ABSTRACT
The late legendary speaker of the California Assembly Jesse Unhruh once said that “money is the mother’s milk of politics.” Political money is essential to a life in politics. This chapter starts from the premise that American electoral campaigns are, for the most part, privately financed. That single fact leads to how political money is raised by candidates and corporations, the associated corporate role, how it is spent, the legal construction surrounding it, disclosure laws, and recent court decisions. This chapter explores the characteristics of corporate political action committees as to how political giving decisions are made, the range of corporate political contribution strategies, the linkage between political giving and policy outcomes, and what the possible roles are available for corporations in the post-Supreme Court Citizens United decision era.
