“I don’t believe democracy should be for sale to billionaires and giant corporations. I don’t take corporate PAC money. Shoot, I don’t take PAC money of any kind.”

— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), during a campaign event in Des Moines, Jan. 5

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“You need to distinguish between normal PACs and super PACs,” said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford University law professor who was a co-author of the BPC report. “Normal PACs still give some money to candidates, but it is in discrete amounts. They get drowned out by super PACs, which can receive unlimited sums from virtually any domestic source, but which cannot coordinate with a candidate. The more interesting question will be whether Warren actively prevents a super PAC from forming that would support her.”

Super PACS emerged in the wake of the 2010 Supreme Court ruling and are the repositories of potentially unlimited funds, raised from very wealthy individuals. Persily noted that a super PAC supporting former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) raised more than $100 million during his unsuccessful bid for the presidency.