The US Supreme Court on Monday dejected Federal limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates ruled by a 6-3 vote that the restrictions violate the law First AmendmentProtecting freedom of expression.
The decision in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission overturns the court’s 2001 decision FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committeewhich had confirmed the caps on coordinated expenditure as a permissible anti-corruption measure.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote on behalf of the majority that the limits on coordinated spending under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) are “disproportionate” and not “necessary” or “narrowly tailored” to serve the government’s interest in preventing circumvention of the basic contribution limits. The majority concluded that basic contribution limits, earmarking rules, and disclosure requirements are sufficient to prevent quid pro quo corruption without simultaneously restricting party expression.
Citing the Supreme Court’s 1976 decision in Buckley vs. ValeoKavanaugh wrote:
Because “virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money,” “limiting the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during an election campaign necessarily reduces the amount of expression by limiting the number of topics discussed, the depth of their engagement, and the size of the audience reached.”
Under FECA there were national party committees limited to expenses between $65,300 and $130,600 in coordination with individual House candidates and between $130,600 and about $4 million for Senate candidates, with a cap of about $32 million for a presidential candidate.
The majority rejected four possible justifications for the caps: cutting campaign spending, preventing partisan influence on candidates, curbing “undue influence” from donors and preventing evasion of contribution limits. In the first three cases, the court found that they were either abandoned or foreclosed by recent precedent McCutcheon vs. FEC (2014) and FEC vs. Ted Cruz for Senate (2022). With respect to circumvention, the court acknowledged that the argument was “serious,” but found that existing earmarking and disclosure laws were adequate.
The court also noted the experience of states, noting that the majority of states do not impose coordinated spending limits on state-level parties and that “no evidence of corruption” through circumvention “exists.”
The case was originally filed in 2022 by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, then-Senate candidate JD Vance and then-Rep. Steve Chabot. Vice President Vance’s reputation remained intact as he still maintains an active candidacy declaration with the FEC declaring his intention to run for Senate in 2028, as well as an active campaign committee.
The U.S. government took the unusual step of siding with challengers by agreeing that Colorado II no longer retains its vitality and declining to defend the constitutionality of the limits. The court appointed attorney Roman Martinez as amicus curiae argue for it to uphold the judgment of the Sixth Circuit. The Democratic National Committee and the party’s Senate and House campaign committees intervened to defend the borders.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, warned that the decision would allow donors to avoid base contribution limits by routing funds through party committees. Kagan explained that joint fundraising committees already allow a single donor to write a check for $550,000 to a candidate’s victory fund. Prior to today’s decision, coordinated spending caps ensured that the majority of those funds went to general party operations rather than directly to the candidate’s campaign.
“Without limited coordinated spending, the party can serve as the candidate’s checking account,” Kagan wrote. She argued that earmark rules were inadequate because circumvention through joint fundraising committees did not require earmarks at all; All a donor needs to do is write a large check to the candidate’s victory fund, without specifying how the money will be spent.
Kagan also criticized the majority’s treatment You decided to get upof the doctrine that forces courts to follow judicial precedent, and writes that the decision “may join the parade of those who have recently overruled established law because a new majority has a new perspective on a consequential question.”
The ruling only applies to political parties, not outside groups. The court noted in a footnote that its decision did not address the separate legal limits on coordinated spending by super PACs, corporations or other nonpartisan organizations. The case was reversed and remanded to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
