Despite varying estimates, few doubt that Democrats are the primary beneficiaries. In 1996, attention focused on interest groups and party spending that did not meet the law's criteria for election-related activity, but that some saw as having the intent to influence federal races. By not using express advocacy language, groups could communicate to the public to foster more positive or negative views of public officials, who also happened to be candidates. As 'non-election' activity, this spending can be funded in any amount from any source and is not subject to uniform disclosure rules. This method emerged on the electoral scene in the 1996 elections as media advertisements on the merits of candidates in conjunction with issue positions.
Most spending appears to have been by issue groups and parties.
While election law prohibitions specify corporations, this report often uses the broader term business, to include trade associations and other groups that are business- oriented, in order to reflect better today's political practices. In any case, as corporations, all these groups otherwise referred to as business-related are equally covered by election law regulations. Lacking hard data, and understanding the difficulty in further categorization, the author deleted such groups as the National Rifle Association and National Organization for Women and others apparently not business- oriented. Subjective judgement was used, but the deletion of 89 of 838 PACs conforms to most estimates. These data are not exactly comparable to those of other studies cited, as they include donations by individuals associated with business.