Supreme Court strikes down limits on campaign coordination between political parties and candidates
by Stephen Dinan · The Washington TimesThe Supreme Court gave approval Tuesday for political parties to coordinate their spending with their candidates, saying a long-standing bar on coordination violates core First Amendment speech rights.
The 6-3 decision doesn’t necessarily change how much money will be raised and spent, but it does change how the major party operations such as the Democratic National Committee or the National Republican Congressional Committee can spend it.
In particular, it means the parties can try to wield more influence over candidates.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee who wrote the key opinion, reaffirmed the notion that campaign spending is a type of speech protected by the First Amendment.
The decision erases a 2001 precedent that had upheld limits on coordinated spending. Justice Kavanaugh said that the previous ruling, known as the Colorado II case, has aged poorly and can no longer survive constitutional scrutiny.
“In short, constitutional text, history, and precedent establish that the political-party coordinated-expenditure limits violate the First Amendment,” he wrote.
The case is the latest in a string of rulings from the Roberts Court that have allowed expansive freedom in political campaign spending, erasing both Supreme Court precedents and much of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as McCain-Feingold after its two most prominent sponsors.
Justice Kavanaugh said Tuesday’s decision creates a “level playing field” for all political parties, and there’s no reason why one party would benefit more than another.
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Still, it was Republican committees who pushed for the decision, and Democratic committees that had urged the high court to stick with its 2001 precedent.
Justice Elena Kagan led the dissent for the court’s three Democratic appointees, saying the danger of corruption from coordinated spending was too real to ignore.
Because donors can give more to political parties than to individual candidates, she said there’s an incentive to funnel money through the parties, though earmarked for the candidates.
She said Congress had that corruption in mind when it imposed limits on coordination, and she said the Constitution should allow lawmakers to rein it in.
“The First Amendment permits campaign finance restrictions that are narrowly tailored to protect against quid pro quo corruption and its appearance. Caps on a party’s coordinated expenditures pass that test with flying colors,” she wrote.
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Vice President J.D. Vance helped bring the lawsuit when he was serving in the Senate.
President Trump cheered the decision.
“The Supreme Court just took restrictions off political spending! A BIG WIN FOR REPUBLICANS and, more importantly, The First Amendment! President!” he wrote on social media.
Groups that back more campaign finance limits decried the ruling, saying they fear a flood of corrupt money going to parties with every expectation the parties will send it to candidates — with marching orders to do the wealthy owners’ business.
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“By eliminating these critical guardrails, the Court has opened the floodgates to unlimited political spending that will drown out the voices of everyday Americans,” said Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters.
The decision reflects a massive change in the court’s approach to campaign finance laws.
In the 1990s and early in the new century, the justices gave substantial deference to Congress in crafting restrictions. That included upholding most of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, or McCain-Feingold, after its chief sponsors, in 2003.
But in 2010, the court delivered its Citizens United ruling upending much of its 2003 decision. That trend continued with the 2014 McCutcheon decision and another 2022 ruling expanding the role of parties in political fundraising and spending.
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