Campaign finance limits

GOP takes aim at campaign finance limits in big Supreme Court test

The Supreme Court will hear a Republican-led case on Tuesday that would allow party-aligned groups to coordinate more closely with campaigns.

By Andrew Howard

Republicans are hoping to secure another landmark Supreme Court win undoing campaign finance limits.

The court will hear a case Tuesday that could upend how campaigns and party-affiliated groups coordinate their spending, fundamentally changing how party committees spend tens of millions of dollars every election cycle, particularly on TV advertising in congressional races. The GOP is seeking to overturn federal limits on coordinated spending between parties and candidates. A ruling ending those coordination rules would allow party groups to pour unlimited sums of money into ads across the country, potentially at a cheaper rate.

Republicans’ top congressional campaign committees — the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee — brought the case with then-Senate candidate JD Vance in 2022, arguing that federal law limiting coordination between candidates and political parties violates the First Amendment.

“The government should not restrict a party committee’s support for its own candidates,” NRCC Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) and NRSC Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said in a statement when the court decided it would hear the case. In their petition to the court, the GOP’s lawyers say that current limits “burden core constitutional rights of political parties and candidates alike.”

It’s a full circle moment for Vance, who as the RNC’s finance chair has enormous gatekeeping power over how the party’s money is spent.

“This will further empower the national party leadership, which will have even more ability to influence races for Congress,” said Daniel Weiner, director of the elections and government program at the liberal-leaning advocacy group the Brennan Center for Justice, which opposes Vance’s case. “It also encourages them, essentially, to become more like super PACs — to be very dependent on a handful of very large donors who then, people fear, would be better able to call the shots.”

A GOP victory in the case, NRSC v. FEC, would be the biggest campaign finance ruling since the 2010 Citizens United case that opened the floodgates to outside spending from corporations and unions and the 2014 McCutcheon decision that wiped out aggregate individual contribution limits.

Because the Justice Department made the unusual decision to not to defend the FEC, Democrats have intervened, and top party lawyer Marc Elias will argue the case Tuesday, supported by the Democratic National Committee and the party’s congressional campaign arms.

If the Supreme Court sides with Republicans, “It is just going to fundamentally change how campaigns are financed, who is able to run for office, and whose voices matter in getting messaging out to the American voters,” Elias Law Group partner Jacquelyn Lopez told POLITICO.

Party committees can currently coordinate with candidates for between $63,600 and $127,200 in spending for House races, and $127,200 to $3,946,100 for Senate races, depending on the size of the district or state. Those funds often go to purchasing television ads, which are cheaper when bought in concert with a campaign than entirely by outside groups. Once party committees reach those limits, they can continue to support candidates through more costly independent expenditures.

If the limits on coordinated spending are overturned, party groups would dramatically accelerate their purchase of ad time. That could advantage Republicans, who generally rely less on small-donor fundraising than Democrats do. While individual donors can only give up to $3,500 to a campaign per election, they can send donations up to $44,300 per year to national party committees.

Since Citizens United, the Supreme Court has continued to chip away at campaign finance limits. It ruled in favor of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a case he brought that allows candidates to use donations to repay loans from candidates. And both parties have used joint fundraising committees to save cash on TV ads after the FEC chose to not crack down on the loophole.

Both parties have already started planning for a potential ruling from the court, especially given the case’s timing. The 2026 cycle will be well underway if the justices issue a decision with other high-profile cases in June, as is typical for the top cases of a term.

By taking the case at all, the court has continued its trend of being the regulator of campaign finance issues, said Jeff Clements, CEO of American Promise, which advocates for a constitutional amendment to curb spending in politics. More than 70 percent of Americans think “the role of money in politics” is a big problem, according to a February survey from Pew, and Clements points to the court as a reason for that.

“This constant invitation to the big big spenders and the parties to come before the court if they don’t like a rule” is a problem, Clements said. “Why is the court even doing this?”