I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 2352
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to place reasonable
limits on contributions to Super PACs which make independent expendi-
tures, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH26, 2025
Ms. L
EEof Pennsylvania (for herself, Mr. KHANNA, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms.
J
AYAPAL, Ms. TLAIB, Mr. DELUZIO, and Mrs. RAMIREZ) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on House Administra-
tion
A BILL
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to
place reasonable limits on contributions to Super PACs
which make independent expenditures, and for other pur-
poses.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Abolish Super PACs 4
Act’’. 5
SEC. 2. FINDINGS; PURPOSE. 6
(a) F
INDINGS.—Congress finds as follows: 7
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(1) Contribution limits to political action com-1
mittees (PACs), including those that make inde-2
pendent expenditures, help secure elections by lim-3
iting both the risk of corruption and the risk that 4
significant contributions will create the appearance 5
of corruption. 6
(2) Since contribution limits on super PACs 7
were lifted in 2010, the number, influence, and 8
wealth of super PACs have exploded. Obtaining mil-9
lions or billions of dollars in contributions to super 10
PACs is now critical to the success of Federal can-11
didates’ campaigns. 12
(3) As the influence of super PACs grows, so 13
does the likelihood that they will serve as a conduit 14
for corrupt agreements between contributor and can-15
didate, whose communications are not subject to co-16
ordination limitations. 17
(4) Between 2008 and 2020, the amount of 18
independent expenditures increased more than 700 19
percent, and in 2024, more than $4.48 billion in 20
independent expenditures were spent on United 21
States elections. The money for these expenditures 22
largely came from contributions to 2,459 registered 23
super PACs. 24
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(5) In 2012, the first modern elections for Fed-1
eral office held without contribution limits to super 2
PACs, the top 1 percent of all individual super PAC 3
contributors contributed 76.76 percent of all indi-4
vidual super PAC contributions, and that percentage 5
rose to 96.94 percent in 2024. Recent elections have 6
been influenced by individual contributors who gave 7
more than $100 million to super PACs. 8
(6) As bribery laws have long recognized, un-9
lawful quid pro quo exchanges can occur where the 10
bribe is funneled into a third party, such as a super 11
PAC. See, e.g., section 201 of title 18, United States 12
Code; U.S. v. Menendez, 291 F. Supp. 606, 621–23 13
(D. N.J. 2018). Law enforcement in several States 14
have prosecuted cases that involve bribes directed to 15
super PACs. However, bribery is notoriously difficult 16
to prosecute, and these laws do not adequately pro-17
tect American voters from corruption. 18
(7) Without reasonable limitations on contribu-19
tions, super PACs create an appearance of corrup-20
tion. A bipartisan majority of Americans believe that 21
large super PAC contributions are made in exchange 22
for political favors, and that corruption is pervasive 23
in the Federal Government. This is, as the Supreme 24
Court recognized in Buckley v. Valeo, ‘‘disastrous’’ 25
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to ‘‘confidence in the system of representative gov-1
ernment’’ 424 U.S. 1, 27 (1976). 2
(8) Placing limits on super PAC contributions 3
will also lessen the risk of foreign interference in 4
United States elections, making it more difficult for 5
foreign entities to funnel contributions to super 6
PACs via third-party contributors. 7
(9) SpeechNow.org v. FEC, 599 F.3d 686 8
(D.C. Cir. 2010), the appellate court case that void-9
ed existing contribution limits to super PACs, 10
wrongly treated contributions as expenditures and 11
wrongly assumed that because uncoordinated inde-12
pendent expenditures cannot give rise to quid pro 13
quo corruption, that contributions to independent 14
expenditure committees similarly cannot give rise to 15
corruption. But they can and do. 16
(10) In the 14 years since SpeechNow un-17
leashed billions of dollars in unregulated contribu-18
tions, super PACs have obtained unprecedented 19
wealth and value to candidate campaigns and can fa-20
cilitate vast, nearly untraceable corrupt transactions. 21
(11) Because Super PACs have become unique-22
ly important to candidate campaigns and can accept 23
millions and even hundreds of millions of dollars 24
from single entities, candidates and contributors 25
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have reason and opportunity to guide corrupt con-1
tributions into super PACs, establishing a significant 2
risk of corruption and creating an appearance of 3
corruption that undermines the public’s faith in 4
their representatives and our political system. 5
(12) Reasonable limits on contributions to 6
super PACs are lawful and necessary to protect 7
American democracy and American voters. 8
(b) P
URPOSE.—It is the purpose of this Act— 9
(1) to limit the risk of corrupt agreements be-10
tween candidates and contributors by placing rea-11
sonable limits on contributions to political action 12
committees that make independent expenditures; 13
(2) to limit the appearance of corruption cre-14
ated by uncapped contributions to political action 15
committees that make independent expenditures; 16
and 17
(3) to restore the public’s faith in our elections. 18
SEC. 3. LIMITATION ON CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDEPENDENT 19
EXPENDITURE COMMITTEES. 20
(a) L
IMITATIONS.—Section 315(a)(1)(C) of the Fed-21
eral Election Campaign Act of 1971 (52 U.S.C. 22
30116(a)(1)(C)) is amended by striking ‘‘to any other po-23
litical committee’’ and inserting ‘‘to an independent ex-24
penditure committee or any other political committee’’. 25
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(b) DEFINITION.—Section 301 of such Act (52 1
U.S.C. 30101) is amended by adding at the end the fol-2
lowing: 3
‘‘(27) I
NDEPENDENT EXPENDITURE COM -4
MITTEE.— 5
‘‘(A) I
N GENERAL.—The term ‘inde-6
pendent expenditure committee’ means a polit-7
ical committee which— 8
‘‘(i) makes independent expenditures 9
aggregating $5,000 or more during a cal-10
endar year; or 11
‘‘(ii) makes contributions to other 12
independent expenditure committees aggre-13
gating $5,000 or more during a calendar 14
year. 15
‘‘(B) T
REATMENT OF SEPARATE AC -16
COUNTS.—The term ‘independent expenditure 17
committee’ includes an account of a political 18
committee which is established for the purpose 19
of making independent expenditures or con-20
tributions to other committees making inde-21
pendent expenditures.’’. 22
(c) E
FFECTIVEDATE.—The amendments made by 23
this section shall apply with respect to contributions and 24
independent expenditures made during the first calendar 25
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year which begins after the date of the enactment of this 1
Act and each succeeding calendar year. 2
Æ
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