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1975

The Federal Election Commission rules that the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 allows corporations to set up political action committees and solicit voluntary contributions from both employees and shareholders, and that the operating expenses of corporate PACs can be paid out of corporate treasuries. The decision gives corporations the same opportunity that labor unions already have to use PACs to influence elections. “In our view, the law should have moved in precisely the opposite direction, and forbidden unions as well as corporations to engage in political financing,” The New York Times complains in an editorial. “Ideally, political contributions should come only from individuals and not from economic juggernauts whether they be unions, committees of doctors, brokers, or oil men, or corporations. The unhealthy effect of this massing of financial power in politics is to hobble elected officials in the free exercise of their best judgment once they take office.”