Policy Alert: Supreme Court to Review Political Campaign Spending Limits

Action: On May 19, the Administration notified the Supreme Court that it will not defend a Federal campaign finance law that restricts the amount of money that political parties can spend in coordination with a candidate. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) filed a petition for review late last year asking the Supreme Court to strike down the coordinated party expenditure limits, which former US Solicitor General Noel Francisco, representing the NRSC, argued, “run afoul of modern campaign-finance doctrine and burden parties’ and candidates’ core political rights.”

The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by then-Senator JD Vance, along with former Representative Steve Chabot (R-OH), arguing that Federal limits on coordinated party expenditures violate the First Amendment. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has already determined that the spending limits do not violate the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause.

Key Insights

• The finance regulations at issue resulted from the Supreme Court’s 2001 decision in Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, in which the Court rejected a challenge to coordinated campaign expenditures. The NRSC claimed they were not bound by the Colorado ruling because Congress amended the law in 2014 to permit “unlimited coordinated expenditures for certain activities, such as ‘election recounts’” and “’other legal proceedings.’”
• The NRSC makes two arguments in favor of overruling the Sixth Circuit. First, it contends that the Court’s decisions since the Colorado ruling have narrowed the reasons Congress can restrict campaign spending to the single goal of preventing “quid pro quo” style corruption, while the enacted limits, as well as the 2001 decision, are based on preventing the circumvention of contribution limits by individual donors. Second, campaign spending has changed drastically in recent decades, with limits on coordinated party expenditures leading to the rise of super PACs.
• In particular, the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations, as well as other groups, to give unlimited contributions. Subsequently, an appellate court decision (Speechnow.org v. FEC) led to the proliferation of super PACs, outside groups that can raise and spend unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, and special interest groups on communications regarding candidates.
• According to the NRSC’s petition, restrictions on campaign finance coordination has “harmed our political system by leading donors to send their funds elsewhere, fueling “the rise of narrowly focused “super 'PACs”” and an attendant “fall of political parties' power” in the political marketplace, which has contributed to a spike in political polarization and fragmentation across the board.”