§30118 Contributions or Expenditures by National Banks, Corporations, or Labor Organizations

Summary

Banks, corporations, and labor unions must not give money or other things of value to influence many elections. They cannot make contributions or spend money for elections to political office or for primaries, conventions, or caucuses that pick candidates for those offices. Candidates, campaign groups, or anyone else must not accept contributions that these rules ban. Company or union officers must not agree to their organization making a banned contribution or expenditure. A "labor organization" means a group that employees use to deal with employers about pay, hours, or work conditions. A "contribution or expenditure" includes money, loans, services, or anything of value, except normal bank loans made under banking law. But corporations and labor unions may communicate with their own stockholders, executives, or members and their families on subjects generally, run nonpartisan voter registration or get-out-the-vote drives aimed at those groups, and set up and run a separate segregated political fund (often called an SSF). That fund must not use force, threats, job penalties, required dues, or money from commercial deals to get money. People who ask employees for money for the fund must tell them the fund is political and that giving is voluntary and they will not be punished for refusing. Corporations and their SSFs may normally solicit only stockholders, executives, and their families. Labor organizations and their SSFs may normally solicit only members and their families. A corporation or labor group may send up to two written mail solicitations in a year to workers or stockholders, and such mailings must be designed so the group cannot tell who gave $50 or less in response. Membership groups, cooperatives, and trade associations have their own limited exceptions and rules. Corporations that use a particular way to collect voluntary contributions must make that same method available on written request and at cost to a labor union that represents workers for that corporation. "Executive or administrative personnel" means salaried workers with policymaking, managerial, professional, or supervisory jobs. An "applicable electioneering communication" is a political communication paid for by the groups covered above or by someone using money given by those groups. A section 501(c)(4) organization (a tax-exempt social welfare group or one applying for that status) that pays for a communication with business-derived funds or money from those covered groups is treated as if the covered group paid for it, unless the communication is paid from a segregated account made only of individual contributions. Making a payment includes signing a contract to pay.