Political Action Committees: Fact,fancy, and morality

The analysis of Political Action Committee activities is dominated by the perspective that PAC contributions are a rational investment in political candidates; they yield valuable short-term payoffs. PACs buy access to officeholders and their votes on important legislation. Despite broad acceptance of this morally suspect theory, the evidence upon which it is based is weak. An alternative perspective — what we call the principled approach — both fits the evidence and rejects the morally repugnant interpretation of the relationship between business and politics that permeates the rational investment perspective.Joanna Banthin and Leigh Stelzer are both Assistant Professors of Management and Industrial Relations at W. Paul Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University. Together they wrote: Teachers Have Rights, Too(Social Science Education Consortium, Boulder, 1980). Leigh Stelzer also wrote: Mandate for Change: The Impact of Law on Educational Innovation(The American Bar Association, Chicago) and Capitol Goods: The New York State Legislature at Work(Capital Associates, 1975).