The Supreme Court is on the brink of deciding the fate of campaign finance restrictions that could shift the balance of power between political parties and outside groups.
At a Glance
- The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a major Republican challenge to federal campaign finance laws.
- The case, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, challenges the long-standing limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates.
- The challengers argue the limits are an unconstitutional violation of their First Amendment free speech rights.
- The Trump administration’s Justice Department has declined to defend the law, leaving the Democratic National Committee to argue the case.
A First Amendment Showdown at the Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a major case that could dramatically reshape the landscape of American political campaigns. The case, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, is a direct challenge to the federal limits on so-called “coordinated expenditures”—the amount of money a political party can spend in direct coordination with a candidate’s campaign.
The Republican challengers argue that the current rules “severely restrict political party committees from doing what the First Amendment entitles them to do: fully associate with and advocate for their own candidates for federal office,” according to their petition.
A 24-Year-Old Precedent on the Chopping Block
The case gives the court’s conservative majority the opportunity to overturn a 24-year-old precedent. The current limits on coordinated spending were upheld by the Supreme Court in a 2001 case, FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee. A ruling in favor of the challengers would mark another significant step in the court’s decades-long trend of deregulating campaign finance on free speech grounds, following the landmark Citizens United decision.
Supreme Court to hear case that could upend campaign finance coordination rules https://t.co/nXirnt8lpv
— POLITICO (@politico) June 30, 2025
The case comes to the high court after a lower appeals court upheld the spending limits, though the chief judge noted there was significant “tension” between the 2001 precedent and the Supreme Court’s more recent First Amendment rulings.
A Government Divided
In a highly unusual legal alignment, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice has declined to defend the long-standing federal law, effectively siding with the Republican challengers. This has forced the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to intervene in the case to argue in favor of keeping the limits in place.
This sets the stage for a direct legal battle between the Republican and Democratic party committees at the nation’s highest court.
The Future of Campaign Finance
A ruling that strikes down the coordinated spending limits could have profound effects on U.S. elections. As election law expert Rick Hasen explained to Yahoo News, the current system, where outside groups like super PACs can spend unlimited sums but political parties cannot, “may create worse conditions in terms of empowering unaccountable groups.”
A decision to lift the caps on parties could be seen as leveling the playing field, empowering the accountable, official party structure over shadowy outside groups. However, it would also likely lead to a new surge of spending in an already money-saturated political environment. The court is expected to hear oral arguments in the fall.
