Vice President-elect JD Vance and Republican committees asked the Supreme Court to overturn federal limits that restrict political parties from coordinating spending with candidates on the grounds that they violate the First Amendment.
Limits on contributions to candidates are much lower than they are to party committees such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which are also plaintiffs along with former Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio).
“A political party exists to get its candidates elected. Yet Congress has severely restricted how much parties can spend on their own campaign advertising if done in cooperation with those very candidates,” the plaintiffs wrote in the petition made public Friday.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) declined to comment on litigation.
While a candidate can only accept $3,300 per person per election during the 2024 cycle, the NRSC could take in as much as $578,200 from a single donor per cycle.
Limits on how much spending party committees can coordinate with candidates were originally set in part to guard against corruption and outsized influence from a small group of wealthy individuals.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in September ruled against Vance and the party committees, but only because the Supreme Court never overturned a 2001 decision upholding the limits.
“Even when the Supreme Court embraces a new line of reasoning in a given area and even when that reasoning allegedly undercuts the foundation of a decision, it remains the Court’s job, not ours, to overrule it,” Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote at the time.
The plaintiffs urged the court to take up the case and overturn the decision, arguing the limits are an affront to the First Amendment rights of political parties and candidates.
“And that constitutional violation has harmed our political system by leading donors to send their funds elsewhere, fueling ‘the rise of narrowly focused “super PACs”‘ and an attendant ‘fall of political parties’ power’ in the political marketplace, which has contributed to a spike in political polarization and fragmentation across the board,” the plaintiffs wrote.
Zach Schonfeld contributed.
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