Supreme Court Strikes Down Limits on Coordinated Political Party Spending

In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, 609 U.S. ____ (2026), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Federal Election Campaign Act’s restrictions on a political party’s spending on campaign activities in coordination with candidates violate the First Amendment. The justices divided 6-3 along ideological lines.

Facts of the Case

The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) restricts a political party’s coordinated expenditures—that is, a political party’s spending on campaign activities in coordination with candidates. As the Supreme Court explained, a political party’s coordinated expenditures are the party’s expenditures on, for example, advertisements produced or distributed in consultation with a candidate’s campaign. The primary justification for those limits is to prevent circumvention—that is, to prevent a donor from circumventing the statutory limits on contributions to candidates by making a large contribution to a party that the party then uses to support a particular candidate.

In Federal Election Comm’n v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm., 533 U.S. 431 (2001), (Colorado II), the Supreme Court upheld coordinated-expenditure limits as consistent with the First Amendment. The Court reasoned that limitations on spending coordinated by a party committee with its candidates was justified in part to curb a donor’s “undue influence on an officeholder’s judgment, and the appearance of such influence.”

In subsequent cases, including McCutcheon v. Federal Election Comm’n, 572 U.S. 185 (2014) and Federal Election Comm’n v. Ted Cruz for Senate, 596 U.S. 289 (2022), the Supreme Court rejected undue influence as a permissible basis for the Government to regulate campaign finances and limit political speech and recognized “only one legitimate governmental interest for restricting campaign finances: preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

On November 4, 2022, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), then-Senator J.D. Vance, and then U.S. Representative Steven Chabot (collectively plaintiffs), filed suit against the Federal Election Commission alleging that FECA’s limits on coordinated party expenditures, including those under 52 U.S.C. § 30116(d), violate the First Amendment. Citing Colorado II, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected petitioners’ First Amendment challenge.

Supreme Court’s Decision

The Supreme Court reversed by a vote of 6-3, holding that “FECA’s limits on political parties’ coordinated expenditures violate the First Amendment.” In doing so, the Court overruled Colorado II. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote on behalf of the majority.

In reaching its decision, the majority emphasized that “Colorado II’s reasoning has been rejected by subsequent cases and is no longer good law in light of the Court’s more recent precedents.” It further cited its current First Amendment doctrine, under which the Court recognizes “only one legitimate governmental interest for restricting campaign finances: preventing [quid pro quo] corruption or the appearance of [quid pro quo] corruption.”

The majority also highlighted the important and traditional role of political parties during campaigns, noting “it is ‘natural for a party and its candidate to work together and consult with one another during the course of the election.’”

“To uphold the political-party coordinated-expenditure limits here could therefore help consign political parties to continued second-tier status as compared to outside groups,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “Weakened political parties distort the political system. And in the views of many, the relatively diminished political parties have ushered in increased political polarization and fragmentation.”

According to the majority, its decision “treats all political parties equally.” As Justice Kavanaugh explained, “It will allow all political parties—including the DNC and RNC and the respective Senate and House campaign committees, as well as other parties and party committees—to participate more freely and compete more fully in the political process, and to coordinate more closely with their candidates.”

In addition to rejecting the Court’s reasoning in Colorado II,the majority further found that party coordinated expenditure limits could not be upheld on an anticircumvention rationale given that “other less-speech-restrictive tools,” such as earmarking and disclosure law, were “available to the Government to prevent circumvention.” As Justice Kavanaugh explained:

To sum up: In light of the other meaningful prophylactic measures available to the Government, and given the severe infringement on First Amendment-protected political speech that ensues from limiting a political party’s spending in support of its candidates, we conclude that the political-party coordinated-expenditure limits are “disproportionate” and are not “necessary” and “narrowly tailored” for the circumvention interest it seeks to protect.

Dissent

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “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,” Justice Kagan argued. “The caps prevent easy circumvention of contribution limits; and so the former, as much as the latter, are needed to avert corrupt deals between candidates and their supporters.”

Justice Kagan further criticized the majority for its disregard for “the core legal principle of stare decisis.” She added: But there is a yet more important point here for the American political system: that the majority, also again, jettisons a rule needed to protect our democracy’s integrity.