In a case out of Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down limits on the amount of money political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates. Those limits had been in place since the 1970s and were created in response to corruption within the Nixon administration.
Since then, court decisions like Citizens United have chipped away at campaign finance restrictions in the name of free speech.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for a 6-3 majority, placed significant emphasis on political parties’ First Amendment rights.
“The Constitution’s text matters,” he wrote. “Contrary to that text, the political-party coordinated-expenditure limitations directly abridge the freedom of speech of political parties.”
Political parties and affiliated campaign committees could already spend an unlimited amount of money in races, but those expenditures had to be done independently. The decision means they’ll now be able to coordinate messaging with their favored candidates.
Many observers criticized the decision as yet another example of the high court weakening campaign finance laws. But others suggested it might not be that bad. If giving to parties is more effective, more donors might choose that path, which requires more disclosure than the Super PACs and dark money groups which have come to play an increasingly prominent role in politics.
Where the case began
Four days before the 2022 general election, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, J.D. Vance and U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot filed a lawsuit in Ohio challenging the limit on coordinated spending.
Two campaign committees focused on electing Republicans to Congress, National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, signed on, too.
Vance would go on to win his race. Chabot would not.
The plaintiffs are notable, because in both cases their Democratic opponent was able to outraise them — in Vance’s case, dramatically so.
Despite a $15 million boost from venture capitalist Peter Thiel, during the summer of 2022, some Republicans were wringing their hands over Vance’s sluggish fundraising. In the end his opponent, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, raised $56.4 million; Vance brought in just $15.2 million.
In their initial court filing, Vance, Chabot, and the GOP committees, warned limits on parties’ coordinated spending pose substantial harm to “core First Amendment-protected activities.”
“And this harm has only grown starker in recent years,” they wrote, “as the rise of spending by Super PACs and other outside groups — which, unlike party committees, can engage in unlimited fundraising to influence voters — has diminished the parties’ role in the political landscape.”
Notably, Republican-aligned Super PACs poured tens of millions of dollars into Ohio to help Vance across the finish line.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision and reactions
In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case out of Colorado in which it upheld the statute limiting coordinated spending between parties and candidates.
When the case involving Vance and Chabot made it before The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges again upheld those limits, citing the 2001 decision.
“But in a series of insightful opinions,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote, “a majority of the judges on the Court of Appeals questioned that precedent in light of more recent First Amendment decisions.”
Kavanaugh reasoned that subsequent campaign finance decisions have hollowed out that earlier decision to the point that it’s “akin to a three-legged stool where all three legs have already been knocked out.”
In years since, he wrote, the court has employed more stringent analysis of first amendment cases and narrowed the scope of permissible restrictions to fighting quid pro quo corruption.
Some parties to the case argued the issue was moot and the court shouldn’t weigh in.
The Trump administration had already decided it wouldn’t defend the coordination limits, and an executive branch agency, the Federal Elections Commission, is charged with enforcing the rules.
Does Vice President Vance really face a threat of enforcement from the administration’s own agency? And after all, he’s no longer a candidate for office, right?
Kavanaugh wrote the court “need not speculate” on Vance’s potential future runs for office.
The Vice President, widely seen as a likely presidential contender in 2028, has maintained his campaign account and statement of candidacy for the U.S. Senate, Kavanaugh insisted.
Defenders of the coordination limits argued they keep donors from circumventing contribution limits by giving to the party with directions to funnel it to a given candidate — a practice known as earmarking. But Kavanaugh dismissed that argument.
Between contribution limits, earmarking rules, and disclosure of donations, the government already has all the tools it needs to keep donors from evading campaign finance limits.
“Courts cannot simply say, ‘what’s the harm in allowing just one more regulation’ when that regulation would limit freedom of speech,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Last year, the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief defending the coordination limits along with the League of Women Voters and Common Cause.
CLC Founder and President Trevor Potter previously served as a Republican appointee and chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
After the decision, he said “Striking down these limits will enable wealthy individuals to give huge sums to party committees with every expectation that the money will be spent directly to benefit their preferred candidates. American voters will be the ones who pay the greatest price.”
League of Women Voters CEO Celina Stewart said the court had “opened the floodgates to unlimited political spending that will drown out the voices of everyday Americans,” and Common Cause President Virginia Kase Solomon said the decision “invited even more corruption into our elections and further tilted the scales against the American people.”
On the other hand, NYU School of Law Professor Samuel Isaacharoff called the decision “a welcome correction.”
The 2001 U.S. Supreme Court case upholding coordination limits placed caps on parties but left outside groups with few restrictions. That didn’t mean donors stopped spending, Isaacharoff wrote, they simply stopped giving to parties. As a result, single-issue or candidate-specific groups have taken on a larger and larger role — to our detriment, Isaacharoff contends.
“Weakening parties relative to unaccountable outside spenders does not reduce the influence of money in politics,” he wrote. “It severs influence from responsibility. A Super PAC owes nothing to a platform, a coalition, or a future election in the way a party does.”
This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com
