PAC Coordination Rules: What Counts as Coordinated Spending

Coordinated spending is one of the most consequential distinctions in federal campaign finance law, determining whether a PAC's expenditure is treated as an in-kind contribution subject to strict limits or as an independent expenditure that can be made in unlimited amounts. The Federal Election Commission has developed a multi-part regulatory framework under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) to define when a communication crosses the line from independent to coordinated. Understanding that framework — its definitions, the tests it applies, and where the boundaries remain contested — is essential for any PAC operating in federal elections.

• Definition and Scope
• Core Mechanics or Structure
• Causal Relationships or Drivers
• Classification Boundaries
• Tradeoffs and Tensions
• Common Misconceptions
• Checklist or Steps
• Reference Table or Matrix

Definition and Scope

Under 11 C.F.R. § 109.20, the FEC defines a "coordinated communication" as a communication that (1) is paid for by a person other than the candidate or party committee and (2) is made in cooperation, consultation, or concert with — or at the request or suggestion of — a candidate, a candidate's authorized committee, or a political party committee. A coordinated expenditure counts as a contribution to the benefiting candidate's campaign, which means it is subject to the per-election contribution limits in 11 C.F.R. § 110.1 rather than the unlimited spending permitted for genuine independent expenditures.

The scope of coordination rules extends to all federal races — presidential, Senate, and House — and applies to connected PACs, nonconnected PACs, and Super PACs alike. A Super PAC that coordinates with a candidate transforms its unlimited spending into a capped in-kind contribution, a legal consequence that can produce a contribution-limit violation if the amount exceeds the applicable ceiling. The rules do not apply to purely internal PAC communications, candidate-to-candidate coordination, or expenditures made exclusively for state and local races not involving federal candidates.

The stakes are also punitive. The FEC can assess civil penalties, and knowing and willful violations of contribution limits can be referred to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution under 52 U.S.C. § 30109.

Core Mechanics or Structure

The FEC uses a two-part conjunctive test to determine coordination. Both parts must be satisfied for a communication to be deemed coordinated.

Part 1 — Content Test: The communication must satisfy at least one of three content standards:
- It expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified federal candidate.
- It is an electioneering communication (a broadcast, cable, or satellite ad that refers to a clearly identified candidate within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election, targeted to the relevant electorate).
- It is a "public communication" that promotes, supports, attacks, or opposes (PASO) a clearly identified federal candidate.

Part 2 — Conduct Test: The communication must also satisfy at least one of five conduct standards defined in 11 C.F.R. § 109.21:
1. The communication is made at the request or suggestion of the candidate or party.
2. The candidate or party requested or suggested that the spender make the communication.
3. The communication is made after material involvement by the candidate or party in decisions about the communication's content, timing, location, mode, intended audience, or similar factors.
4. The communication is made after the candidate or party has provided the funder with nonpublic information about polling, messaging, or strategy.
5. The communication is made by a common vendor or former employee who transferred nonpublic information from the candidate's campaign to the spender within 120 days of leaving the campaign.

If a communication satisfies the content test but none of the five conduct prongs, it is not coordinated under the FEC's framework, regardless of any informal relationship between the spender and the candidate.

Causal Relationships or Drivers

Several structural features of modern campaigns drive the legal relevance of coordination rules.

Information asymmetry and outsourcing: Campaigns frequently use specialized vendors for polling, media production, and digital advertising. When a PAC hires the same vendor that holds nonpublic campaign strategy data, the "common vendor" conduct prong is directly implicated. The 120-day cooling-off period was introduced precisely because vendor relationships create a conduit through which strategic information flows without explicit candidate-to-PAC communication.

The post-Citizens United environment: After the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), and the D.C. Circuit's ruling in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, 599 F.3d 686 (D.C. Cir. 2010), Super PACs emerged as vehicles for unlimited independent spending. The coordination prohibition is the structural mechanism that separates legitimate Super PAC activity from illegal in-kind contribution behavior. Without it, contribution limits would be rendered meaningless by simple outsourcing arrangements.

Party expenditure limits: For political party committees, separate coordination rules under 11 C.F.R. § 109.30–109.37 allow parties to make coordinated expenditures up to a statutory ceiling (adjusted for inflation each election cycle) rather than treating all coordination as a per se violation. This creates an asymmetry between party and non-party actors.

Classification Boundaries

The line between "coordinated" and "independent" is not always self-evident. Three boundary zones generate the most enforcement ambiguity:

Publicly available information: A PAC that copies messaging from a candidate's public website, public speeches, or FEC-filed documents is not coordinating under the conduct test — the information is not "nonpublic." The FEC's safe harbor for publicly available information is explicit in 11 C.F.R. § 109.21(d).

Pre-candidacy communications: Communications made before a person becomes a candidate are generally not subject to coordination analysis at the time of production, but the FEC examines whether the communication was used or reused after candidacy in a manner that satisfies the conduct prongs.

Firewall arrangements: Some organizations establish internal information barriers between their PAC operations and their candidate-facing staff. The FEC has issued advisory opinions acknowledging that properly constructed firewalls can mitigate the common-vendor and former-employee prongs, but no firewall eliminates liability if direct request-or-suggestion conduct is present.

