Much of the confusion regarding corporations contributing to candidates originates from the disclosure process and tools designed to inform citizens in addition to the public debate over the Citizen’s United decision. The FEC requires committees to disclose the name, address, occupation and employer of contributors who give over $200 per election. Some publications and databases aggregate contribution data for employers and suggest that the employer itself contributed the money.
For example: if a campaign receives ten separate $2,000 contributions from employees of Microsoft, a publication may list “Microsoft” as a $20,000 contributor to the campaign[1]. There are two reasons why this interpretation of the facts is incorrect.
First, a corporation may not make direct contributions to a candidate. If a list includes “Microsoft” as a contributor it must mean either Microsoft’s political action committee or employees of Microsoft contributing as individuals. Second, $20,000 is larger than most entities can contribute. A PAC can usually give $10,000 ($5,000 per election for a primary and general election) and individuals can usually give $5,000 ($2,500 per election) but amounts larger than that are usually limited to coming from political parties.
The correct interpretation is that ten employees of Microsoft individually contributed. As a corporation, Microsoft cannot give directly to a candidate. It may be useful to know how individual employees of a corporation are contributing, but it is misleading to imply any sort of official endorsement or financial support.
Return to Common Misconceptions
[1] "Goldman Sachs Was Top Obama Donor." CNN. 20 Apr. 2010. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. <http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-20/politics/obama.goldman.donations_1_obama-campaign-presidential-campaign-federal-election-commission-figures?_s=PM:POLITICS>.
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