling campaign resources to liberal Democrats while trying to defeat conservative Southern Democrats. This organizational model and strategy of "dynamic partisanship" subsequently diffused through the interest group world - imitated first by other labor and liberal allies in the 1940s and '50s, only to be adopted and inverted by business and conservative groups in the late 1950s and early '60s. Previously committed to the "conservative coalition" of Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans, they came to embrace a more partisan approach, and created new PACs to help refashion the Republican Party into a conservative counterweight. The Rise of Political Action locates this PAC mobilization in the larger story of interest group electioneering, which went from a rare and highly controversial practice at the beginning of the 20th Century to a ubiquitous phenomenon today. It also offers a fuller picture of PACs as far more than financial vehicles, but electoral innovators who pioneered strategies and tactics that have come to pervade modern US campaigns, as well as transform the American party system"-- Provided by publisher This book explores the origins of political action committees (PACs) in the mid-twentieth century and their impact on the American party system. It argues that PACs were envisaged, from the outset, as tools for effecting ideological change in the two main parties, thus helping to foster the partisan polarization we see today. It shows how the very first PAC, created by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1943, explicitly set out to liberalize the Democratic Party by channeling campaign resources to liberal Democrats while trying to defeat conservative Southern Democrats. This organizational model and strategy of “dynamic partisanship” subsequently diffused through the interest group world—imitated first by other labor and liberal allies in the 1940s and 1950s, then adopted and inverted by business and conservative groups in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Previously committed to the “conservative coalition” of Southern Democrats and northern Republicans, the latter groups came to embrace a more partisan approach and created new PACs to help refashion the Republican Party into a conservative counterweight. The book locates this PAC mobilization in the larger story of interest group electioneering, which went from a rare and highly controversial practice at the beginning of the twentieth century to a ubiquitous phenomenon today. It also offers a fuller picture of PACs as not only financial vehicles but electoral innovators that pioneered strategies and tactics that have come to pervade modern US campaigns and helped transform the American party system. This text explores the origins of political action committees (PACs) in the mid-twentieth century and their impact on the American party system. It argues that PACs were envisaged, from the outset, as tools for effecting ideological change in the two main parties, thus helping to foster the partisan polarization we see today. It shows how the very first PAC, created by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1943, explicitly set out to liberalize the Democratic Party by channeling campaign resources to liberal Democrats while trying to defeat conservative Southern Democrats Cover 1 Series 3 The Rise of Political Action Committees 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Introduction: “Going into Politics” 8 1. “Interests” and Elections 21 2. “Pressure” as Prologue 65 3. A Tale of Two Leagues 98 4. Electoral Afterlives 125 5. Introducing P.A.C. 144 6. A Labor-​Liberal Constellation 175 7. When Business Is Not “Businesslike” 204 8. A Tale of Two PACs 229 Conclusion: The House That P.A.C. Built 256 Acknowledgments 266 Notes 268 Index 368