U.S. Supreme Court Rules Political Party Coordinated-Expenditure Limits Violate First Amendment

On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court decided political party coordinated-expenditure limits violate the First Amendment. The case, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, presented to the Court the issue of whether the limits on coordinated party expenditures in 52 U.S.C. §30116 violate the First Amendment, either on their face or as applied to party spending in connection with ‘party coordinated communications’ as defined in 11 C.F.R. §109.37. The definition of political party communication includes when the communication is paid for by a political party committee. The National Republican Senatorial Committee argued the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) unconstitutionally restricted their ability to coordinate campaign advertising with their own candidates. Here the plaintiffs contended spending money independently on advertising to get Republican Party candidates elected, without the ability to coordinate with the candidates and create a unified  and integrated political  message, was financially inefficient and a burden to First Amendment electoral speech. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit Court, sitting en banc, had previously held that the FECA’s limits on coordinated campaign expenditures did not violate the First Amendment. In Justice Kagan’s dissent, joined by Justice Sotomayor and Justice Jackson, Kagan maintained a party’s unlimited coordinated expenditures undermine contribution limits imposed on individual candidates.

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