U. S. election and tax records have indicated that a dozen Tea Party political action committees and 24 Tea Party fundraising committees have raised little money.

USA Today has reported that the Tea Party-affiliated PAC raising the most money, $4.4 million so far in this election cycle, is TeaPartyExpress. org, run by Republican Party veterans including consultant Sal Russo, an aide to Ronald Reagan when he was California's governor.

The newspaper said that the other PACs and fundraising committees have raised much less.

The newspaper also said that Tea Party leaders say they are building the political groundwork to aid candidates, from local sheriffs' races to congressional contexts, in November.

Costas Panagopoulos, director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy at New York's Fordham University, told the newspaper that no matter how large, Tea Party fundraising suggests Tea Party activists "are serious ... and understand that parties, including small upstart parties, need money."

PACs can collect no more than $5,000 a year from an individual.

It has also been reported that by contrast, fundraising committees, known as 527 organizations for the section of the tax code they operate under, are not regulated by the Federal Election Commission or by state elections commissions and can raise unlimited amounts of money.

The report also noted that the Tea Party movement emerged in 2009 through a series of locally and nationally coordinated protests. (With Inputs from Agencies)