Supreme Court to hear Vance, GOP effort to strike down campaign finance provision
by Zach Schonfeld
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up Vice President Vance and GOP committees’ bid to strike down federal limits on political parties’ spending made in coordination with campaigns.
It sets the stage for a major campaign finance battle during the court’s next annual term, which begins in October.
Twenty-four years ago, the Supreme Court upheld “coordinated party expenditure limits,” which were originally passed as part of broader campaign finance reforms in the 1970s.
As a senator, Vance in 2022 commenced a new attempt to topple the limits under the First Amendment’s free speech protections by suing alongside former Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
In their petition to the high court, the plaintiffs said it is “past time” to clarify the earlier decision or overrule it outright.
“And it likely marks the last chance this Court will get to tackle the question for quite some time, as neither committees nor candidates will squander their limited resources on another challenge if this petition is denied,” their attorneys at Jones Day wrote.
The challenged provision limits how the Republican National Committee, Democratic National Committee (DNC) and committees can spend their funds when they’re cooperating with a candidate.
The Supreme Court has invalidated limits on committees’ spending made independently from campaigns under the First Amendment, but it has declined to do so for coordinated expenses.
In 2024, committees could spend between $123,600 and roughly $3.8 million in coordination with Senate candidates and between $61,800 and $123,600 for House candidates, depending on the size of their state.
The Trump administration abandoned defending the provision’s constitutionality and supported Vance’s ask that the Supreme Court to take up the challenge.
“A party performs that function most effectively in cooperation with the candidates themselves. By restricting that cooperation, the party-expenditure limit severely burdens the rights of parties and candidates alike,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court filings, telling the justices they should appoint outside counsel to argue the other side.
Days later, the DNC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee jointly asked to be the ones to defend the spending limits, a move no one opposed.
“The Solicitor General’s reversal leaves the 50-year-old limitation on coordinated spending by political parties, and this Court’s 24-year-old precedent upholding it, entirely undefended before the Court,” it wrote in court filings.
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