One of the most underused resources for political action is donations to campaign committees. Campaign committees can use donations to campaign for their local, state, and federal elections in a number of ways. By spending some or all of the money received from the contributions to the committee, candidates can fund their general election efforts and elect local candidates to the local, state, and national offices. Candidates can also use donations to campaigns for other high office candidates, like a governor, U.S. Senate, members of Congress, and other statewide and national offices. Political action groups can build coalitions to support specific candidates for state, city, and national offices.
Candidates, political action groups, and committees must report any donations they receive to the Federal Election Commission and keep track of what the funds used were. Candidates can choose to enter detailed information about the types of donations made and how the funds were spent on the election. Political action groups can report whom they supported in the race, who they spent their money on, and the type of donations made if they accept corporate, private, union, etc. contributions.
Many committees that accept donations to election account require people to provide their social security numbers when contributing. Some of the committees may ask people to make an upfront deposit to their campaign accounts and they will use this money to buy office equipment and materials for their upcoming elections. The people contribute money into their party accounts in return for gifts such as pens, pencils, flyers, buttons, hats, bumper stickers, shirts, and other items. These contributions are then deposited into the county, state, and national parties' election accounts, which are funded by the party committees themselves.
In some states, there are strict rules about the number of contributions that can be made to a campaign committee in one year. The most common example is a five-dollar limit per donation, per day. Other examples of state laws prohibiting campaign contributions include a cap on individual contributions, a maximum amount of a certain type of "ware or merchandise" that can be donated, a prohibition on corporate or union donations, and a requirement that people must register as a political action committee before making any contribution. In addition, in some states, people can only make donations when a solicitation for donations has been filed with the secretary of state.
Campaign finance laws are enforced by state law. Complaints about violations of these laws can be filed with the secretary of state, who usually takes action in the form of fines. The most common complaint is that a campaign is using donations as a cover for secret spending. In response, most candidates and committees offer to immediately return all contributions or make them available for public disclosure. If the complaint cannot be proved that the donations were used improperly, it is unlikely that they will be punished. Campaign finance laws are designed to prevent corruption, but they do not have the power to prevent honest mistakes that sometimes happen when campaigns are underfunded.
Politicians rely on donations to remain in office. Without the funds from party accounts, they would not be able to run their campaigns. However, since most politicians will not admit to any wrongdoing or even know about them, there is very little that can be done to penalize them. If a politician receives a complaint about the misuse of party funds, he may decide to drop the investigation or try to find out why people donated so much in the first place. Since most complaints about election campaign misuse come from financially active citizens who have given large sums to parties rather than the candidate, it is usually easy to prove that people donated to the wrong candidate, if the evidence exists at all.
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