For broader context on how coordination rules interact with overall PAC spending frameworks, the PAC Expenditure Rules page addresses permissible and impermissible spending categories in detail.

Tradeoffs and Tensions

Enforcement gap versus over-breadth: Critics from the reform community — including organizations such as the Campaign Legal Center — argue that the FEC's content-and-conduct two-part test creates too narrow a definition of coordination, allowing strategic alignment between Super PACs and campaigns that falls just short of the conduct prongs. Critics from the civil liberties perspective, including some First Amendment scholars, argue the rules are already broad enough to chill legitimate political speech when vendors or former employees are swept in automatically.

The 120-day rule's rigidity: The 120-day window for former employees and vendors applies regardless of whether any nonpublic information was actually transferred. This can capture relationships where the former employee had no access to relevant strategic data, penalizing organizational coincidence rather than actual information flow.

Party versus non-party asymmetry: Party committees may make coordinated expenditures up to a statutory ceiling and retain that spending as coordinated rather than converting it to a prohibited contribution. Non-party PACs have no equivalent safety valve — any coordination converts the entire expenditure into an in-kind contribution counted against the applicable limit.

Earmarking and intermediary complexity: When a donor earmarks a contribution to a PAC specifically for use benefiting a named candidate, separate earmarking rules under 11 C.F.R. § 110.6 apply. Earmarked funds pass through the PAC as if contributed directly to the candidate, implicating limits independent of the coordination analysis.

The tension between these frameworks is examined further in the discussion of PAC Independent Expenditures Explained and in the broader PAC vs. Super PAC comparison.

Common Misconceptions

Misconception 1: Knowing a candidate personally equals coordination.
The FEC's rules require satisfaction of a specific conduct prong. A PAC official who is a personal friend of a candidate and runs ads supporting that candidate has not coordinated unless one of the five conduct standards — request/suggestion, material involvement, nonpublic information, common vendor, or former employee — is met. Personal acquaintance is not a conduct prong.

Misconception 2: Identical messaging proves coordination.
Message similarity, even near-identical language, does not trigger coordination liability if the PAC derived its messaging from publicly available sources. The conduct test is not satisfied by content overlap alone.

Misconception 3: A Super PAC can never coordinate with anyone.
Super PACs can freely coordinate with donors, outside consultants who have no campaign relationship, and other unaffiliated groups. The prohibition is on coordination with the specific candidate being supported (or opposed) and that candidate's authorized committee or party committee. A Super PAC may also make contributions directly to PACs subject to the applicable limits under 11 C.F.R. § 110.3, a different transaction type entirely.

Misconception 4: Coordinated spending is always illegal.
Coordinated spending is not per se illegal — it is re-classified as an in-kind contribution and must fall within the relevant contribution limit. A coordinated expenditure of $500 to a House candidate is legal if the PAC has not exceeded its $5,000 per-election contribution ceiling (11 C.F.R. § 110.1(b)). The violation arises only when the reclassified contribution exceeds the applicable limit.

Checklist or Steps

The following sequence reflects the analytical framework applied by FEC staff and compliance practitioners when evaluating whether a proposed expenditure constitutes coordinated spending.

Step 1 — Identify the communication type.
Determine whether the proposed communication is an express advocacy message, an electioneering communication (30/60-day broadcast window), or a PASO public communication. If none of these content standards applies, the coordination rules under 11 C.F.R. § 109.21 do not apply.

Step 2 — Identify all persons involved in production.
List every vendor, consultant, former employee, and internal staff member who participated in developing the communication, including polling firms, media buyers, digital agencies, and scriptwriters.

Step 3 — Determine candidate or party committee connections.
For each person identified in Step 2, establish whether that person has worked for or provided services to the supported (or opposed) candidate's authorized committee or relevant party committee within the 120-day window preceding the communication.

Step 4 — Assess information exposure.
For any person with a campaign or party connection, determine whether that person had access to nonpublic information — polling data, messaging strategy, opposition research, targeting models — during their engagement with the campaign or party.

Step 5 — Examine direct contact records.
Review all email, phone, and meeting records between PAC officers and campaign or party personnel for any request, suggestion, or material involvement in communication decisions. Document the absence of such contacts as part of the compliance record.

Step 6 — Apply the safe harbor for public information.
Confirm whether any messaging elements were derived exclusively from publicly available campaign materials, public statements, or FEC-filed disclosures. Document the public sources used.

Step 7 — Classify and record.
If no conduct prong is satisfied, classify the expenditure as an independent expenditure and file the required independent expenditure report under 11 C.F.R. § 104.4. If a conduct prong is satisfied, reclassify as a coordinated expenditure (in-kind contribution), verify compliance with the applicable contribution limit, and report accordingly.

Full PAC reporting obligations — including independent expenditure thresholds and disclosure timing — are covered in the PAC FEC Reporting Requirements section, which is part of the broader PAC Compliance Program framework available across this reference network. The homepage provides orientation to the full scope of federal PAC regulatory topics covered.

Reference Table or Matrix

Coordination Analysis: Conduct Prong Summary

Coordinated vs. Independent Expenditure: Regulatory Consequences