Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group organized to elect or defeat government officials in order to promote legislation supporting the group's special interests. PACs are limited in the amount of money that they can spend to the following per year: at most $5,000 per candidate per election. Elections such as primaries, general elections and special elections are counted separately. at most $15,000 per political party. at most $5,000 per PAC. PACs are allowed to give to other PACs. However, PACs are not limited to advertising spent on the support of their own issues. In the 2002 elections, the top 10 PACs by money spent by themselves, their affiliates and subsidaries were: Emily's List $22,767,521 Service Employees International Union $12,899,352 American Federation of Teachers $12,789,296 American Medical Association $11,901,542 National Rifle Association $11,173,358 Teamsters Union $11,128,729 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $10,819,724 National Education Association $10,521,538 American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees $9,882,022 Laborers Union $9,523,837 Related topics Politics of the United States GOPAC - the PAC of the GOP External Links Campaign Guide for Corporations and Labor Organizations Campaign Guide for Nonconnected Committees This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.