Author’s Note: This is one of four pieces on how American politics ran representative government through a donor pipeline and decided “independent” means the candidate can headline the fundraiser while somebody else asks for the unlimited check. We’ll cover how we got here, how the machine works, what Washington calls corruption, and what might actually fix it, because public contempt apparently isn’t a binding form of oversight.
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America has developed an exquisitely sophisticated method for keeping big money away from political candidates. And we put it six feet to the left. That, roughly speaking, is the conceptual miracle behind the Super PAC.
As of September 7, 2026, an individual may contribute $3,500 per election directly to a federal candidate during the 2025–2026 election cycle. Three thousand five hundred dollars. That’s the regulated lane.
Perhaps that feels restrictive. Perhaps you own several houses, refer to aircraft as “the plane,” and have developed an urgent patriotic concern about maritime depreciation schedules.
Relax.
As of September 7, 2026, you may give an unlimited amount to a Super PAC, provided you’re otherwise a permissible source under federal law. Individuals can do it. Corporations can do it. Labor organizations can do it. Other political committees can do it.
The Super PAC may then spend unlimited amounts advocating the election or defeat of federal candidates.
What it can’t do is simply hand that unlimited money to the candidate. The FEC states plainly that Super PACs cannot make contributions to candidates. Because that would be too obvious. The constitutional magic word is independent.
Under federal law, an independent expenditure advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate without being made in coordination with that candidate, the candidate’s campaign or a political party. Direct contributions can be limited because of corruption concerns. But truly independent political advocacy receives much stronger First Amendment protection.
Fine.
Then America handed the definition of “independent” to lawyers.
Federal regulations use tests involving who paid for a communication, what the communication contains, and whether certain kinds of interaction occurred between the spender and the candidate or campaign. If the legal requirements for coordination are satisfied, the spending may become an in-kind contribution subject to contribution limits and prohibitions.
There are rules involving requests, suggestions, substantial discussions, material involvement, former campaign personnel and shared vendors. But there are also exceptions and safe harbors. Because nothing reassures the American voter that two political operations are completely separate quite like fourteen paragraphs explaining how they may legally know one another.
Two organizations supporting the same candidate shouldn’t automatically be considered coordinated merely because both watch the candidate’s speeches, read public statements or understand what the campaign is talking about. Otherwise independent political advocacy would become nearly impossible.
The practical problem is that unlimited political spending becomes constitutionally special largely because it’s supposedly independent, which gives everyone involved an extraordinary incentive to walk directly up to the coordination line, hire counsel, examine the paint, and place a folding chair beside it.
Then we reach the part that sounds like something I invented. I didn’t.
As of September 7, 2026, a federal candidate or officeholder may raise money for a Super PAC, but the candidate’s own solicitation must remain within federally permissible limits, generally no more than $5,000 from an individual per calendar year for that committee.
But here comes the best part. The candidate personally can’t solicit an unlimited Super PAC contribution. However, the candidate may attend, speak at, and appear as a featured guest at a Super PAC fundraiser where the Super PAC solicits unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and labor organizations.
Read those two sentences together. At that same fundraiser, the Super PAC itself can ask those same donors for unlimited money, which makes “independent” sound less like distance and more like a lawyer-approved seating chart.
That’s the Federal Election Commission’s guidance.
Imagine Senator Wonderful headlining a fundraiser for Liberty Prosperity Eagle PAC, which is spending $20 million to convince voters his opponent once looked suspiciously unpatriotic near a tractor. Everyone in the room knows whom the PAC exists to elect, everyone knows whose prospects improve when another eight-figure check lands, and as long as the senator limits what he personally solicits, the PAC can keep raising unlimited money and remain legally “independent.”
That doesn’t prove anyone bought Senator Wonderful’s vote. It does make “independent” sound a little like a married couple claiming separate finances because only one of them knows the PIN.
People have a constitutional right to support candidates they agree with, and a large bank account doesn’t cancel the First Amendment. That’s why government needs a high bar before deciding somebody has spent enough on political speech, especially once you imagine handing that power to whichever president, Congress, or agency you trust least.
The absurdity isn’t protecting independent advocacy; it’s turning “independent” into a legal term so elastic that ordinary English needs campaign-finance counsel. And there are reforms that can tighten the machinery without giving government a mute button.
Coordination rules can focus more effectively on genuine strategic collaboration while protecting ordinary political advocacy. Candidate participation in Super PAC fundraising can be restricted further where constitutionally permissible. Major contributions and expenditures can be disclosed rapidly enough that voters learn who’s financing the election before they vote rather than during the archaeological excavation afterward.
And enforcement has to carry consequences substantial enough that crossing the coordination line is a terrible business decision. None of that requires silencing citizens. It means making independent describe the actual relationship, instead of whatever the lawyers managed to write on the paperwork.
If unlimited spending gets special legal protection because it is supposedly separate from the candidate, then the separation should be real. “Independent” shouldn’t mean the candidate works the room while someone else handles the unlimited check.
Otherwise, we haven’t separated candidates from unlimited money. We’ve just taught everyone which fork to use.
Tammy’s Reading Assignment for Anyone Whose Eyebrows Have Left the Premises
Federal regulators have graciously documented the following arrangement themselves, which continues to reduce my workload considerably.
- Federal Election Commission, Contribution Limits for 2025–2026
https://www.fec.gov/updates/contribution-limits-for-2025-2026/ - Federal Election Commission, Contributions to Super PACs and Hybrid PACs
https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/taking-receipts-pac/contributions-to-super-pacs-and-hybrid-pacs/ - Federal Election Commission, Limits on Contributions Made by Nonconnected PACs
https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements-pac/contribution-limits-nonconnected-pacs/ - Federal Election Commission, Understanding Independent Expenditures
https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/understanding-independent-expenditures/ - Federal Election Commission, Coordinated Communications
https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/coordinated-communications/ - Federal Election Commission, Fundraising for Super PACs by Federal Candidates
https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements-pac/fundraising-super-pacs-federal-candidates-nonconnected-pac/
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Tammy Pondsmith writes because Washington turned the word independent into a legal achievement worthy of its own parking space.
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