# Leadership PAC A **Leadership PAC** is a [[Political Action Committee]] established and controlled by a **current or aspiring officeholder** to raise money for purposes *other than* their own campaign — chiefly to **donate to other candidates** and thereby accumulate influence, loyalty, and leadership-position support within their party. A leadership PAC is legally separate from the politician's own campaign committee, which lets it raise an additional pot of money beyond campaign limits. [[Members of Congress Hub]] use them to fund colleagues' races (building chits toward a chairmanship or leadership post), to keep a political operation running between elections, and — controversially — to pay for travel, dining, and other expenses with looser restrictions than campaign funds allow. Critics treat the looser spending rules as a recurring quasi-slush-fund problem. For this KB, leadership PACs are part of the **intra-party influence economy**: a way to read who is buying standing within the party hierarchy by tracking which members are bankrolling which colleagues. ## See Also - [[Political Action Committee]] — the base form - [[Super PACs]] — the unlimited independent-expenditure cousin - [[Hybrid PAC]] — two-account combination vehicle - [[Tax Code Hub]] — folder reader map