Colbert Super PAC

In the world of elections there are entities called Political Action Committees commonly referred to by their acronym PAC. PACs can spend money to influence elections though there are limits on how much money they could accept from certain donors.

After the Citizens United case ruled on by the Supreme Court a new kind of PAC was made, called a Super PAC. Super PACs can accept unlimited corporate, individual, political committee, and union contributions.

The Federal Election Commission, the FEC, regulates PACs. Recently Stephen Colbert decided he was going to make a PAC, but there was a problem with his PAC. Viacom, the owner of Comedy Central, must report all contributions to PACs. According to the law, if Colbert forms his PAC and references or uses material from the PAC on his show, there is a question whether Viacom must report the time used to talk about the PAC as an in-kind contribution to the PAC.

To get around this Colbert could instead create a Super PAC and ask the FEC to give Viacom a press exemption. The press exemption is used extensively by Fox News which allows Karl Rove to be paid by Fox News while simultaneously promoting his PAC, American Crossroads. Fox News is a press entity according to the FEC and so they are considered to be reporting on the news which can include Rove’s Super PAC.

If Viacom could get a press exemption then Colbert would be able to raise unlimited levels of money and promote his PAC, and show ads produced by his Super PAC on his show, as much as he wanted. As it turns out the FEC ruled that Colbert gets a press exemption and he has started accepting donations for the last few weeks. Colbert has now raised enough money to produce his first political ad, and it keeps in line with his satirical approach to politics and current events. You can check the ad out by going to his PAC’s site: http://www.colbertsuperpac.com/episodeiv-anewhope/

-Kirs