The phrase "PAC" gets used as a catch-all in political coverage, but the Federal Election Commission tracks several distinct flavors of political committee, each governed by its own contribution limits and reporting requirements. The two most confused types are traditional, multi-candidate PACs and independent-expenditure-only committees, better known as Super PACs.
This post walks through the regulatory distinctions, then shows how those rules produce very different spending fingerprints in the FEC bulk data that powers LobbyVault.
The Legal Difference, in One Paragraph
A traditional PAC may give money directly to federal candidates and parties, but only within strict limits (currently $5,000 per candidate per election if qualified as a multi-candidate committee). In exchange, it can only accept contributions up to $5,000 per donor per year. A Super PAC, legally known as an independent-expenditure-only committee, can accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, and unions, but it is forbidden from making contributions directly to candidates or coordinating with campaigns. All of its spending must be independent — usually advertising that explicitly supports or opposes a named candidate.
The FEC's own explainer lays out the committee designation codes; O committees are the Super PACs, while N and Q capture traditional PAC types.
What That Looks Like in the Data
In FEC filings, the behavioral split is obvious.
- Traditional PACs show up heavily in the
fec_individual_contributionandfec_pac_summarytables. They raise from constrained pools (employees, members, donors capped at $5k) and then disburse to candidate committees. - Super PACs dominate the
fec_independent_expendituretable. Their receipts often come from a handful of high-dollar donors — sometimes a single donor — and their disbursements cluster around media buys (purpose = "MEDIA"or similar) rather than candidate contributions.
Analysts comparing the two should therefore look at different fields. For a traditional PAC, the interesting metric is usually candidates supported and cycle receipts. For a Super PAC, the interesting metric is independent expenditures by cycle and the support/oppose ratio against specific candidates.
LobbyVault's committee detail pages surface both views when the underlying data is populated.
Why the Distinction Matters
- Contribution limits only apply to one side. When a story says "PAC X spent $10 million on Senator Y," it matters whether that was $10 million in direct contributions (capped, so impossible in a single cycle for one candidate) or $10 million in independent expenditures (legal, and increasingly common).
- Disclosure timing differs. Independent expenditures above certain thresholds trigger 24-hour or 48-hour notices to the FEC during the pre-election window. That is why Super PAC activity often appears in the news feed in bursts, while traditional PAC activity is smoother across quarterly filings.
- Coordination is the bright line. The legal firewall between a Super PAC and a candidate campaign is the single most litigated area of modern campaign finance. When you see a Super PAC share consultants or vendors with a campaign, that's a coordination question worth watching.
How to Read a Super PAC Page
If you land on a committee page and see:
- Committee type:
O(independent-expenditure-only) - Large "Total Spent on Independent Expenditures"
- A "Supported Candidates" and "Opposed Candidates" list
- Donors concentrated in a small number of high-dollar contributors
…you are looking at a Super PAC. The story is in who it spent against and where the money came from.
Conversely, a traditional PAC page will show contributions to many candidates, typically clustered around one industry or ideological coalition, and receipts from a broad base of smaller donors.
What LobbyVault Pulls From FEC
Our pipeline imports the FEC's quarterly bulk files (cm.zip, cn.zip, pas2.zip, indiv.zip, itpas2.zip, itoth.zip) and denormalizes them into aggregate tables per cycle. Independent expenditure data comes from the fec_independent_expenditure feed, which includes 24-hour notices.
Caveats worth knowing:
- FEC data is self-reported; errors and amendments are common in the first weeks after a quarterly deadline.
- The
transaction_amtfield can be negative (refunds, corrections). - Committee names change across cycles; the
cmte_idis the stable key.
Further Reading
The next time a headline lumps all "PACs" together, check the committee type code. The two animals behave very differently once you look at the filings.