Supreme Court Strikes Down Limits on Coordinated Party Campaign Spending

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Watergate-era limits on how much political parties can spend in coordinated campaigns with their federal candidates. By a 6-3 vote, the court ruled that the restrictions violate the 1st Amendment.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote that the decision restores broad free speech protections. “For nearly 200 years after the ratification of the 1st Amendment, parties could spend freely to support their candidates during campaigns and could do so in coordination with the candidates,” he wrote.

The ruling gives an immediate advantage to Republican committees, which have $230 million available to spend this year compared with less than $120 million for Democratic committees. The limits originated in post-Watergate legislation and had been upheld by the court in a 5-4 decision in 2001.

The challenge began in 2022 when JD Vance, then running for Senate in Ohio, and Republican party committees filed suit.

An appeals court had upheld the limits based on the 2001 precedent, but the Supreme Court agreed last year to hear the case. The Trump administration sided with the challengers and argued the limits should be removed. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the decision allows circumvention of contribution limits.

“But today, the court rewrites the rules, to allow circumvention of the contribution limits ... and ushers back in the same opportunities for quid pro quo corruption that the contribution limits were meant to check,” she said. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the dissent.

Under current Federal Election Commission rules, an individual may give only $3,500 directly to a federal candidate but up to $132,900 to national party committees. The Democratic National Committee and attorney Marc Elias defended the limits, arguing that coordinated spending functions as a regulated contribution.