The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down limits on the amount that political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for office, notching a win for Republicans who argued the restrictions violated the First Amendment.
The 6-3 ruling, which was opposed by the court’s liberal justices, overturns coordinated-expenditure limits that had been in place for decades and withstood a previous legal challenge 25 years earlier.
In doing so, it further expands the role that money will play in American politics βa role that had already been enlarged by rulings lifting limits on independent campaign spending by parties and corporations.
Democratic Party organizations had opposed the challenge brought by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, arguing there was no Constitutional reason for the Supreme Court to convert parties’ “limited right into an unlimited one.”
But the court’s majority concluded, “the political-party coordinated-expenditure limits at issue here are ‘disproportionate'” and “not ‘necessary'” to satisfy the government’s interest in preventing the “circumvention of the base limits on contributions to candidates through earmarked contributions to parties.”
President Donald Trump took a victory lap after the ruling, writing on Truth Social, “The Supreme Court just took restrictions off political spending! A BIG WIN FOR REPUBLICANS and, more importantly, The First Amendment!”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, said the limits placed on parties’ campaign spending under the Federal Election Campaign Act “necessarily abridge political parties’ freedom of speech,” thus violating the First Amendment.
Kavanaugh stressed that the ruling “treats all political parties equally.”
“It will allow all political partiesβincluding the DNC and RNC and the respective Senate and House campaign committees, as well as other parties and party committeesβto participate more freely and compete more fully in the political process, and to coordinate more closely with their candidates,” he wrote.
But Democratic Party committee chairs slammed the ruling as “a win for billionaire donors and special interests who want more influence over the GOP agenda and an invitation for corruption.”
The decision could shake up existing spending dynamics between the two parties, especially regarding broadcast advertisements.
Political candidates benefit from a law allowing them to pay the lowest-available rate for TV ads, but political action committees do not. Republicans in recent election cycles have been more reliant on super PAC money than Democrats, resulting in pro-GOP-candidates’ ads sometimes costing significantly more, The New York Times has reported.
By freeing up parties to spend unlimited amounts in coordination with candidates, Tuesday’s ruling could enable Republicans to take greater advantage of the lower TV ad rates, dulling Democrats’ relative edge.
But Elias Law Group, which argued on behalf of Democrats in the Supreme Court appeal, preemptively argued against that shift.
“Republicans will now claim that this gives their national party committees access to the lowest unit rate for television advertising, but that is not what the law requires,” law group partners Jacquelyn Lopez and Rachel Jacobs said in a statement responding to the ruling.
“Even the Trump Administration’s own Solicitor General told the Supreme Court that broadcasters are required to offer those rates for candidate spending, not party spending, whether coordinated or independent.”
The partners added, “While we believe this case was wrongly decided, in the long run, Democratic campaigns will benefit from the level playing field this ruling provides.”